by Hunter Biden, the president’s son, is scheduled to appear at the Capitol on Wednesday for a deposition by House Republicans seeking evidence to try to impeach his father.
The interview with Hunter Biden, 54, which is expected to be lengthy, comes at a decisive moment for the investigation. Republicans have tried for months to link President Biden to his second son’s alleged misdeeds, but have struggled with a series of setbacks, including the indictment of an FBI informant accused of concocting a story that the elder Mr. Biden took a bribe. of 5 million dollars.
The statement is the culmination of a multi-year Republican pursuit of Hunter Biden, whose business dealings and descent into debauchery have long made him a punching bag for the GOP after years of asking “Where is Hunter?” and by releasing the lurid contents of a laptop containing graphic material of his exploits while battling drug addiction, Republicans will finally have the chance to question him.
The testimony is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. in a House office building near the Capitol.
It will be an important moment in the long-running dispute between Republicans and Biden over whether he would cooperate in the impeachment inquiry. He had repeatedly refused to appear for a private deposition and Republicans threatened to hold him in contempt of Congress for defying an earlier subpoena to do so.
Biden had maintained that he was concerned that House Republicans were selectively leaking parts of his testimony to distort his account and try to harm his father. He made two surprise appearances at the Capitol in which he challenged Republicans to question him in a public hearing. But after the disparagement threat, Biden relented.
Hunter Biden is already under federal indictment over allegations of tax crimes related to his foreign business interests, including with companies and partners in Ukraine and China. Testifying is a risk for him, because anything he says could be used against him in the criminal process.
Republicans are trying to uncover evidence that President Biden was inappropriately involved in his son’s overseas business dealings, but their impeachment inquiry has so far found no evidence.
They have determined through bank records that from 2014 to 2019, members of the Biden family received about $15 million through business deals from foreign entities. But they have yet to prove that any of the deals were illegal or that Mr. Biden Sr. benefited from them.
House Republicans have uncovered evidence that Biden Sr. knew and met with some of his son’s business associates, raising questions about whether some of the president’s public statements about the deals were intentionally misleading. But a key witness also testified that such conversations were superficial in nature and extended only to details such as the weather or fishing.
