House GOP Suggest Biden Obstructed Son Hunter’s Subpoena, May Constitute ‘Impeachable Offense'

House GOP members are alleging that President Joe Biden may have "engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct a proceeding of Congress" if he knew that his son Hunter Biden intended to elude a congressional subpoena.

The suggestions were made by House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who also added that this could be an impeachable offense. The committee chairmen sought records and correspondence from staff members of the Executive Office of the President about Hunter Biden's deposition by January 10 in a letter sent on December 27 to Edward Siskel, White House lawyer, and presidential assistant, The Hill reported. The Republican chairmen stated that their goal was to ascertain if the president had any influence on his son's choice to elude a congressional subpoena.

Comer and Jordan explicitly brought up a statement that Hunter Biden had given on the day he was scheduled to testify in private for a deposition, during a Dec. 13 news briefing at the White House. At a press conference outside the Capitol, the president's son repeated his offer to appear in a public hearing and declined to take part in the closed-door deposition as demanded by the Republicans, per CBS News.

Hunter Biden's refusal to show up for the closed-door meeting also led House Republicans to threaten to punish him in contempt of Congress. According to Comer and Jordan, a statement from White House Press Secretary Jean-Pierre claimed that “President Biden was aware in advance that his son, Hunter Biden, would knowingly defy two congressional subpoenas.” This prompted Comer and Jordan to “examine as part of our impeachment inquiry whether the President engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct a proceeding of Congress.”

Jean-Pierre skirted concerns about whether he should answer to a subpoena during a news event on the day when Hunter Biden did not show up for the deposition, stating instead that the president had some foresight of his son's remarks, per NBC News. “The president was certainly familiar with what his son was going to say, and I think what you saw was from the heart of his son,” she said.

Comer and Jordan also cited a statement from Biden dated December 6th, in which he called out assertions that he had contact with his brother's and son's overseas business partners as "a bunch of lies." Devon Archer, Hunter's former business associate, has previously stated that during dinner at Cafe Milano in 2014 and speakerphone talks with some of Hunter Biden's overseas business colleagues, Biden made small talk but did not discuss business.

“In light of this evidence, the fact that the President had advanced awareness that Mr. Biden would defy the Committees’ subpoenas raises a troubling new question that we must examine: whether the President corruptly sought to influence or obstruct the Committees’ proceeding by preventing, discouraging, or dissuading his son from complying with the Committees’ subpoenas,” the letter said. “Such conduct could constitute an impeachable offense.”