As press secretary for the White House, Karine Jean-Pierre’s job is to keep President Joe Biden out of trouble — a not-insubstantial task, at least when one considers the verbal incontinence our 46th president has shown in the role.
However, regarding Hunter Biden’s refusal to comply with a House GOP subpoena to appear, one constitutional scholar contends it’s not the notorious KJP’s words bailing the president out of trouble, but getting him into it, instead.
On Wednesday, Biden refused to appear for a private deposition before the House, saying he would only appear in public testimony instead.
“Republicans do not want an open process where Americans can see their tactics, expose their baseless inquiry, or hear what I have to say,” Biden said during a media briefing outside the Capitol, according to The Associated Press.
“What are they afraid of? I am here.”
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The key questions, of course, are what Hunter Biden is 1) currently afraid of and 2) should be afraid of.
In terms of what he’s currently afraid of, it has to be something — since it’s worth noting that House Oversight Committee chair Rep. James Comer of Kentucky agreed he should have his chance to testify in public, but only after he testified on Wednesday.
“Hunter Biden is trying to play by his own rules instead of following the rules required of everyone else,” Comer said in November.
As for what he should be afraid of: a contempt of Congress charge, since “subpoena” isn’t a synonym for “suggestion to appear.” What’s more, conservative legal scholar Jonathan Turley said in an Op-Ed on Thursday, his father now has something to be afraid of, too — all thanks to Karine Jean-Pierre.
Should Biden be impeached?
In the column, published at The Messenger, Turley blasted Hunter for his media briefing, saying that “Biden and his legal team committed another unforced error.
“This one could prove as costly as pushing for an obscenely generous plea agreement and then telling prosecutors to ‘rip it up’ in July,” Turley wrote. “The evidence against him is overwhelming, as shown in his second federal indictment on tax charges. … Hunter simply could have done what prior witnesses have done: Go in and take the Fifth. That is what attorney and former IRS official Lois Lerner did — twice — when House Republicans wanted to ask her about the Obama administration targeting conservative groups.
“It was a no-brainer that someone appears to have radically over-thought on the Hunter Biden legal team,” Turley added, noting that “Hunter can now be held in contempt of Congress. That will force the hand of Attorney General Merrick Garland, who aggressively pursued Trump figures for contempt, including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.”
That overthinking extended to the White House, where Turley said that “[t]here is another possible cost to this move.”
On Wednesday, after Hunter’s ersatz media briefing, Jean-Pierre was asked about it at her press conference. Her response? “Look, as you know, Hunter Biden is a private citizen. And so, I certainly would refer you to his representatives.
But then: “The president was certainly familiar with what his son was going to say. And I think what you saw was from the heart from his son. And you’ve heard — you’ve heard me say this; you’ve heard the President say this: When it comes to the president and the first lady, they are proud of him continuing to rebuild his life. They are proud of their son.”
In between all the stuff you’ve heard before — Hunter’s a private citizen, the first couple is proud of him for transitioning away from spending millions of dollars on prostitutes, cocaine and sports cars, etc. — there’s that one problematic sentence: “The president was certainly familiar with what his son was going to say.”
Whoops, Turley wrote, given that the comment “suggests that the president spoke with his son before his act of contempt and discussed his statement.
“If that is true, it was a breathtaking mistake,” he continued. “One of the four most obvious potential articles of impeachment that I laid out in my prior testimony was obstruction. There already are questions over special treatment potentially being given to Hunter in the form of alleged felonies being allowed to expire, warnings about planned federal raids, and sweetheart deals.
“In addition, President Biden has enlisted White House staff to actively push challenged accounts of his conduct and attack the House Republicans’ investigative process. Such acts could legally bootstrap prior misconduct into his presidency under abuse-of-power allegations.
“If this latest allegation is true, the president was speaking with his son about committing a potentially criminal actof contempt,” Turley added. “Hunter was refusing to give testimony focused not on his own role but on his father’s potential role in the alleged influence peddling. The House can pursue evidence on that conversation and how the president may have supported his son’s effort.”
Again, this is unforced stupidity of the most astounding sort.
Hunter and his attorneys refused to take an extremely generous plea deal if it didn’t involve a novel, atypical clause which his attorneys contended exempted him from potential future Foreign Agents Registration Act charges. This led to the appointment of special counsel David Weiss — who has, to conservatives’ pleasant surprise, aggressively pursued the first son over his alleged misdeeds, charging him with tax and firearms violations that could lead to him spending years behind bars.
Now, as his father faces an impeachment inquiry in the House and increased scrutiny about supposed “loan repayments” that ended up in the now-president’s bank accounts after Hunter and his associates received a series of money transfers from Chinese sources, the next-to-last thing he needs is his son holding a media briefing as he openly flouts a subpoena, literally baiting the House GOP by asking, “What are they afraid of?”
The last thing Joe Biden needs? His own press secretary throwing him under the bus by alleging he knew that his own son was going to commit contempt of Congress and discussed it with him.
