a theatrical explosion. you just saw hunter biden and his lawyer leaving that building right there. quite a moment. melanie on capitol hill, you saw much of it. explain what we just saw. reporter: yeah. yeah. well, hunter biden made a surprise appearance today in front of the house oversight committee which was about to recommend that he be referred to the department of justice for defying a subpoena and be held in contempt of congress. now a little bit of the back story. republicans requested that hunter biden sit down wfor a closed door deposition. him and his lawyer have said they would show up for a public hearing and he doesn t want his testimony selectively leaked by republicans. today him and his legal team made the point that he s here again today, he is willing to talk to republicans. democrats made the point that he is not scared of the committee, that he s willing to talk to them. and basically trying to show
he did so deliberately, but so flagrantly. you showed up on the hill, on the senate side, the day of that congressional subpoena to defy it and spit in the face of this committee. that s what you did. the question the american people are asking us is what is hunter biden so afraid of. why can t you show up for a congressional deposition? you re here for a political stunt. this is just a pr stunt to you. this is just a game that you are playing with the american people. you re playing with the truth. hunter biden wasn t afraid to sell access to joe biden to the highest bidder when he was in elected office. he wasn t afraid to trade on the biden brand and share ill-gotten games with members of his family including joe biden. he wasn t afraid to compromise the integrity of the presidency and vice presidency by involving joe biden in shady business deals with our foreign adversaries. but hunter biden, you were too afraid to show up for a deposition. and you still can t today. i believe tha
subpoenas and then rules about having hearings and having questions with witnesses? we do that must be followed can you state the rules, mr. chairman? hold on. we can just interrupt each other your time was expired i d like to know the rules of the house and our committee. read them. they re available to every member. the rules state for a deposition, if that s what you re asking, three days notice, you have to have the stenographer and all of that. so that s mr. chairman? just to clarify, we can t have someone the gentleman s time has expired. do any other members wish to be heard? mr. chairman? mr. chairman, day endure multiple interruptions day endure multiple interruptions. you went over but i ll give you 30 seconds. okay. the chairman refused to take yes for an answer from hunter biden. instead on december 1, they
in fact, for some reason, the chairman who on multiple occasions invited the witness to come on tv, apparently the chairman wants to pretend like his statements on television or in interviews don t matter. but it didn t happen once. it didn t happen twice. it happened multiple times, the chairman said the witness can choose whether to come to a deposition or to a public hearing in front of the committee. the witness accepted the chairman s invitation. it just so happens the witness is here. if the committee wants to hear from the witness and the chairman gave the witness that option, then the only folks that are afraid to hear from the witness with the american people watching are my friends on the other side of the aisle. i don t know if there s a proper motion, mr. chairman, but i ll make a motion. let s vote.
the hunter biden piresident biden s son in contempt of congress for refusing to sit for a closed door deposition. we got reporting from a colleague that hunter biden himself is expected to show up today in front of this hearing in some capacity. it s all fluid now, but this is the expectation that he is going to show up. and it is similar to what he did when he was scheduled to appear for a closed door deposition in december. he has said all along that he doesn t want to appear for a closed door deposition, he only wants to testify in a public setting. he s worried about republicans selectively leaking his testimony. and instead he did a press conference in front of the capitol. but republicans still say that was not enough for them. they ve decided to move ahead with contempt proceedings. we re expecting both oversight and judiciary to mark up resolutions that would refer hunter biden to the doj and hold him in contempt of congress. that would then head to the house floor, and it so