WASHINGTON — Hunter Biden has agreed to appear before House Republicans for a private deposition next month, ending months of defiance from the president's son, who had insisted on testifying publicly.
The House Oversight Committee announced Thursday that the two parties have agreed for Hunter Biden to sit for a deposition on Feb. 28.
“His deposition will come after several interviews with Biden family members and associates,” Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the Oversight Committee, and Rep. Jim Jordan, the chairman of the Judiciary panel, said in a statement. "We look forward to Hunter Biden’s testimony.”
A request for comment from Hunter Biden's attorneys was not immediately returned.
Republicans had been set to advance a contempt resolution against him to the House floor this week but called it off Tuesday to give the attorneys additional time to negotiate.
The agreement concludes months of contentious back-and-forth between President Joe Biden's son and Republicans who have been investigating his overseas business dealings for over a year in a so far futile effort to connect it to his father.
Republicans, led by Comer and Jordan, first subpoenaed the younger Biden in November, demanding that he appear before lawmakers in a private setting by mid-December. Biden and his attorneys refused to comply with the private interview, saying that it would allow information to be selectively leaked and manipulated by House Republicans and insisted that he would only testify in a public setting.
When Republicans denied those terms, Hunter Biden and his attorneys made two separate appearances at the U.S. Capitol, further angering congressional investigators. In both instances, Biden again refused to testify privately, instead delivering statements to the press where he defended his business affairs and castigated the yearslong investigations into him and his family.
The impeachment inquiry into the president, which began in September, has focused heavily on Hunter Biden and his international business affairs, questioning whether the president profited from that work. It has so far failed to uncover evidence directly implicating Joe Biden in wrongdoing involving his son’s work.
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Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this report.
