Nancy Mace slams Hunter Biden's sudden Capitol arrival as 'white privilege'

Hunter Biden made an unannounced appearance at the US Capitol to attend a committee meeting on whether to hold him in contempt of Congress, angering Republicans.

The president’s son, accompanied by his attorney Abbe Lowell, caught GOP lawmakers off guard on Wednesday when he entered the hearing room. The dramatic scene highlighted Hunter Biden’s aggressive tactics to push back on House investigations into his business practices.

With President Joe Biden’s son sitting in a seat typically reserved for the public, Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina asked “who bribed Hunter Biden to be here today?” Mace called Biden’s appearance “the epitome of White privilege” and questioned his manhood for refusing to testify to the panel behind closed doors.

“I think that Hunter Biden should be arrested right here, right now, and go straight to jail,” Mace said.

Democrats, and some Republicans, urged calm as Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer struggled to regain control of the hearing. GOP Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona called for “decorum and courtesy” and said people in the room should not “act like a bunch of nimrods.”

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Representative Jared Moskowitz of Florida, a Democrat, responded by asking Republicans if they would allow Hunter Biden to speak publicly at the hearing. He received a chilly reception from GOP lawmakers when he asked them to raise their hands if they supported the idea.

The House Judiciary and Oversight committees are expected to recommend that the president’s son be held in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena for closed-door testimony in the ongoing impeachment inquiry into his father.

It’s highly unusual for the subject of a contempt vote to attend the committee’s deliberations. The panel votes Wednesday would advance the contempt resolution to the full House for a floor vote on whether to request the Justice Department to prosecute the younger Biden.

Both Biden and Lowell left several minutes into the hearing, prompting Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene to criticize the president’s son for being “smug” and avoiding committee oversight.

Lowell afterward raised his previous offer for Hunter Biden to testify publicly to Congress, rather than give a private deposition.

“The Republican chairs today then are commandeering an unprecedented resolution to hold someone in contempt, who has offered to publicly answer all their proper questions. The question there is what are they afraid of?” Lowell told reporters after leaving the hearing room.

Back inside, Representative Jamie Raskin, the Oversight panel’s top Democrat, blasted Greene for previously showing sexually explicit pictures of the president’s son in the committee room.

The two committees last month subpoenaed Hunter Biden to appear for a closed-door deposition. He came to the Capitol but said he would only testify in public.

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Hunter Biden is facing two federal indictments. One is for allegedly failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes owed between 2016 and 2019 and allegedly filing false returns in 2018. The indictment alleges the president’s son spent millions of dollars on a drug-fueled life featuring escorts, fast cars and luxury hotels, much of it while he was in the grips of addiction.

The other accuses him of lying about his drug use on a federal form he had to fill out to purchase a handgun.

A lawyer by training, Hunter pursued business opportunities with foreign companies and individuals after his father became vice president in 2009, sometimes in ways that intersected with his father’s work.

Hunter Biden is scheduled to appear Jan. 11 in a Los Angeles court to respond to the tax charges, court records show. He could face as many as 17 years in prison.

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