Hunter (53), son of U.S. President Joe Biden, announced that he would publicly testify at a Republican-led House hearing regarding various allegations against him. While Hunter Biden, who has been called Biden’s ‘sore finger’, is making a ‘head-on breakthrough’ ahead of his father’s re-election challenge, some predict that the quiet suspicions regarding Hunter may grow again.
According to the New York Times (NYT) on the 28th (local time), Hunter informed Congress through his lawyer Abe Lowell of his intention to attend the House Oversight Committee hearing on the 13th of next month. Earlier this month, the House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena to Hunter and President Biden’s younger brother James, taking issue with Hunter’s alleged collusion with a Ukrainian company. Hunter’s side responded to the subpoena but refused the request for private testimony, saying, “Instead of following your one-sided and blocked process, we will appear in an open committee hearing.”
Hunter’s ‘public testimony’ is interpreted as an intention to prevent the Republican Party from ‘selectively leaking testimony’ and issuing one-sided statements that suit their tastes through hearings. In addition, it is analyzed that he has decided to tackle head on the suspicions about him that are having a negative impact on the re-election path of his father Biden, who has recently been struggling in a virtual confrontation with former President Donald Trump.
The ‘Ukrainian corporate collusion suspicion’, which the Republican Party is intensively attacking, is related to the fact that Hunter gained the glory of his father, the current vice president, through the Ukrainian energy company Burisma and the China-based investment company BHR Partners when Biden was vice president in the Obama administration. The issue is whether a large amount of money was made by using it. Several emails containing records of financial transactions with Ukrainian companies were found on Hunter’s stolen laptop during the 2020 presidential election.
In September of this year, Hunter was indicted on charges of hiding his drug addiction and illegally purchasing and possessing firearms, and was also charged with tax evasion and prostitution. NYT analyzed, “His actions are already well known, but if he becomes the focus of additional attention, it could be politically damaging to President Biden’s re-election efforts.”
President Joe Biden is also struggling to reverse the recent trend of falling behind in various public opinion polls. On the 29th, he will visit a Korean company’s factory in the United States to promote the results of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). This is the second time since last year that President Biden has visited a Korean company’s factory in the United States since taking office. CS Wind, which President Biden is visiting, is a Korean company with the largest global wind power tower market share. It is known that Korean Ambassador to the United States Cho Hyun-dong was also invited to this factory visit.
In addition, President Biden is known to have met with a small number of Muslim figures privately in relation to the fact that he faced strong opposition from the Muslim community, the traditional support base of the Democratic Party, due to his pro-Israel actions during the recent war between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas.
On the 28th, the New York Times (NYT) reported, citing four meeting participants, that President Biden met with a small number of prominent Muslim Americans in a private meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. on the 26th of last month.
People who attended the meeting said they found President Biden insulting last month when he raised questions about whether the death toll reported by Palestinian health authorities was inflated. Participants reported that the closed-door meeting, originally scheduled for 30 minutes, lasted over an hour. An official who attended the meeting said, “President Biden recognized that there may have been mistakes in his investigation,” and “He promised to treat the Palestinian people more humanely.”
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.