Hunter Biden turned up for this year’s White House Independence Day celebration amid growing calls by Republicans to investigate the scandal-plagued 52-year-old’s business dealings.
Mr. Biden was joined by his South African filmmaker wife Melissa Cohen and their 2-year-old son, Beau, for a weekend with the president and first lady at Camp David before attending the Fourth of July cookout and watching the fireworks display from the White House.
The high-profile appearance follows a July 1 op-ed in the New York Post in which House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and GOP Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and James Comer of Kentucky pledged to investigate Hunter Biden’s “shady business dealings” should Republicans take the majority in this year’s midterm elections.
“A Republican majority will be committed to uncovering the facts the Democrats, Big Tech and the legacy media have suppressed,” the lawmakers wrote.
Republicans, who have eyed Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and China during his father’s term as vice president, have been closing in on the president’s son ever since a trove of data stored on an abandoned laptop surfaced just before the 2020 election.
Republicans allege that Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian oil and gas company, profited from his father’s position in government.
President Biden has denied ever having discussed his son’s business dealings, but recordings on his son’s laptop challenge that dismissal.
In one voicemail recording from 2018 recovered from the laptop, Mr. Biden told his son “I think you’re in the clear,” referring to a New York Times story about the arrest of Chinese energy executive Ye Jianming in China and the prosecution of his lieutenant, Patrick Ho, in the U.S. on bribery charges.
Republican lawmakers blame liberal media outlets for failing to publish details about the laptop ahead of the election to preserve Joseph R. Biden’s chances of winning the presidency.
Several outlets claimed, at the time, that the scandal surrounding the discarded laptop was a foreign disinformation campaign. Several major publications, including The New York Times, have since acknowledged that the files contained on the laptop are authentic.
Since the election, damaging details have emerged about Hunter Biden’s solicitation of prostitutes and struggles with drug addiction.
“We have uncovered some answers, but many questions remain,” the lawmakers wrote. “In November, the American people will decide whether they accept being told what information they are allowed to know by a colluding media, including who is making policy decisions for this country and for whose interests.”