Hunter Biden and the Hillary Clinton Playbook

Hunter Biden is hungry to make a move that mirrors Hillary Clinton’s playbook on damage control.

When his father was serving as vice president of the United States, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took a gamble on House Republicans’ demand that she testify before their Select Committee on Benghazi. Her bet paid off as Clinton, who was months away from becoming the 2016 Democratic nominee for president, received rave reviews for her testimony.

At the time, Clinton juggled a barrage of congressional inquiries into the deadly security lapse at the U.S. compound in Libya, and nonstop media coverage of her role as secretary of State. In the lead up to her public testimony, then-Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy bragged on television that the Benghazi probe was tanking Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers (a gaffe for which he would later apologize to irate colleagues).

After her appearance before the committee, even Republicans privately acknowledged her testimony was nearly flawless. Carly Fiorina, then a Republican presidential candidate, agreed Clinton had performed “reasonably well.” 

“She made them look like fools,” said Philippe Reines, a senior adviser to Clinton when she served as a senator from New York and, later, at the State Department.

Flash forward six years later, and Hunter Biden is hoping to face down GOP inquisitors in a similar public setting.

When his team weighed the risks associated with testifying before the House Oversight Committee, they knew they could — if they chose to — fight a subpoena issued by the panel last month and drag out the process, but they decided against it. 

Based on the body of evidence the committee had presented along with nearly six years of investigations, Hunter Biden’s people made a calculated risk, sources familiar with the strategy said.

They contemplated the circus atmosphere of it all – with certain lawmakers on Oversight during televised hearings exhibiting lewd photographs of the president’s son and other tawdry evidence found on his laptop – but in the end, they saw an opportunity for Hunter Biden to shine. 

The president’s son didn’t need to be prodded on the strategy, say sources familiar with the younger Biden’s stance. In fact, he has been pushing his legal team to let him stare down the very Republicans who want to impeach his father.

“Hunter has been wanting to go on offense and turn this around,” a second source said. “He knows it’s B.S. and wants the public to know, too.” 

Hunter Biden’s position led to the bullish approach taken by his team and its insistence on a public congressional hearing for all to see. 

But the first son's desire to testify before Congress is largely unsettled. While he has offered to appear at a public hearing, GOP lawmakers have insisted he first sit for a closed-door deposition with investigators, which is what their subpoena demands. 

House Republicans haven’t offered an update on their talks with Hunter Biden’s lawyers over the deposition, but they have remained steadfast that the president’s son will appear for both a private meeting with lawmakers and a public hearing.

A top House Republican aide told The Messenger that appearing solely for a public hearing is an “easy way out” for Hunter Biden, because a committee hearing would yield less serious questions from lawmakers instead of a steady flow of interrogation from investigators behind closed doors.

“I’d rather face a little public humiliation instead of hundreds of questions in a deposition,” the top GOP aide said.

Reines, Hillary Clinton’s longtime aide, said the current strategy by Republicans is nearly identical to the one employed by the same party in charge when Clinton testified more than eight years ago. 

“Their questions and statements made no sense or were outright lies,” Reines said. “They were haphazard. They looked unhinged — all while she was calm, cool, comprehensive, reasonable and factual.”

During the 11-hour hearing, Clinton took on Trey Gowdy, the now retired former Benghazi chairman, in succinct, measured ways. “I can’t help it that you don’t like the findings of [the State Department’s internal investigation of the attacks],” she said. “I can’t help it that you don’t like the findings of the other committees.” 

Republicans are also prepared to fight Hunter Biden (and others) in court in order to drag them before the committee.

The Biden son's maneuver to appear before Congress comes as the GOP-controlled House is on the verge of voting to officially open an impeachment inquiry into the president, a step that was skipped when former Speaker McCarthy, R-Calif., unilaterally opened the investigation in September. 

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told reporters on Monday that the about face under the direction of McCarthy’s replacement, Speaker Mike Johnson, is in direct response to a top lawyer from the White House suggesting the party’s impeachment inquiry is null and void because of the lack of a formal House vote to legitimize the probe.

“We think it's helpful to have that vote because we do think someone is gonna take us to court," Jordan said. "Constitutionally, it's not required ... but if you have a vote of the full House of Representatives and the majority say we're in that official status as part of our overall oversight work, it just helps us in court.”

Now, House Republicans are primed to drag out the impeachment investigation, in part, to ruin Hunter Biden’s father’s chances of re-election. While the party has yet to outline a clear timeline on when it plans to wrap up its probe, Johnson, R-La., in recent weeks has said they are nearing an “inflection point” in the inquiry. 

The next logical step will involve making a decision on whether to take the monumental step of filing articles of impeachment against the president.

Even though Republicans are just now on the verge of making its impeachment probe official, the party has been conducting the investigation for months, and Hunter Biden has been right in the eye of the storm. They've investigated Joe Biden’s connections to his family’s business deals, arguing the former vice president benefitted improperly from their overseas business activities — namely Hunter Biden's.

The investigation to date has not uncovered any direct link between Joe Biden and his son's business dealings. Some Republican think having Hunter Biden in for a public hearing — even if he doesn't sit for a prior deposition — is the right route to take.

“This is literally what we’ve been barking about for a year now,” a senior aide to a GOP Oversight Committee member told The Messenger recently. “The White House is pissed and Hunter is clearly doing this out of emotion so we gotta jump on it and make it happen as soon as possible.”