Hunter Biden, Facing Contempt Referral, Says House Subpoenas Are Invalid

Hunter Biden argued Friday that the subpoenas House Republicans have issued to him are invalid, his latest attempt to elude their demands to question him behind closed doors in the impeachment inquiry into his father.

In a letter to Congress, Mr. Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, argued that the subpoenas do not carry legal weight because they were authorized before the House had voted to open an impeachment investigation into President Biden.

“I write to make you aware (if you are not already) that your subpoenas were and are legally invalid and cannot form a legal basis to proceed with your misdirected and impermissible contempt resolution,” Mr. Lowell wrote to Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky, and Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio.

The Oversight and Judiciary Committees, chaired by Mr. Comer and Mr. Jordan, respectively, issued subpoenas for the younger Mr. Biden in November, but the full House did not vote to approve the inquiry until mid-December, more than a month later.

Republicans cried foul in 2019 when Democrats used a similar approach in their first impeachment investigation into former President Donald J. Trump.

To attempt to address the issue, their resolution authorizing the impeachment investigation into Mr. Biden retroactively approved subpoenas that had already been issued.

But Mr. Lowell wrote that that was insufficient and cited a 2020 opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel that the “subpoena first, impeachment inquiry resolution second” approach was improper.

“If you issue a new proper subpoena, now that there is a duly authorized impeachment inquiry, Mr. Biden will comply for a hearing or deposition,” Mr. Lowell wrote.

Hunter Biden has embarked on an