Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) called out Hunter Biden and scuffled with her aides during a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing on Wednesday as the panel voted to convict the president’s son in contempt of Congress. Because he had disregarded a subpoena last time. month.
Mace was one of the first lawmakers to speak at Wednesday’s hearing, shortly after Biden made a surprise appearance in the room and questioned her presence at the proceedings.
“My first question is who bribed Hunter Biden to come here today? This is my first question. Second question, you are a symbol of white privilege. Coming to the Oversight Committee, spitting in our faces, ignoring congressional subpoenas for ouster. What are you afraid of? You don’t have any balls to come here,” Mays said.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) cut to Mays and suggested the panel should vote to allow Biden to testify publicly at that time, prompting South Carolina to retaliate and send a report to the Oversight Committee. Speaker James Comer’s (R-) efforts failed. Q.) To control hearing.
“I am speaking; are women allowed to speak here?” Mace shouted at Moskowitz, asking the room “What are you afraid of.” Comer banged his gavel and shouted “Order” several times, adding to the noise in the room.
“Are women allowed to speak here or not? Because you keep interrupting me,” Mays said.
Moskowitz responded, “I would interrupt the chairman, I don’t know he’s a woman.”
Mace then said that Biden “should be arrested right here, right now, and go straight to jail.”
“Our country is founded on the rule of law and the premise that the law applies equally to everyone, no matter what your last name,” he said, prompting a lawmaker in the room to say “Come on.” inspired. It is not clear which MLA made this comment.
Representative Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) is seen as the House and Senate Armed Services Committees convene for the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2024 on Wednesday, November 29, 2023. (Greg Nash)
Shortly afterward, Representative Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) condemned the blockages and treated his colleagues like “nimrods.”
“Are we going to continue this blatant obstruction? This is absurd and unfair,” Biggs said. “I want to give my statement, my intention is not that anyone should hinder it. I will not interrupt your statements. I think you should maintain decorum and civility and not behave like a bunch of Nimrods.”
Mace then continued his remarks by taking aim at Hunter Biden and arguing that he is “not above the law.”
“It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, who your father is or what your last name is. Yes, when I’m talking to you I’m looking at you Hunter Biden: You are not above the law at all,” he said.
“Hunter Biden broke the law. They did it knowingly, you did it openly, you showed up on Senate Hill on the day of Congress’ summons to defy it and spit in the face of this committee. That’s what you did,” he added later. “The American people are asking us this question: Who is Hunter Biden so afraid of? Why can’t you appear to testify to Congress? You are here for a political stunt. This is just a PR stunt for you, this is just a game you are playing with the American people. You are playing with the truth.”
He concluded his remarks by telling Biden: “You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.”
The Oversight and Judiciary committees held a hearing on Wednesday to introduce a motion to hold Biden in contempt of Congress after he ignored a congressional subpoena last month and refused to sit for closed-door testimony. . Instead, the younger Biden gave a statement at the Capitol complex and said his father was “not involved financially in my business.”
The request for testimony came as part of the House GOP’s impeachment inquiry into President Biden. Hunter Biden offered to testify publicly, but Republicans on the panel insisted he sit down for private testimony first. Biden’s team and Democrats were quick to point out that Comer had said before the subpoena was issued that he would “drop everything” if Biden wanted to testify publicly.
Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbey Lowell provided a statement after the couple left Wednesday’s hearing, arguing that “Republicans have sought to use her as a surrogate to attack her father.”
He later said, “The Republican president is today ordering an unprecedented resolution to hold in contempt someone who has publicly offered to answer all of his reasonable questions.” “The question is, what are they afraid of?”
Later in the hearing, Congressional Black Caucus member Representative Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) pointed back to Mace’s comments at the beginning of the markup and criticized him for saying that Hunter Biden’s appearance at the Capitol represented “whiteness.” “Does privilege.”
“I just want to run it back to the very beginning because it’s something I can’t get over. I can’t stop the gentleman from South Carolina from talking about white privilege. It was like spitting in your face, at least to me as a Black woman, to have you talk about what white privilege looks like, especially from that side of the aisle,” she said.
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Crockett paraphrased former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) last month when he reflected on the makeup of Congress during the 2019 State of the Union address, when he said Democrats “look like America” and Republicans “make America look like the most restrictive country club in America.”
“You have no idea what white privilege looks like,” Crockett said.
Mace defended herself, saying that she had previously been the ranking member of the Civil Rights Subcommittee and adding, “As a white female Republican I am very proud of addressing the inadequacies in our country.”
She then leaned into Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who said: “Let’s be very clear, this is not about Hunter Biden’s white privilege, this is about Hunter Biden’s Democrat privilege.”
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