WASHINGTON - Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Wednesday showed what appeared to be sexually explicit images of Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son, during a hearing of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, drawing immediate rebukes from Democratic members of the panel.
The committee was hearing testimony from two Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers involved in an investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes when Greene, during her questioning, produced the graphic poster boards. While the faces of other people in the photographs were blocked with black boxes, what appeared to be Hunter Biden’s face was not censored.
“I would like to let the committee and everyone watching at home know that parental discretion is advised,” Greene warned before she began questioning IRS special agents Joseph Ziegler and Gary Shapley, who contend the federal investigation into Hunter Biden was flawed. Shapley has alleged that Justice Department officials slowed and stymied the investigation into the president’s son.
Near the end of her questioning, Greene showed the graphic images, suggesting without any evidence that they showed Hunter Biden “making pornography” and sparking immediate protests from other members of the panel.
During his speaking time, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) mocked Greene’s display. “In an effort to ‘own’ Hunter Biden, they are assembling nude photos of him, having some intern have to sit in a room and blow up these photos and put it on poster boards and figure out, ‘Oh, which ones are beyond the pale?’” Moskowitz said.
And in her closing remarks, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who also sits on the panel, called the images “pornographic” and accused Republicans of reaching a “new low.”
“Frankly, I don’t care who you are in this country, no one deserves that,” she said.
After the hearing ended, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the panel’s top Democrat, said in an interview that displaying the images was “completely irrelevant” to the hearing and “did not advance in any way the putative objective of the hearing.”
Greene’s move, he said, was “deliberately provocative and sensationalistic and voyeuristic,” adding, “I hope to speak to the chairman about this as an assault to the dignity of the committee.” Raskin was referring to committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.).
Republicans showed no signs of backing down. An official Twitter account for the committee’s GOP majority shared a clip of Greene’s questioning and the poster boards. Spokespeople for Comer did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell blasted Greene’s move as “political theater,” adding, “We are curious to hear how that instance of pure harassment of a private person’s personal life informed Congress of some real gap in our tax laws.” Lowell also said, “Nothing is beneath Ms. Greene.”
Hunter Biden’s critics have said an array of intimate photos of him that have been posted online in recent months come from a personal laptop he left at a computer repair shop in April 2019. The Post also obtained a hard drive purportedly containing data from the laptop and has authenticated much of the material, but has not confirmed the origin of the photos displayed by Greene on Wednesday.
The hearing continued after the brief confrontation. Its broader purpose was to explore allegations by the IRS whistleblowers that the federal investigation of Hunter Biden was inappropriately lenient, something the Justice Department and Hunter Biden’s circle deny.
Last month, after the years-long investigation, Hunter Biden reached a tentative agreement with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to two minor tax crimes and admit to the facts of a gun charge - terms that probably will keep him out of jail. He is due in federal court in Wilmington, Del., on July 26 to enter his guilty plea, which must be approved by a judge.
Greene and Biden’s team have a long history of sparring and using each other as a political foil. The congresswoman has been critical of the president since before he first got elected, even introducing impeachment articles against him on his first day in office.
The president’s campaign team, meanwhile, recently used a speech Greene made during the conservative Turning Point Action conference to promote the president’s own agenda.
Greene in her remarks listed Biden’s efforts to tackle education, medical care, rural poverty, transportation and other issues, apparently in an effort to attack his agenda as a broad overreach. The Biden campaign, however, seized on the comments to tout the same agenda, using her remarks as a voice-over for upbeat video clips of the president greeting voters, visiting factories and signing bills.
The White House tweeted, “Caught us. President Biden is working to make life easier for hardworking families.”
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