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Hunter Biden Just Delivered a ‘Devastating Blow’ to Comer and Jordan’s Contempt Case
An attorney for Hunter Biden has sent two top House Republican committee chairmen a letter that appears to destroy their claims of contempt of Congress, declaring the subpoenas they sent demanding the President’s son’s testimony are “legally invalid” – while using their own against them.
“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. And you two, of all people, should know that is the case,” Biden attorney Abbe Lowell (photo, right) wrote on Friday to Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, who has a law degree, and Oversight Committee Chair Jim Comer.
House Republicans have been threatening the President’s son with contempt of Congress charges after he agreed to testify but only in public, and not behind closed doors. On Friday, House Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise announced the full House will vote on whether to send contempt of Congress charges against Hunter Biden to the U.S. Dept. of Justice for criminal prosecution.
“Next week the House will vote to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress for repeatedly defying subpoenas,” Scalise declared on X, in a post complete with alarm emojis. He added: “Enough of his stunts. He doesn’t get to play by a different set of rules. He’s not above the law.”
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But also on Friday, CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador who served as co-counsel for the House Judiciary Committee’s first impeachment of Donald Trump, declared Hunter Biden’s attorneys had derived a “devastating blow” to the House GOP’s contempt proceedings.
“This new letter from his counsel Abbe Lowell shows that the House GOP walked into a trap,” Eisen writes. He adds that the “subpoena predates the formal impeachment inquiry” into President Joe Biden, which he says means their subpoenas are “a nullity,” or, essentially null and void.
“As if that weren’t bad enough,” he notes, Hunter Biden’s attorney’s “letter also points out that the Oversight Committee has seemingly offered a public hearing but is backtracking on their word.”
“And the coup de grâce,” Eisen continues, “Hunter is offering to negotiate new testimony or deposition. He’s put the committee in a box & criminal contempt will not be enforced by DOJ in these circumstances.”
On Wednesday, Oversight Chair Jim Comer, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, and their committees separately voted to send a contempt resolution to the full House for a vote. That hearing quickly devoted into chaos when U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) told the son of the President that he had “no balls” and was the “epitome of white privilege.” Events only got worse when U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) held up large, blown-up images of photos allegedly from Hunter Biden’s ;laptop, showing him in the nude (with a large black bar over a portion of his body) and in compromising positions.
The letter sent to Chairmen Comer and Jordan makes clear: “You proceeded with a contempt process, erroneously claiming Mr. Biden was seeking ‘special treatment,’ despite Mr. Comer’s repeated and public statements about witnesses’ and Mr. Biden’s ability to testify at a deposition or hearing at their choice.”
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During the hearing Wednesday, at least one Democrat offered to have Hunter Biden sworn in and deliver his testimony in public, before the cameras. Chairman Comer, unable to explain why, denied the request.
“Obviously, accepting your unqualified invitation to choose a forum for his testimony is neither seeking ‘special treatment’ nor contemptuous behavior,” attorney Lowell wrote. “Nevertheless, your actions demonstrate that you were not serious about getting facts or the truth, and simply wanted to stage some “gotcha” political theater and create another legal issue for Mr. Biden.”
Lowell’s letter also quotes Chairman Jordan’s statements to further belittle their attempts to obtain a contempt charge.
“As you recount in your contempt reports, in 2019, when the Democrats held the majority, they similarly issued impeachment subpoenas before the impeachment inquiry of former President Trump was authorized by a full House vote.”
“And you, Chairman Jordan, during a House Republican leadership press conference immediately after the actual impeachment inquiry resolution vote finally occurred, stated: ‘I want you all to think about something. This morning, I was in an impeachment deposition, but then had to leave that to come to the floor for a vote on the rules for impeachment. That says it all about this entire process. And it is a sad day.'”
Lowell closes by writing, “You have not explained why you are not interested in transparency and having the American people witness the full and complete testimony of Mr. Biden at a public hearing. 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. We will accept such a subpoena on Mr. Biden’s behalf.”
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
