Minutes after his surprise appearance, Hunter Biden exited a hearing led by House Republicans aiming to hold him in contempt of Congress for refusing to speak to them behind closed doors about his business practices.

President Joe Biden’s son has offered to answer the lawmakers’ questions in a public hearing, and showed up unexpectedly on Wednesday to emphasize that point.

He bowed out, however, just as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) claimed her speaking time. Greene has waged an ugly campaign against Hunter Biden that involved blowing up sexually explicit photographs of him to display during a House oversight committee meeting last summer.

A horde of reporters followed in the younger Biden’s wake.

In the halls of Congress, an attorney for Biden gave a statement reiterating his client’s stance: He will readily appear in a public hearing, where members of the public can hear from him directly.

“Hunter Biden was and is a private citizen. Despite this, Republicans have sought to use him as asurrogate to attack his father,” attorney Abbe Lowell told reporters. Lowell said that he’d made offers on “six different occasions since February 2023” to work with the lawmakers that want to talk to his client.

Lowell concluded: “The Republican chairs are commandeering an unprecedented resolution to hold someone in contempt who has offered to publicly answer all their proper questions. The question there is: What are they afraid of?”

Back in the hearing room, Greene called Biden a “coward” for not staying to hear her speak.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) then used his five minutes of speaking time to admonish her.

“I think it’s really interesting to hear the gentlelady from Georgia speak about Hunter leaving when she is the person who showed nude photos of Hunter Biden in this very committee room — showing dick pics in this committee room of Hunter Biden,” Garcia said.

“So I think it’s really ironic, hypocritical, quite shameful as the person complaining about somebody leaving, when she’s showing nude photos of him to this committee.”

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