House Republicans are vowing to push forward with their impeachment investigation into President Biden, regardless of Hunter Biden’s cooperation — or lack thereof — with the inquiry. The first son has said he will not appear for a public hearing on Wednesday. 

“We’re at the point in the investigation where we need to hear the discrepancies,” the Oversight Committee Chairman, James Comer, told Fox News in an interview. “There were massive discrepancies between what three of Hunter Biden’s business associates said pertaining to Hunter’s involvement and President Biden’s involvement versus what Hunter testified.” 

Mr. Comer and his fellow impeachment investigator, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, say that the three witnesses invited to appear alongside Mr. Biden have all told their committees that the Bidens have been dishonest about the degrees of their involvement in what are being described by the Republicans as foreign “influence-peddling schemes.”

“This is an opportunity for Hunter to have the public hearing he wanted,” Mr. Comer said of Mr. Biden’s ability to refute his former associates’ accounts on live television. 

The three former business partners have all gotten into varying degrees of legal or ethical trouble. Two of them, Devon Archer and James Galanis, have both been convicted of defrauding a Native American tribe out of tens of millions of dollars. The third, Tony Bobulinski, has been accused of coordinating with the Trump campaign in 2020 to smear the Biden family. 

The three men have still refuted Mr. Biden’s accounting of events. Mr. Bobulinski has said for years that the president participated in a meeting with officials from the Chinese Communist Party-linked energy firm CEFC in 2017 after he had left the vice presidency.

Archer said in a deposition before the committees that the president was on the phone with his son’s business partners on at least 20 occasions but insisted that he never heard business matters discussed. Galanis was the author of the infamous “ten percent” for “the big guy” email. 

Since December, Mr. Biden has offered to appear publicly before the impeachment investigation. On the day he was due to give a private deposition, Mr. Biden made an appearance on Capitol Hill to demand an immediate public hearing so he could defend himself. 

When Mr. Comer extended an invitation for a public interview after Mr. Biden finally sat for a transcribed deposition, the first son’s lawyer said he would not attend, saying that putting Mr. Biden next to his rogues’ gallery of former friends and associates was nothing more than a “Hail Mary” for impeachment boosters. 

“Your idea of congressional ‘fact-finding’ is, amazingly, to have Mr. Biden appear with the discredited ‘witnesses’ you continue to promote,” Mr. Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, wrote in a letter to Mr. Comer. 

“If you are serious about pursuing this oversight purpose in a legitimate and bipartisan fashion, you would hold a hearing with relatives of former President Trump,” Mr. Lowell wrote. “If you do, Mr. Biden would consider an invitation for that event.”

Mr. Biden’s December visit wasn’t the only surprise appearance by the first son. On the day the Oversight Committee was considering a contempt resolution against him, Mr. Biden appeared in the committee room alongside his lawyer and his friend, Kevin Morris. 

Democrats demanded Mr. Biden be allowed to testify then and there, but Republicans felt that a deposition was warranted beforehand. The two stunts, Mr. Comer says, give Republicans reason to believe that Mr. Biden may make another surprise appearance either at the witness desk or in the audience on Wednesday. 

“I’m not sure he won’t show up,” Mr. Comer said. “There have been two times where he showed up when he said he wasn’t going to show up to have a publicity stunt with the mainstream media to attack me. If he does not show up, then it’s not going to end well for the Bidens.”

When asked about the future of the investigation — even if it does not result in an impeachment of the president — Mr. Comer said that there are “going to be multiple criminal referrals.” A criminal referral is a recommendation from the House that the Department of Justice prosecute someone based on evidence uncovered in Congress.