The often controversial Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has been criticized by Democratic rivals after she showed explicit images of Hunter Biden during a Wednesday House Oversight Committee hearing into his alleged tax misdeeds.
“I would like to let the committee and everyone watching at home know that parental discretion is advised,” Greene said, before displaying placards appearing to show Hunter Biden in a state of undress and engaging in sexual acts. She added that the images showed Hunter Biden “making pornography.”
Greene has alleged that Hunter Biden had illegally used funds from his company to pay prostitutes – claims which were not substantiated by Internal Revenue Service (IRS) whistleblower Joseph Ziegler on Wednesday.
The Republican-led committee was receiving testimony on Wednesday from two IRS officials following the recent conclusion of an extended investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax affairs. Fellow IRS staff member Gary Shapley has alleged that the Justice Department obstructed the investigation into Hunter Biden.
The son of US President Joe Biden reached an agreement with federal prosecutors last month to plead guilty to two minor tax crimes, which will likely see him avoid jail time.
Following the conclusion of the hearing, Democrat Jamie Raskin said that Greene’s presentation was “completely irrelevant” to the committee’s objectives and that they “did not advance in any way the putative objective of the hearing.”
Raskin added that Greene’s actions were “deliberately provocative and sensationalistic and voyeuristic” and that he regarded them as “an assault to the dignity of the committee.” Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Hunter Biden, blasted the move as “political theater” and said that it was “harassment of a private person’s personal life.”
Another Democratic figure and a staffer of congressman Don Beyer, Aaron Fritschner, wrote on social media that Greene had distributed an email newsletter containing the explicit images to her subscribers. “I double checked and there isn’t an age screen on her eNewsletter subscription page,” he wrote. “So a distinct possibility that Marjorie Taylor Greene just emailed links to video containing nude images of Hunter Biden to minors using taxpayer-funded resources.”
Explicit photos of Hunter Biden, many of which have been posted online in recent months, are said to have originated from a personal laptop of his that he submitted for repair in April 2019. Much of the data allegedly contained on the device has leaked online, and has formed the basis for a campaign of Republican criticism of the Biden family and their foreign business dealings.