Hunter Biden on Wednesday declined an invitation from U.S. House Republicans to appear at a public hearing next week with his former business associates, with his lawyers dismissing the investigation as a “carnival sideshow.”

In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for the president’s son, blasted Republicans for trying to take him out after his client testified for nearly seven hours last month. to a public hearing.

“Your latest step – the March 6 invitation – is not a serious oversight of the process,” Lowell said in the letter. “It is a moribund inquiry into your attempt to revive the conference with the manufactured right-wing media circus bill. ”

The invitation extended last week by Rep. James Cuomo, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, included three of Biden’s former business associates, all of whom are now facing legal challenges of their own.

“It’s astonishing that your idea of ​​a congressional ‘fact-finding’ is to have Mr. Biden appear in court with the same discredited ‘witnesses’ you continue to promote,” Lowell continued.

The committee’s 14-month investigation into the Biden family has focused on Hunter Biden’s overseas work in countries including Ukraine and China. Republicans have yet to produce evidence of wrongdoing by U.S. President Joe Biden in public office, even as lawmakers unearth morally questionable behavior among the president’s son and other family members.

The rejection of the invitation comes after Hunter Biden and his lawyers insisted late last year that he participate in a public hearing rather than a private deposition, out of concern that Republican lawmakers would distort his interview. Both sides eventually agreed to sit down and testify first, then hold a public hearing.

But Lowell said his client would appear at the hearing only in the “lawful exercise of congressional authority,” which also investigates former President Donald Trump’s family’s removal of his father’s name from his name while he was in the White House. name effort.