Well, that was a mess. The House Oversight Committee’s hearing to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress quickly devolved into chaos, with lawmakers shouting over each other, Rep. Nancy Mace grandstanding, and Biden, apparently having had enough, abruptly walking out of the room.

The president’s son unexpectedly showed up at the Wednesday morning hearing alongside his attorneys Abbe Lowell and Kevin Morris.

Mace was the first to question Biden, starting with a doozy: “Who bribed Hunter Biden to be here today? That’s my first question. Second question: You are the epitome of white privilege, coming into the Oversight Committee, spitting in our face, ignoring a congressional subpoena to be deposed — What are you afraid of?”

The South Carolina Republican then said Biden had “no balls” and added, “I think that Hunter Biden should be arrested right here, right now and go straight to jail.”

House Republicans have been pushing for Biden to attend a closed-door deposition as part of their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, but the president’s son has insisted that he will only testify publicly. The House GOP’s relentless but fruitless search for any impeachable offense has been roundly criticized, and even Senate Republicans have expressed skepticism over the effort. And as my MSNBC colleague Ja’han Jones pointed out, House Republicans have repeatedly let the mask slip on their political motivations.

About 25 minutes into the hearing, as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., began talking, Biden and his attorneys stood up and left.

Speaking to reporters afterward, Lowell accused Republicans of using Biden “as a surrogate to attack his father.”

“The Republican chairs today, then, are commandeering an unprecedented resolution to hold someone in contempt who has offered to publicly answer all their proper questions,” he said. “The question there is, ‘What are they afraid of?’”