The White House recently responded to the question of whether President Joe Biden was on board with his son Hunter Biden's decision to ignore a congressional subpoena. 

White House Spokesman for Oversight and Investigations Ian Sams - did so, however, by side-stepping the question.

This all took place during Sams's appearance Thursday on CNN's CNN This Morning. 

There, host Phil Mattingly asked Sams this:

I do want to ask, Ian, while I have you, Hunter Biden had a very public moment yesterday outside of the house saying he wanted to testify publicly, would not be behind closed doors with House Republicans. The White House just said the President was aware that Hunter Biden was going to do that, was aware of what he was going to say. Did he agree with the strategy of doing that?

That is a long-winded way of asking whether the president approved of his son's decision to disregard a congressional subpoena. Sams, in response, refused to answer the question directly.

Rather, he said, "Well, look, I’m not going to get into a father’s conversations with his son, except to say Hunter’s a private person. He can make his own decisions about how to handle these sorts of things."

Sams then went on to repeat the administration's talking points about the Hunter Biden situation. He said:

But the President loves and is very proud of him.He overcame a very dark period in his life and has stood tall and is in recovery. And also, it should be pointed out something that’s getting lost, Hunter offered to testify publicly and transparently. He offered, and the House Republicans rejected it. And it gets to the point of what they’re doing here, they’ll never be satisfied. They’re going to continue attacking, over and over and over again, no matter what facts come out, no matter what the truth is. And what’s really scary about what’s happening right now is they’re abusing such a grave constitutional process to do it.

Hunter Biden, last week, was supposed to provide congressional testimony - behind closed doors - about the Biden family business, which House Republicans continue to investigate. In fact, Biden was even subpoenaed by the House to provide this testimony.

Biden, however, decided to disregard the subpoena. Instead, he gave a speech at the Capitol in which he essentially said that he will not testify privately about the matter but that he is willing to testify publicly about it.

During the speech, Hunter  Biden also criticized former President Donald Trump and Republicans for allegedly targeting him.

As this was all happening, the question arose as to whether President Biden knew about Hunter's decision to disregard the congressional subpoena.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, "The president was certainly familiar with what his son was going to say and I think what you saw was from the heart, from his son."

Jean-Pierre, however, refused to directly say whether President Biden knew of and/or approved of Hunter's decision to disregard the subpoena.

It ought to be remembered that, ultimately, it will be up to President Biden's Department of Justice (DOJ) to decide whether or not to prosecute Hunter Biden for contempt of Congress.