Hunter Biden is hitting out at Republicans’ use of his past alcohol and drug problems as fodder to embarrass his father with a new op-ed in which he warns that the practice could discourage Americans who suffer from addition from seeking treatment.
In the column published by USA Today, the Yale-educated attorney and former lobbyist — who is President Joe Biden’s youngest and only surviving son — writes that the “weaponisation” of his well-documented struggles by “partisan and craven factions” in the GOP could be a “real threat to those desperate to get sober but are afraid of what may await them if they do”.
Mr Biden’s difficulties with addiction have made him a focus of news coverage for years, dating back as early as 2014, when he was dismissed from a reserve post in the US Navy following a positive drug test.
According to his memoir, Beautiful Things, he finally got sober in 2019. But after his father became a candidate for president in the 2020 election, allies of former president Donald Trump made him a focus of sustained coverage in right-wing media.
That relentless media focus included breathless coverage of stolen digital data purportedly retrieved from a laptop that Mr Trump’s allies allege that Mr Biden abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop.
The data, some of which has been authenticated by reputable news outlets, included purported emails, text messages and photos — some extremely explicit — of the then-49-year-old. Since they took control of the House in January, Republicans have used some of the data to jumpstart various investigations into Mr Biden, his uncle James, and his father, the president.
In his op-ed, Hunter Biden says his experience with addiction is not unique, and cites statistics showing that at least 20 million Americans struggle with alcohol or drugs.
“I don’t know a family that hasn’t been impacted in some way by addiction. What is distinct about my situation is that I’m the son of the president of the United States,” he writes.
Continuing, Mr Biden laments how his “struggles and ...mistakes” have been used by the GOP as “fodder for a vile and sustained disinformation campaign” and the “all-out annihilation of my reputation through high-pitched but fruitless congressional investigations” and the criminal charges filed against him for what he describes as “possessing an unloaded gun for 11 days five years ago”.
He also takes care to stress that he is “not a victim,” writing that he “grew up with privilege and opportunity” and stressing that he “fully accept[s] that the choices and mistakes [he] made are [his]”.
“I am accountable for them and will continue to be. That is what recovery is about,” he writes.
Continuing, he adds that “what troubles me” is “the demonisation of addiction, of human frailty, using me as its avatar and the devastating consequences it has for the millions struggling with addiction, desperate for a way out and being bombarded by the denigrating and near-constant coverage of me and my addiction”.
In one example, he recounts how a recent decision to have his hair cropped closely was framed by Fox News personalities as a deliberate effort to avoid having his hair tested for evidence of drug use.
He also hits out at tabloid newspapers that have displayed nude photos of him on their cover pages and, without mentioning her name, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who at a recent congressional hearing held up explicit photographs of him that were blown up to poster-size for television viewers’ benefit.
“My addiction doesn’t justify Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui posting altered nude photos of me with “editorial creativity over the pictures.” My addiction shouldn’t permit the likes of Rudy Giuliani or a former Peter Navarro aide to debase and dehumanise me for their own gains,” he writes.
“It is already a near-impossible decision for addicts to get sober, and the avalanche of negativity and assault of my personal privacy may only make it harder for those considering it”.
