First son Hunter Biden needled embattled Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz in his memoir about Gaetz’s comments on Biden’s alcohol and drug addiction.
Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, swiped at Gaetz in the prologue of Beautiful Things, due for release on Tuesday, recalling how he turned on the TV while writing the book to see the congressman reading a magazine article about Biden’s troubles with substance abuse during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.
“This from someone once arrested for driving under the influence in his daddy’s BMW, and who later had the charges mysteriously dropped,” Hunter Biden wrote. “Anything to keep the reality-TV narrative running.”
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Biden went on to describe Gaetz, a cable news mainstay, as former President Donald Trump’s “henchman.”
Trump brought up Biden’s foreign business dealings and personal life during his 2020 race against his eventual successor.
“Hunter [Biden] got thrown out of the military … dishonorably discharged for cocaine use. … He didn’t have a job until you became vice president,” Trump said during his first presidential debate against then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden last September.
Hunter Biden’s reported five-figure-a-month position on the board of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings was a central component of Trump’s first impeachment, during which the former president was accused of leveraging military aid to the country for political dirt on the Bidens. The younger Biden’s Chinese investments are now believed to be the focus of a federal tax investigation.
Trump was acquitted of both Ukraine-related charges on Feb. 5, 2020. He was impeached for a second time for allegedly inciting an insurrection in January of this year before he was again acquitted in the Senate.
In the final month of the 2020 campaign, emails from a laptop said to belong to Hunter Biden were published by the New York Post. The outlet reported some of the emails referenced a possible meeting between a top Burisma executive and the Bidens when the elder was vice president. The president has denied a meeting took place, and Hunter Biden recounted the episode unfavorably in his memoir.
“What should have been the most anxiety-producing event of an anxiety-producing campaign became a televised burlesque,” he wrote of the laptop that Trump allies “purported” to be his, chronicling “the lurid details of [his] descent into addiction the last three years.”
Gaetz is facing his own federal investigation. The congressman denies that he paid for sex or had sex with a 17-year-old, a claim that surfaced during a separate but related inquiry into ally Joel Greenberg, a former tax collector in Seminole County, Florida.
The Florida Republican, who said that he paid for adult romantic partners’ flights and hotel rooms but denied any illegal behavior, countered that the accusations are connected to an investigation into an alleged extortion scheme against him and his family. Documents in Gaetz’s possession, including text message screenshots, an email, and a typed document, detailed an alleged scheme to free ex-FBI-agent-turned-private investigator Robert Levinson from imprisonment in Iran and secure a $25 million loan payment from Gaetz’s father, who previously served as president of the Florida state Senate.
In 2008, Gaetz was pulled over after an evening at a Florida nightclub called Swamp for driving a BMW SUV registered to his father at 48 miles per hour in a 35-mile per hour zone, multiple outlets have reported. Despite Florida law stating Gaetz’s license should have been suspended for refusing a breath test, this did not occur.
“I made bad decisions that resulted in an arrest, and that is sort of something that we all live with,” Gaetz later said.
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Despite Gaetz saying that he won’t resign, speculation is emerging about a potential special election in Florida’s 1st Congressional District should the lawmaker step down.
The Florida Republican previously signaled a willingness to depart from Congress. Just hours before news broke of the federal investigation into him, Gaetz was reported to be considering leaving Congress in favor of joining Newsmax, a conservative cable network.
