Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz dredged up Hunter Biden’s history of drug abuse during the House impeachment hearings Thursday.
Gaetz brought up Biden’s lucrative gig with the Ukraine gas giant Burisma, and asked why the company would hire someone with no experience who has a history of drug use.
“Hunter Biden and Burisma, that’s an interesting story and I think just about every American knows there’s something up with that,” he said, adding that he had done some research on Joe Biden’s son, who admitted drug abuse in a magazine profile.
“I found this very extensive profile in the New Yorker. Hunter said that at [one] point he had not slept for several days, driving east on Interstate 10 just beyond Palm Springs he lost control of his car which jumped the median and skidded to a stop on the shoulder of the westbound side,” Gaetz said.
“He called Hertz, which came to collect the damaged car and gave him a second rental. The Hertz rental officer found a crack pipe in the car and a line of white powder residue. Hertz called the Prescott police department and officers filed a narcotics offense report,” he continued, before describing Biden admitting to buying crack cocaine in California later in the piece.
“It’s a little hard to believe that Burisma hired Hunter Biden to resolve their international disputes when he could not resolve his own dispute with Hertz rental car over leaving cocaine and a crack pipe in the car,” he said of the younger Biden’s $50,000-a-month job on the firm’s board while his father was veep.
Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia spoke next and was quick to respond.
“I would say that the pot calling the kettle black is not something that we should do. I don’t know what members, if any, have had any problems with substance abuse, been busted for DUI, I don’t know, but if I did I wouldn’t raise it against anyone on this committee,” Johnson said.
“This is not about Hunter Biden.”
Gaetz was arrested in 2008 on a charge of driving under the influence as he was driving back from the Swamp, a nightclub on Okaloosa Island, Florida. The charges were later dropped.
Despite Johnson’s counterpunch, Gaetz was undeterred and slammed the Bidens again when he spoke next, arguing that without an investigation into the former veep and his son that the impeachment proceedings were invalid.
“If Democrats can’t prove that the Bidens are clean, then President Trump can’t be guilty of abusing power if he’s asking a reasonable question. They cannot prove that the questions into the Bidens are unreasonable,” he said.
“I listened very closely to the witnesses. I heard Mr. Kent say they were so concerned about Burisma, we had to pull out of a partnership with the embassy. If it’s okay for our embassy to ask the questions, why isn’t it okay for the president?” he said, referring to previous testimony from George Kent Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, who told lawmakers he would welcome a probe into alleged corruption at Burisma.
“I listened to Ambassador Yovanovitch when she gave testimony. She said she was having to do special preparation to have to answer these sticky questions about why the vice president’s son was off moon lighting for some foreign energy company,” he said, a reference to Marie Yovanovitch.
He then launched into a blistering attack on Hunter Biden, again citing The New Yorker profile.
“Here’s one thing I know. Corrupt people, they don’t just steal once. They kind of get into this cycle and culture of corruption and it’s disappointing. I go back to this New Yorker article. I’m reading directly from it. One of [Hunter’s wife] Kathleen’s motions, this is regarding Hunter Biden’s divorce, contained a reference to a large diamond that had come into Hunter’s possession,” he said , before quoting her in the article.
“When I asked him about it, he told me he had been given the diamond by a Chinese energy tycoon. Hunter told me that two associates accompanied him to his first meeting [with the tycoon] in Miami and they surprised him by giving him a rare vintage of scotch worth thousands of dollars,” Gaetz continued.
“This guy wasn’t just taking these weird jobs from the Ukrainians. He was taking diamonds and scotch from the Chinese. I think it is entirely appropriate for the president of the United States to figure out why that is the case.
Trump had publicly called for Ukraine and China to investigate the Bidens, who deny wrongdoing.
The fireworks came after Gaetz offered an amendment to insert language about Burisma and Hunter Biden into the articles of impeachment.
