Hunter Biden claims Republican critics want him dead to ‘destroy’ his father
Hunter Biden, the embattled son of US President Joe Biden, has claimed that Republicans are trying to “kill” him and “destroy” his father’s presidency.
In an interview given to a podcast hosted by the musician Moby, who met the president’s son while the pair were in addiction recovery programs, Mr Biden said continued public attacks by right-wing critics were pushing him towards a substance abuse relapse.
“I recognize that none of this is necessarily about me,” the 53-year-old said. “What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to kill me, knowing that it will be a pain greater than my father could be able to handle.
“They are trying to, in their most illegitimate… but rational way, they’re trying to destroy a presidency.
“They decided that the one way in which they would be able to undermine my dad’s confidence and ability to continue to campaign and move forward… [was] to think that he could lose his son that he just had regained from an almost-death, through addiction.
“And so they just began to attack, and attack, and attack. And you know, addiction provides for a lot of openings for people.”
Mr Biden has faced a slew of legal problems over his past drug use, business affairs and illegal gun possession, and Republicans have launched a number of probes connected to him since taking back control of the US House of Representatives last year.
An impeachment inquiry was launched by allies of Donald Trump in September, with Republicans citing “a picture of corruption” linked to the president and his son – though critics say the effort is baseless and there is nothing linking the president to wrongdoing.
The rare interview with the embattled Mr Biden was released on Friday, a day after he was indicted on nine tax charges in California – though it is thought the episode was recorded before the latest set of charges were brought.
Joe Biden’s first wife, Neilia, and the couple’s infant daughter, Naomi, were killed in a car crash in 1972, a few weeks after he was first elected as a US senator.
In 2015, the president’s eldest son Beau Biden, an army veteran who was also a politician serving as Delaware attorney general, died from brain cancer.
Mr Biden, one of the president’s two surviving children, said: “I’ve never witnessed the level of an invasion of privacy on any individual that I can possibly think of.
“I’ve never witnessed a sustained attack on one person like this.”
The president’s son said he would not “let these motherf**kers use me as just another example of why people in recovery are never gonna be okay”.
