Joe Biden's son Hunter has confessed he used money he earned for serving on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma to buy drugs and alchohol, according to excerpts from his upcoming memoir "Beautiful Things", obtained by the US media.
Biden said he became addicted after Memorial Day in 2016, when someone offered him some drugs. He eventually reached the point where he was buying crack cocaine from a homeless woman in Washington.
"I spent a couple of thousand dollars on crack in those first two weeks, with Rhea [pseudonym for his dealer] serving as my conduit", Biden wrote. According to the book, the woman then moved into Hunter Biden's apartment and lived there for around five months.
After that, the addiction escalated, claiming he "was smoking crack every 15 minutes" until at some point the Biden family attempted to stage an intervention.
Hunter claimed that neither he nor his father were involved in any corruption schemes concerning his appointmet to the board of the gas company Burisma, noting, however, that his father's name contributed to the job, being "a coveted credential".
"I did nothing unethical, and have never been charged with wrongdoing... In our current political environment, I don't believe it would make any difference if I took that seat or not. I'd be attacked anyway", he wrote.
The son of the US president reportedly did not shed any light on his business operations with Chinese companies allegedly linked to the government, while prosecutors are currently investigating whether he failed to report income from China.
At the same time, he also confirmed that a romantic relationship with his brother Beau's widow Hallie was a major mistake.
"It was a giant miscalculation on both our parts, errors in judgment born of a uniquely tragic time... It felt like a failure of epic proportions", Biden said.
According to the memoir, Hunter's then-wife Kathleen, discovered texts Hunter sent to his sister-in-law, which allegedly was the "final straw" in her decision to file for divorce.
Biden's ex and mother of his three children previously called him "emotionally abusive", saying that Hunter called her "crazy" when she confronted him about affairs and saying that he was "taunting" her about his late brother Beau's children Natalie and Robert.