Illinois teenager Kyle Rittenhouse has slammed President Joe Biden for defaming him while turning a "blind eye" to his son Hunter's suspect business deals and tax returns.
The youth was acquitted in November 2021 of killing two men, wounding a third and attempting to shoot a fourth as he and other civilian volunteers guarded businesses in the Wisconsin city of Kenosha during rioting there in August 2020. Rittenhouse's legal team successfully argued that he was acting in self-defence.
The riots followed Black Lives Matter protests over the shooting of black man Jacob Blake during an arrest, who was left paralysed.
Biden used video images of Rittenhouse carrying a rifle during the riots in a 2020 election campaign video, accompanied by a voiceover denouncing "white supremacists", though all three of the men shot by Rittenhouse were white.
Last week Rittenhouse told ex-president Donald Trump's former lawyer Jenna Ellis' podcast that he had sought conciliation with Biden, but the president had not even bothered to respond.
"I reached out to Joe Biden several times — crickets, nothing," Rittenhouse said. "He still hasn’t replied. So it just shows how much of a man he is to not sit down and talk."