President Biden on Tuesday tepidly stood up for his son Hunter Biden, saying he has “confidence” that his oldest child is now on the straight and narrow, but he stopped short of offering a defense amid possible criminal charges.
Federal agents investigating the younger Hunter Biden told media outlets last week that they believe there is sufficient evidence to charge him with a false statement related to a gun purchase.
In October 2018, Hunter Biden purchased a handgun and reportedly answered “no” to the question about whether he was “an unlawful user” of a controlled substance.
At the time of the purchase, according to his own book, Hunter Biden was heavily using crack cocaine that year.
While the president stood up for his son, he didn’t deny that Hunter Biden may have lied on the application.
“This thing about a gun — I didn’t know anything about it,” the elder Mr. Biden told CNN’s Jake Tapper in a rare prime-time interview. “But it turns out when he made the application to purchase a gun what happened was he said … you get asked the question: ‘are you on drugs or do you use drugs?’”
“He said no,” the president said. “And he wrote about saying ‘no’ in his book. I have confidence in my son.”
The president said he is proud of his son who he said is “on the straight and narrow and has been for some years now.”
“He’s a grown man who got hooked on, like many families that had happened, hooked on drugs,” Mr. Biden said. “But he’s overcome that and has established a new life.”