House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) hit back at Hunter Biden over his claims that his drug addiction was being weaponized against him in the House investigations into the Biden family's "influence peddling scheme."
Smith accused Hunter Biden of using his struggles with addiction in an op-ed he wrote last week to distract from the shady business deals Smith and other House Republicans say he and his father Joe Biden have been involved in.
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“Addiction is not a moral failing, nor is it a crime," Smith said. "Hunter Biden’s repeated attempts to conceal his income from the IRS, potentially committing multiple crimes in the process, and its implication of President Biden, is the reason he is under investigation by the Department of Justice and now Congress."
Hunter Biden wrote that his "struggles and my mistakes have been fodder" for a "sustained disinformation campaign" against his father, but he didn't mention the questions about his tax and business affairs besides noting the "high-pitched but fruitless congressional investigations" into him.
Smith noted a section of the younger Biden's op-ed in which he said he was "accountable" for his "choices and mistakes" and did not see himself as a victim.
"Hunter Biden claims that he is fully accepting of the choices and the mistakes he has made, yet has sought to evade the legal consequences of his actions at every turn," the Ways and Means chairman said.
The op-ed and Smith's comments come as the Justice Department continues to investigate him and as lawmakers attempt to track how reportedly millions of dollars in income were moved among Biden family members and their affiliated companies over the past decade.
The younger Biden's most high-profile venture involved the profitable position he took on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, in May 2014, one year before his brother died and his addiction problems escalated, according to his memoir. Hunter Biden noted in the op-ed that he has been sober for over four years,
Smith blasted Hunter Biden for his numerous lawsuits against a pair of IRS whistleblowers and for engaging in "interference with Congress's constitutional duty to perform oversight."
“The American people are compassionate, but that doesn’t make them stupid," Smith said. "They know that drug addiction has nothing to do with the Biden political machine’s years-long political campaign to obstruct justice nor the potentially millions of dollars the Biden family has made from influence peddling. That Hunter Biden says so little about these issues says plenty.”
In early October, Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to three federal gun charges, months after a plea deal between him and federal prosecutors fell apart, setting the stage for a possible trial in 2024. He was originally expected to plead guilty to tax misdemeanors to avoid a felony gun possession charge.
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Ahead of his not-guilty plea, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika removed the gun possession charge and replaced it with the three-count indictment.
David Weiss, who serves as the U.S. attorney for Delaware and was appointed by former President Donald Trump, was made special counsel of the Hunter Biden investigation shortly after the plea deal collapsed in August.