Lost in all of the recent coverage of the expansive and legally questionable pardon granted by former President Joe Biden to his son, Hunter Biden, as well as the coverage over the past few years of the latter’s unfortunate life choices, is the fact that the Navy was perhaps the first to notice their joint troubles.
I first became aware of Hunter Biden in early 2013 when I was still serving in the Navy. I had just returned from a long, challenging deployment to Afghanistan and had been unexpectedly informed upon my return stateside that I had been selected for promotion to the admiral ranks. In polite calls from my bosses, I was also notified that a board had met while I was in Afghanistan to choose candidates for a direct Reserve commission into the public affairs field, which was my specialty. I was informed of the names of these candidates, who would soon become my responsibility as junior officers. At the end of one of those conversations, one of my immediate Navy bosses let me know that the selectees included someone named Hunter Biden. “Are you familiar with him?” the caller asked. All I could muster in response was, “I assume he is related to [then-]Vice President Biden.” He was indeed.
A little background here: The Navy does select applicants for direct commissions in the Reserve, but only in certain specialties such as public affairs. Those slots are highly competitive, with the selectees usually having prior enlisted military service of a high caliber, extensive civilian experience in the field for which they are applying, or both. Thus, I asked about the background of the small handful of candidates who had been selected while I had been in Afghanistan. All seemed to fit the tough criteria for selection, with one exception.
When I asked about Hunter Biden, I quickly learned he was neither a prior enlisted service member nor did he have any real background in public affairs or a related field. Even more strangely, he was over the age of 40, which is usually the limit for a direct commission given the Navy’s customary maximum age limit of 60 for officers and the need to amass 20 years of service to qualify for retirement. He had been given a formal age waiver to qualify for a commission. As if all of that were not suspicious enough, I also learned he had received other waivers to receive a direct commission as a Navy officer.
Perplexed by all of this, I politely protested and argued his commissioning would inevitably set up the Navy, and particularly the public affairs community, for criticism given the appearance that strings had been pulled to give the vice president’s son a questionable commission as a Navy officer. Over the next few weeks, several insiders at both the Defense Department and the Navy’s personnel command confided in me that strings had indeed been pulled. As explained by those sources, the intent was that Hunter Biden was going to be groomed for runs for political office, precipitated by the tragic death of his brother, Beau Biden, who was originally supposed to take up the Biden mantle in politics. Apparently, the thinking was that Hunter Biden needed some type of military service to round out his political resume, and a direct commission into the Navy Reserve public affairs community was the most viable route.
As I feared, things did not go well from there. Over the next few months, Hunter Biden was assigned to a Navy Reserve public affairs unit in Norfolk, Virginia, and given directions on where to report for his first drill weekend. He showed up for that drill weekend and quickly failed his first urinalysis test for drug use. Such failures are grounds for separation from the service, with zero tolerance and no second chances.
I became vice chief of information in October 2013, in charge of the Navy Reserve public affairs community, and landed in the middle of this entire mess. Hunter Biden was referred to an administrative board and dismissed from the Navy in early 2014 after extensive due process and attention to his personal troubles. Throughout this process, my firm guidance to the few public affairs personnel involved in his legal processes was that he would be treated like any other junior officer, with no special treatment or detriment despite his family ties, and everyone involved would respect the confidentiality and privacy of the process.
To be fair, Hunter Biden later publicly admitted to the history of and reasons for his dismissal from the Navy and did so in what I would call an honest and humble manner. I also feel genuine sympathy for anyone who has to deal with the demons of addiction such as those apparently suffered by Hunter Biden, and my heart goes out to him with Christian concern and love. For several months, however, my life and the lives of his entire chain of command were certainly interesting. I regularly had to brief everyone from the Navy chief of information to the chief of Navy Reserve to the four-star chief of naval operations and even the White House communications office on the entire process surrounding him. Moreover, his entire chain of command had to deal with the complicated legal proceedings. Not pleasant to deal with those huge distractions while the nation was still at war in places such as Afghanistan.
My pleas regarding confidentiality held for quite a while until someone, unfortunately, leaked information in October 2014 about Hunter Biden’s earlier separation from the Navy. The Wall Street Journal reported on his dismissal in response to the leak, and the story went viral across the news media for a brief period before quickly dying down. I was furious over the leak of information and felt genuine remorse that he had to endure this breach of confidentiality. But I was never able to determine the source of that leak, though I very generally heard from several sources that it had come from a disgruntled employee in the White House. At the same time, I was surprised the news media focused solely on his separation from the Navy and not at all on the incredibly suspicious manner in which he had been commissioned in the first place.
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It was frankly frustrating that my early warnings about the suspicious manner in which Hunter Biden had received his Navy commission largely fell on deaf ears, and, apparently, no one else had the gumption to say the obvious. It certainly made for very unpleasant and time-consuming distractions from the military mission. However, I and others in his Navy chain of command did what I am 100% sure was correct, professional, and ethical in handling the situation in the end.
Afterward, there were many lessons to be learned about the dangers of bending rules, the poor state of politics, nepotism and cronyism, and breaches of confidentiality, as well as early warning signs about questionable behavior by Hunter Biden and even his father. Unfortunately, no one was paying much attention over 10 years ago. I certainly wish they had, as many people and the entire nation could have avoided later heartache surrounding Hunter Biden.
W. Kent Davis is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy.