CNN’s senior justice correspondent Evan Perez said Tuesday that it was “fascinating” that Hunter Biden’s legal issues stemmed in part from his candid discussions of his own drug use.
Hunter was charged with illegally possessing a handgun while on drugs in 2018 and with failing to pay federal taxes in 2017 and 2018.
Perez was discussing the charges, saying Hunter had been “very, very public” about his substance abuse issues, specifically in his 2021 memoir, “Beautiful Things.”
“He wrote a book. Ironically, that’s the book — the book where he talked about his substance abuse issues, very, very candid things that he said about what he was doing at the time — is what really compounded his problems in this federal investigation, because it was from that — from his own words — that prosecutors and investigators learned that at the time that he had owned or he had purchased a gun he was addicted to drugs, which is a violation of federal firearms law.”
“What Hunter Biden did when he wrote that book — he admitted and he said it in interviews — he said that he was addicted,” Perez continued, “so one of the things that happened was, they became very, very focused on that particular charge, because it is something that the Biden administration has been pushing, certainly, to go after people who lie in order to buy firearms.” (RELATED: Here’s How ‘Morning Joe’ Covered The Hunter Biden News)
“It is a fascinating thing, though, certainly for Hunter Biden and the candidness of him talking about his substance abuse problems is what ended up causing some issues for him in this case,” Perez said.
Hunter has agreed to plead guilty to tax misdemeanors and entered a probation agreement for the gun charge, according to Axios. He will likely avoid jail time. Trump-appointed attorney David Weiss said the investigation into Hunter remains ongoing despite Hunter’s lawyer telling CBS News it was his “understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved.”
The investigation into Hunter began in 2018 and focused on his overseas business dealings, according to the Washington Post. The investigation eventually narrowed, with several agencies investigating whether Biden reported all of his income and whether he lied on his paperwork to purchase a gun.