BBC doing their latest propaganda effort, in print and also on the news…
Hunter Biden on addiction: My life is not a tabloid
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56641577
Hunter Biden, the son of US President Joe Biden, has reflected on his public struggle with drug and alcohol addiction, saying his life "is not a tabloid".
"I don't belong to an administration, I belong to a family," he told the BBC.
He took responsibility for "creating a story… that anyone conscious would know would be a tabloid sensation".
He also addressed the scrutiny he and his father faced over his work with Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
Mr Biden was a director on the board of Burisma while Joe Biden was US vice-president and the Obama administration's point man on US-Ukrainian relations.
Speaking to US broadcaster CBS, he also said he was confident that he would be cleared of any wrongdoing over his business affairs by an ongoing US Department of Justice investigation.
The business dealings in Ukraine made him a frequent target of Republican criticism during the 2020 election campaign, and were at the centre of former US President Donald Trump's first impeachment.
The impeachment inquiry focused on a conversation Mr Trump had with Ukraine's president in which he appeared to pressure him to open an inquiry into the Bidens. The call came shortly after Mr Trump had blocked the release of military aid to Ukraine.
While defending his qualifications for the position at Burisma, Mr Biden said that, in retrospect, he had "missed… the perception that I would create".
"I know that it is hard to believe with 20/20 hindsight how I could possibly have missed that," the 51-year-old told the BBC in an interview.
He added that Burisma saw his name "as gold" and that it played a large part in his appointment to the board.
While no criminal activity by the Bidens has been proven, a senior US state department official raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest as far back as 2015.
An investigation by US Republican lawmakers last year found that Hunter Biden's work for the Ukrainian firm was "problematic" but concluded there was not evidence that US foreign policy was influenced by it. The report also claimed that Biden relatives "cashed in on Joe Biden's vice presidency".
The report was slammed by Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney, one of Mr Trump's most vocal critics in Congress, who described it as a "political exercise".
Mr Biden acknowledged that his father's name had "opened doors that wouldn't be opened up to other people". But he said this had been "both a privilege and a burden".
Asked by CBS about the ongoing Department of Justice investigation into his financial dealings, the president's son said: "I can say this, I'm co-operating, completely. And I'm absolutely certain, 100% certain, that at the end of the investigation, that I will be cleared of any wrongdoing."
US media quote sources saying the investigation relates to business dealings with foreign countries including China.
Speaking to the BBC ahead of the release of his new memoir Beautiful Things, Mr Biden said he wanted to write about "the love of a family and how it saved me".
"And, you know, we're going through two pandemics right now… there's the pandemic of coronavirus, and there's a pandemic of addiction too," he said.
Mr Biden's mother and sister died in a car accident in 1972 that he and his brother survived. In the interview, he talked about the links between the trauma he has suffered and his drug and alcohol addiction.
"There's something at the centre of each addict that's missing, that they feel that they need to fill… Nothing can possibly fill it. And so you numb yourself," he said.
After his brother Beau died of cancer in 2015, he said he "descended into a really dark, dark place".
"My brother had just died, I'd separated with my wife, I was in an apartment by myself, and I was basically drinking myself to death. It was awful. I mean, grief does funny things. And combine that with addiction and it is a really hard thing to overcome," he said.
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