The former head of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) ripped President Joe Biden in several now-deleted tweets over Biden’s praise of his son Hunter’s upcoming book.
Walter Shaub, who served as director of the OGE from 2013 to 2017, said the president’s comments on Hunter’s recently announced memoir “Beautiful Things” potentially violate ethics rules and compared the president’s comments to a “book promotion tour,” according to the Washington Examiner. Shaub served most of his tenure under former President Barack Obama before resigning from former President Donald Trump’s administration.
As the Examiner reported:
“It is not acceptable for the President of the United States to be part of the book promotion tour. No,” tweeted Shaub, a U.S. Office of Government Ethics former director under Obama. The tweet that was issued Sunday afternoon was deleted but not before the Washington Examiner viewed its contents.
Shaub also said it was “wonderful” that Hunter Biden, 51, was sharing his experience with addiction because it could help Hunter and other people fighting personal demons. But Shaub added the president’s comments regarding the memoir, Beautiful Things, were ethically compromised. There appears to have been other tweets by Shaub in the past 24 hours knocking Biden for the comments about his son’s book, but they were also erased.
“Beautiful Things” in part covers Hunter’s chronic struggles with drugs and alcohol abuse. Biden touted his son’s memoir during an interview with CBS News over the weekend.
“I bet there’s not a family you know who doesn’t have somebody in the family that had a drug problem, or an alcohol problem,” Biden said. “But the honesty with which he stepped forward and talked about the problem and the hope that, it gave me hope reading it. I mean, it was like my boy is back, you know what I mean? Anyway, I’m sorry to get so personal.”
“The honesty with which he stepped forward and talked about the problem,” Pres. Biden says of his son Hunter’s memoir on his struggles with addiction, “it gave me hope.”
“It was like my boy’s back,” Pres. Biden tells us.
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— Norah O'Donnell 🇺🇸 (@NorahODonnell) February 7, 2021
Hunter’s struggles with drugs and alcohol have been chronicled in numerous reports over the years. In 2014, Hunter was discharged from the Navy after testing positive for cocaine. He has also done several stints in rehab since 2003.
Less than a month into his presidency, Biden is facing renewed allegations that his members of his family, largely his two brothers and his son, are using the Biden family name to profit for themselves. Biden has also been accused of trying to profit off some of his family’s business deals, namely one that Hunter attempted to strike with a Chinese energy executive in 2017.
One of Hunter’s former business partners, Anthony Bobulinski, claimed last year that Biden was one of the beneficiaries of a business deal that Hunter was trying to strike with Ye Jianming, the former chairman of the now-bankrupt CEFC China Energy.
In December, Hunter said in a statement that his “tax affairs” are under investigation by the Department of Justice.
“I learned yesterday for the first time that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware advised my legal counsel, also yesterday, that they are investigating my tax affairs,” Hunter said in a statement. “I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisors.”