The 44-year-old son of Vice President Joe Biden was discharged from the Navy Reserve last February after testing positive for cocaine,
The Wall Street Journal reports.
Hunter Biden, who joined the Navy as an ensign in May 2013 and reported for duty in Norfolk, Va., tested positive for cocaine in a drug test the following month, the newspaper reports, citing unnamed sources.
"It was the honor of my life to serve in the U.S. Navy, and I deeply regret and am embarrassed that my actions led to my administrative discharge," Biden said in a statement to the newspaper. "I respect the Navy's decision."
He added: "With the love and support of my family, I'm moving forward."
Biden, a lawyer, is managing director at Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners.
He also serves as chairman of World Food Program USA, which calls itself a "humanitarian agency that fights hunger,"
serves on the board of Burisma Holdings, a private company that has drilled for natural gas in Ukraine, and is an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University.
His older brother, Delaware Attorney General. Beau Biden, served in his state's National Guard and was deployed to Iraq.
Hunter Biden began his pursuit of a military career in a direct-commission process to become a public-affairs officer in the Navy Reserve in 2012, The Journal reports.
But because of his age, he was required to obtain a waiver – and then had a second waiver because of a drug-related incident when he was young, sources told the newspaper.
Navy personnel who are discharged from the military because of a failed drug test don’t receive honorable discharges, The Journal notes; most are given an "other than honorable" or "general" discharge.
The Journal reports it isn't clear which discharge Hunter Biden received.
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