A fiery Florida congressman, Matt Gaetz, and Hunter Biden during Wednesday’s closed-door deposition of the president’s son traded insults and insinuations about each others’ alleged drug use and partying, according to a transcript.

In an exchange between the two, Mr. Gaetz asked, “Were you on drugs when you were on the Burisma board?” 

“Mr. Gaetz, look me in the eye,” Mr. Biden responded. “You really think that’s appropriate to ask me?”

Mr. Gaetz responded in turn, “Absolutely,” to which Mr. Biden said, “Of all the people sitting around this table, do you think that’s appropriate to ask me?”

The exchange appears to be referring to both Mr. Biden’s well known struggle with drug addiction and several allegations that have been leveled against Mr. Gaetz.

In 2021, the Daily Beast reported witnesses saying that Mr. Gaetz would snort cocaine and take ecstasy at afterparties for speaking events in the early days of his tenure in Congress.

According to the report, Mr. Gaetz held a party at his hotel room after speaking at the Trump Defender Gala at Orlando in 2019. An escort, Megan Zalonka, says Mr. Gaetz while there “prepared lines of cocaine on the bathroom counter,” an allegation the congressman denies.

Last year, Senator Mullin said that Mr. Gaetz would brag to fellow members of Congress about his use of erectile dysfunction medication.

“He bragged about how he would crush E.D. medicine and chase it with energy drinks so he could go all night,” Mr. Mullin told CNN. “This is obviously before he got married.”

Mr. Gaetz has also been under investigation by federal law enforcement authorities for allegations of sex trafficking related to an alleged dalliance with a 17-year-old girl. The congressman had been drawn into the investigation of a former friend, a Florida county tax collector named Joel Greenberg. 

Mr. Gaetz denies the sex allegations, telling the Daily Beast, “The last time I had a sexual relationship with a 17 year old, I was 17.”

The Department of Justice dropped its probe of Mr. Gaetz without charges, but the House Ethics Committee, controlled by his fellow Republicans, continues to investigate him. Mr. Gaetz says it’s retaliation for the key role he played in deposing his nemesis, Speaker McCarthy, throwing the House GOP caucus deeper into chaos. 

During Wednesday’s deposition, Mr. Biden attacked Mr. Gaetz for bringing up his drug use, saying that it is a tactic aimed at embarrassing the first son and not relevant to the topic of the deposition.

“I will answer it this way,” Mr. Biden said. “I have been absolutely transparent about my drug use. Was I an addict? Yes, I was an addict. What does that have to do with whether or not you’re going to go forward with an impeachment of my father other than to simply try to embarrass me?”

Mr. Biden says he has been sober for several years after decades of active addiction. House Republicans have often harped on his drug use and his drug-fueled dalliances with escorts, which the president’s son documented extensively with graphic photographs that were made public and have been presented to Congress by Republicans. 

Mr. Biden has openly written about his drug use in a memoir, which is now being used against him by federal prosecutors who’ve charged him with felony gun and tax violations in two separate cases.