The son of the US President has to answer in court.
(Photo: Reuters)
Washington Joe Biden has made one election campaign appearance after the next in the past few days, most recently in the US state of California. At an appearance in San Francisco, he spoke about artificial intelligence, his China policy, American abortion rights and gun violence.
But he left out the topic that all US media are currently reporting on: his son, 53-year-old Hunter Biden, has been charged with tax offenses and illegal gun ownership.
“Have you spoken to your son today,” a reporter called out to the president on Tuesday, just minutes after the US Department of Justice’s federal charges broke. Biden smiled and said nothing. When the journalist repeated his question, the President said: “I am very proud of my son”.
The White House said the president and his wife, Jill, are supporting their son as he “rebuilds his life.” There will be no further comment on the case.
Hunter Biden is scheduled to appear in federal court in Delaware next week and plead guilty. He is spared a trial and probably a prison sentence because he has reached an agreement with the Ministry of Justice, a so-called plea deal.
As part of the deal, he may get away with a suspended sentence, sources said. A judge still has to approve it.
Hunter Biden’s attorney, Christopher Clark, said his client wanted to take responsibility for the mistakes he made at a difficult time in his life. Biden pleads guilty to failing to pay income taxes and possessing a gun despite his drug problems.
He could face up to ten years in prison if he was charged with illegally possessing a weapon. Instead, he now has to comply with some requirements of the public prosecutor’s office, as the agreement shows. It is rather unusual for criminal allegations to be settled immediately after charges have been filed. According to experts, it happens again and again.
A Trump prosecutor is deciding the case
The settlement marks the end of a six-year investigation by the US Department of Justice. The Hunter Biden investigation was initiated during Donald Trump’s presidency and reported to US Attorney in Delaware David C. Weiss – one of the few Trump-appointed prosecutors who also serve in the Biden administration.
The case is politically particularly sensitive because Trump was accused only a few days ago of storing secret documents in his Florida property. In a reaction to his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that Hunter Biden received little more than a speeding ticket. “Our system is broken,” he wrote.
Republican James Comer also said Biden got away with a sentence that was too light. The party will continue to investigate him. Comer chairs the powerful House Oversight Committee in Congress, which can issue subpoenas and conduct investigations.
Hunter Biden plays a central role in the political battles between Republicans and Democrats. For years, some Republicans have accused the president’s son of actually being in prison. Trump has announced that if he wins the election, he will appoint a special prosecutor to pursue the Biden family.
Republicans in the US House of Representatives are currently investigating Hunter Biden’s previous business activities. His name appears again and again in different contexts:
- Connections to Burisma: In 2014, Hunter Biden joined the board of directors of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The company was then run by an oligarch who was under investigation for corruption at the time. Hunter Biden is said to have received around $1.5 million from Burisma for his work, while his father, as vice president, oversaw the policies of Barack Obama’s administration in Ukraine. Joe Biden later emphasized that he was in no way involved in his son’s business, and Hunter Biden later described working for Burisma as a “bad decision”. An FBI paper was recently circulated in the US Congress purporting to prove that Joe Biden, as Burisma’s vice president, was paid $5 million in exchange for fostering US-Ukraine relations. The authenticity of the paper has not been confirmed and is highly disputed.
-
The laptop: In 2020, Twitter blocked a controversial report about Hunter Biden, the case later had repercussions in Congress. Specifically, it was about an article in the New York Post. The tabloid reported at the time that Trump’s attorney at the time, Rudy Giuliani, had received a copy of a laptop’s hard drive. Hunter Biden had given it to a computer workshop in the US state of Delaware 18 months earlier and never picked it up. The front-page article made a serious allegation – citing emails found on the laptop – that Hunter Biden is said to have arranged a meeting of Ukrainian business partners with his father when he was Obama’s vice president. The newspaper published photos that are said to come from the hard drive. They show Hunter Biden engaging in sexual acts and using hard drugs.
-
Trump’s impeachment: In 2019, then-President Trump tried to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch an investigation into the Bidens. A transcript of the phone call, made public by a whistleblower, eventually led to Trump’s first impeachment trial.
-
Business relations to China: Hunter Biden’s failed joint venture with Chinese tycoon Ye Jianming also made headlines in 2013. The head of the energy conglomerate CEFC China Energy, lobbied in both US parties, gave Hunter Biden a large diamond, among other things, and was later arrested and convicted of money laundering.
So far, Biden has always stood by his son, and that is unlikely to change in the presidential election campaign. He is occasionally seen at events with Hunter by his side, and his son has appeared in 2020 White House campaign ads.
The US President has often spoken about the difficult phases of his son’s life in the past. Hunter Biden, a Yale graduate and lawyer, says he was addicted to drugs and alcohol for 15 years. “I bought crack cocaine on the streets of Washington, DC and cooked my own in a hotel bungalow in Los Angeles,” Hunter Biden wrote in his 2021 memoir Beautiful Things. He is now drug-free and sober, as he explains in interviews.
In 2022, Joe Biden told CBS that his son had “an addiction problem” but was proud of his recovery efforts. “I love him and he’s on a stable path and has been for a couple of years. I’m just so proud of him.”
Joe and Jill Biden have one daughter together, Ashley Biden. In 2015, Joe Biden’s second son Beau died of a brain tumor. In 1972, he lost his then-wife, Neilia Hunter, and their one-year-old daughter, Naomi, in a car accident.
More: Editorial – Trump and Biden are a dual risk to the US election campaign