Hunter Biden was found guilty of illegally possessing a firearm and lying about his drug usage when it was purchased. The judgment means that the US president’s son will face a jail sentence. He is the first child of a serving US president to be found guilty of a federal felony, although he will return to court in September to face tax charges in a separate trial.
Last July, the 54-year-old seemed to have resolved the trials and avoided jail time in a plea bargain with prosecutors.However, the agreement fell apart in court, and the prosecutor in charge of the federal investigation eventually filed the firearms charges. In December, a second indictment charged Hunter with failing to pay at least $1.4 million (£1.1 million) in federal taxes owing for tax years 2016-19.
Congressional Republicans have held impeachment proceedings against President Biden to examine suspected influence peddling by his son. However, the months-long investigation seems to have found no misconduct.
Meanwhile, Hunter’s personal troubles, ranging from alcohol and drug misuse to marital turmoil, have become well known.
Hunter’s childhood was full with tragedy
Hunter was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1970 to Joe Biden and his first wife Neilia. He was given his mother’s maiden name as his first name. He was just two years old in December 1972, when a vehicle crashed into the family automobile, less than six weeks after his father was elected to the United States Senate.
The accident killed his mother and infant sister Naomi, leaving him with a cracked skull and his elder sibling Beau with a broken leg.
Joe Biden, who was not in the vehicle, took his oath of office at their bedside in the hospital.
Hunter subsequently attended Georgetown University and Yale Law School, from where he graduated in 1996.
Between the two degrees, he joined the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, a Catholic organization that helps marginalized areas.There he met his first wife, lawyer Kathleen Buhle, and they married in 1993. They had three children, Naomi, Finnegan, and Maisy, but the couple separated in 2017.
Addiction and Affair
Hunter’s father is a teetotaler, but he began drinking as a youngster and admitted to consuming cocaine while in college. He has gone in and out of treatment.
In 2013, he joined the United States Navy Reserve and was sworn in before his father, the vice president at the time, in a White House ceremony. But on his first day at the naval installation, he tested positive for cocaine and was expelled.
According to the New Yorker, he drank extensively after his elder brother, Beau, died of brain cancer in 2015, sometimes leaving the home to get vodka.”He and Beau were one,” his daughter Naomi once tweeted. “One heart, one soul, one mind.”During their contentious divorce, Ms. Buhle accused Hunter of “spending extravagantly on his own interests (including drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs, and gifts for women with whom he had sexual relations) while leaving the family with no funds to pay legitimate bills”.
Last year, she broke her silence on how the 24-year marriage unraveled, telling Good Morning America, “He was struggling with a massive drug addiction, which is heartbreaking and painful, and that wasn’t who I was married to.” Hunter admits in his biography Beautiful Things, published in 2021, that his adultery was the breaking point of their marriage.
A DNA test in 2019 revealed that he was “the biological and legal father” of a kid born to Lunden Alexis Roberts, an exotic dancer from Arkansas. Hunter claimed in his book that he had “no recollection” of their meeting, although he has resolved a paternity case with Ms Roberts and pays her child support. The Bidens seem to have never met Navy Roberts, who is now four years old. However, under media pressure last summer, President Biden was obliged to recognize his seventh grandchild.
Turbulent Relationship with Hallie Biden and Legal Fallout
Hunter began seeing Hallie Biden, his brother’s widow, before officially ending his engagement with Ms Buhle.
During their two-year relationship, the couple bonded over their shared and “very specific grief” as a consequence of Beau Biden’s death, he told The New Yorker. Hallie Biden testified during his Delaware trial that the president’s son exposed her to crack cocaine and purchased narcotics in her presence. She further said that his regular usage made him “agitated” and “high-strung”.
Hunter Biden bought a pistol two months after returning from treatment in 2018, according to his defense team, as an impulsive buy prompted by a demanding gun shop owner.Prosecutors claimed he lied on the handgun application paperwork, stating he was not taking narcotics at the time. Hunter Biden’s counsel contended that he did not consider himself an addict and had been clean at the time.
Hallie Biden, who told the court she addressed Hunter Biden about his drug usage, discovered the pistol and ammo while clearing “remnants of crack cocaine and [drug] paraphernalia” from his car. She revealed how, in a panic, she packed it in a shopping bag and threw it away 11 days after purchasing it.
“I didn’t want him to hurt himself, or the kids to find it and hurt themselves,” she said about her actions.
According to the New York Times, Hunter warned a family acquaintance at the time, “I know you all think the wrong brother died.”
The local police, the FBI, and an old guy who had been fishing in the garbage for aluminum and plastic would eventually work together to recover the dumped pistol. Reports of a “amicable” breakup between Hallie and Hunter appeared in 2019, less than a week after his father announced his third presidential candidacy.
Hunter married South African filmmaker Melissa Cohen only weeks later, after a passionate six-day affair. They have one son.
Hunter Biden did not testify in his own defense during his trial, but he and other family members listened to heartbreaking evidence from three ex-partners, including Ms Buhle. His daughter Naomi also testified.
In 2019, he spoke up about his issue with addiction, saying, “You can’t get rid of it. You find out how to handle it.
In Beautiful Things, Hunter Biden attributes his survival to his family’s devotion, remembering an intervention that concluded with his father firmly hugging him and saying, “I don’t know what more to do. I’m very terrified. “Tell me what to do.”
The president’s son has resorted to painting as a kind of rehabilitation in recent years, telling the New York Times that it “keeps me away from people and places where I shouldn’t be”.
However, sales of his artwork for up to $500,000 a piece have caused an ethical quandary for the Biden White House.President Biden has supported his son on several occasions, including a heated presidential debate with Donald Trump in 2020.
Ahead of the trial, he said, “I am the President, but I am also a father. Jill and I adore our kid and are overjoyed with the guy he has grown into.However, he has said that if a jury convicted Hunter Biden in this or the next trial, he should not expect to be pardoned.
Business Ventures and Controversies
After graduating from Yale, Hunter worked for MBNA America, a Delaware-based bank holding firm that was ultimately bought by Bank of America. Joe Biden was dubbed “the senator from MBNA” due to his close relationship with the bank, which is one of the largest employers in Delaware and a major contributor to his political campaigns. As Hunter was promoted to executive vice-president, Joe pushed bankruptcy reform legislation that benefited MBNA through the Senate.
Hunter founded a Washington lobbying firm in the early 2000s while still getting bank consultancy income.
According to Politico Magazine, he landed “clients with interests that overlapped with [his father’s] committee assignments and legislative priorities”. He told the New Yorker that the father-son bond was such that neither would discuss lobbying activities with the other.
President Biden has maintained that this is accurate even in the face of more recent charges of malfeasance.
Hunter and another cousin purchased an ill-fated hedge fund business in 2006, just as then-Senator Biden was about to re-assume head of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee. Their time with Paradigm Global Advisors included Joe Biden’s 2008 presidential campaign and his appointment as Vice President under President Barack Obama.
During this period, the fund was linked to multiple suspected fraudsters, including a Texas financier convicted of operating one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in US history. The Bidens denied any misconduct and received no charges. In 2010, they liquidated the fund and refunded the money to investors.
China & Ukraine – The Nexus of Power, Business, and Politics
Hunter’s international business interests have received a lot of attention in recent years, particularly when his father was vice president.
In 2013, he joined the founding board of BHR, a Chinese private equity company, first as an unpaid member and eventually with a 10% ownership share. The firm was incorporated in Shanghai less than a month after Hunter traveled to China with his father on an official vice-presidential trip and met with BHR’s CEO, but simply for “a cup of coffee,” according to the first son.
After his father left office in 2017, Hunter collaborated with Chinese oil magnate Ye Jianming on a natural gas project in Louisiana. The transaction failed when Ye was imprisoned by Chinese authorities on corruption allegations and then went missing.
Hunter’s actions in Ukraine have sparked even more controversy, considering his father was the Obama administration’s point man for US-Ukraine ties. In 2014, he joined the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy business, where he was paid up to $1.2 million (£943,000) annually.
Vice President Biden was advocating for the removal of Viktor Shokin, the country’s chief prosecutor, as part of an anti-corruption campaign at the time. Mr Shokin was ousted by parliament in 2016, but opponents believe that the prosecutor was fired only because he was investigating Burisma. Republicans said Joe and Hunter Biden got $5 million in payments from Burisma executives in return for Mr Shokin’s dismissal. But those charges were debunked when an ex-FBI informant was charged with inventing the whole bribery plot.
A former business associate of Hunter testified that Joe had been on speakerphone multiple times during Hunter’s discussions with different connections. Allegations of corruption were at the heart of President Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, and they are fueling the initial impeachment investigation of President Biden.
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