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On a Saturday in September 2019 the then Democrat candidate for president Joe Biden arrived at the Polk County steak fry near Des Moines in Iowa for a party fundraising event.
As the crowd, many sitting in canvas chairs, waited for him to speak, the accompanying media contingent huddled around him, seeking a few words.
A Fox News reporter raised the business affairs of the candidate’s son, Hunter Biden. How many times had he spoken to his son about his overseas business dealings?
“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings”, Joe Biden said.
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Nearly four years later Biden is still being pursued by his political opponents about this comment, whether it was accurate and what involvement, if any, did he have with his son’s business interests abroad.
For years Donald Trump has used the business affairs of Joe Biden’s son as a punchline at rallies. “Hunter Biden is corrupt” he has said to cheers from the audience.
Trump and his Republican party allies have sought to use controversies and allegations surrounding Hunter Biden, particularly his business affairs in Ukraine and in China, to try discredit his father.
Republicans have sought to enmesh Biden snr into these allegations of impropriety.
In recent months after Republicans took control of the US House of Representatives and Trump faced his own allegations of criminal behaviour, these efforts have intensified.
Republicans have highlighted allegations about a $5 million bribery scheme originating in Ukraine which Biden snr has dismissed as “a bunch of malarkey”.
Just hours after he was arraigned in court in Miami last month, Trump promised that if re-elected he would appoint a special counsel to “go after” Joe Biden and the entire “Biden crime family”.
And in recent days the speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy suggested the handling of an investigation into Hunter Biden could lead to moves to impeach the president’s attorney general Merrick Garland.
[ Republican investigations into Hunter Biden will continue despite deal on tax and gun issues ]
It is no secret that Hunter Biden has had a troubled life.
At aged three his mother and his baby sister were killed in a car crash as they went shopping for a Christmas tree. Hunter and his older brother Beau, were severely injured.
As he got older drink and drugs became a part of his life. He first bought crack cocaine at age 18, said he could drink five times as much as other people and spent time in and out of rehab.
In 2013 he was discharged from the US navy Reserves on his first day after testing positive for cocaine.
But when his brother contracted cancer and later died in 2015, he seemed to go off the rails completely.
In his 2021 autobiography Beautiful Things he set out the depths of his addiction.
“I’ve bought crack cocaine on the streets of Washington DC, and cooked up my own inside a hotel bungalow in Los Angeles. I’ve been so desperate for a drink that I couldn’t make the one-block walk between a liquor store and my apartment without uncapping the bottle to take a swig. In the last five years alone, my two-decades-long marriage has dissolved, guns have been put in my face, and at one point I dropped clean off the grid, living in $59-a-night Super 8 motels.”
He had an affair with the wife of his dead brother and later acknowledged DNA evidence that he fathered a child with a woman he does not recall meeting. He bought crack from a homeless addict who later moved in with him.
The president’s son is now sober. He has remarried and has a young child. Last month the White House said Joe Biden and the first lady Jill Biden “love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life”. Hunter Biden accompanied his father on his four-day visit to Ireland in April.
Hunter Biden studied law at Yale and has had a variety of jobs, including in financial services and as a lobbyist. He served on a number of important boards. However, it was his appointment in 2014 as a director of Burisma, an energy company in Ukraine, that was to prove hugely controversial.
More recent assessments suggest much of the laptop material is genuine.
He had no special expertise in gas or the politics or economics of Ukraine. So his reported monthly payment of up to $50,000 generated suspicions that his engagement was largely linked to his family name and his father being vice-president.
He said he worked to help Burisma comply with anti-corruption laws and related demands for transparency from the US and the European Union.
In his book he accepted that his name was “a coveted credential” but said his response had been “to work harder so that my accomplishments stand on their own”.
Joe Biden, as vice-president, was involved in the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy and critics wanted to know if Hunter was essentially peddling influence with his father for money.
Joe Biden, along with a number of governments in European countries, had pressed the Ukrainian government to oust a prosecutor named Viktor Shokin.
Shokin’s office had been investigating Burisma and Trump portrayed the issue as Biden seeking to do a favour for the company that was paying his son.
In advance of the 2020 election Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani focused extensively on Ukraine.
Allegations that Trump sought to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens by holding up security aid led to his first impeachment. It was against the backdrop of Trump’s call to the Ukrainian government that the question had been asked at the steak fry about Biden’s knowledge of his son’s overseas business affairs.
An abandoned laptop alleged to belong to Hunter Biden came into the possession of Giuliani which provided a whole host of leads for critics.
Apart from sexually explicit pictures and images of drug taking, the laptop also contained thousands of emails about Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
The New York Post ran stories based on the laptop. However, there were fears the laptop material was being manipulated to interfere with the then impending 2020 election. About 50 former intelligence officers said the laptop had “all the classic earmarks” of a Russian disinformation campaign. Twitter then blocked tweets about the stories.
However, more recent assessments suggest much of the laptop material is genuine.
The Washington Post in March 2022, partially based on the laptop files, reported that a Chinese energy conglomerate and its executives paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by Hunter Biden and his uncle, the brother of Joe Biden.
In one email a former business associate of Hunter Biden wrote about the possible equity distribution arising from a deal with a Chinese company.
The email contains the phrase: “10 held by H for the big guy?” .
On the American right there have been widespread allegations that the “big guy” is Joe Biden and suggestions he was due to receive 10 per cent of the proceeds.
However, the email’s author told the Wall St Journal in 2020 that Joe Biden was not involved.
Ironically while Trump railed about Hunter Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign, the US department of justice was quietly carrying out its own inquiries into his activities. Testimony from a whistleblower, released recently by a congressional committee, said it was first opened in November 2018 as an offshoot of an investigation by the US revenue service “into a foreign-based amateur online pornography platform”. No further details were provided.
Just weeks after his father won the election, Hunter Biden confirmed that he was under federal investigation over his tax affairs.
Two years later and with Republicans now in control of the House of Representatives – and Trump facing two criminal trials – Hunter Biden’s overseas business and the federal investigation have essentially morphed into general allegations of corruption.
Republicans immediately condemned the deal as ‘two-tier justice’ due to his family name.
Republicans have raised an FBI document from 2020 which reported a source who had a conversation with a business figure in Ukraine about Hunter Biden. The FBI source said the business figure had said to have paid a $5 million bribe to Joe Biden and that he had a series of tape recordings. Biden has denied the charge and no substantive evidence has emerged to date. Neither, as yet, have the tapes.
Last month, court filings revealed that a deal had been reached in principle with federal authorities to settle the tax investigation. This had been expanded to include an examination of his application to buy a gun. In the application he denied being a drug user at a time when he was heavily abusing crack cocaine.
He is expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanour tax offences and to admit to felony gun possession as part of a “pretrial diversion agreement”. If approved by a judge, he is unlikely to go to prison.
Republicans immediately condemned the deal as “two-tier justice” due to his family name.
Two whistleblowers subsequently told Congress that senior figures in the US revenue service and the FBI had interfered with the tax case. They said the US department of Justice vetoed questions about “the big guy”.
One whistleblower said the US attorney in Delaware had sought to bring more serious charges in Washington and in California but that this was rejected by the US department of justice. He said the US attorney had sought special counsel status as part of the investigation but that this was also turned down.
However, the US attorney – originally a Trump appointee – had earlier written to the House judiciary committee stating that his decisions had been made “without reference to political considerations”.
US attorney general Merrick Garland also denied the whistleblower’s claims.
The whistleblower also highlighted an alleged WhatsApp message from July 2017 to a Chinese businessman regarding an outstanding payment.
“I am sitting here with my father. We would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter Biden allegedly wrote.
Supporters of the president have argued that in July 2017 Joe Biden was a private citizen who at that time was not expected to run for office again. Hunter Biden at that point was in the middle of a drug addiction crisis.
Republicans are taking the allegations seriously and McCarthy last week raised the prospect of impeaching Garland over the handling of the investigation into Hunter Biden.
The White House last month dismissed the Republicans’ overall claims of corruption against the Bidens as politically motivated.
“Everything in their so-called investigation seems to be mysteriously missing: informants, audio tapes, and most importantly of all – any credible evidence.”
On Wednesday Joe Biden was asked directly whether he was involved with his son’s “Chinese shakedown” text message.
“No, I wasn’t,” he said.
Background: All the presidents’ troublesome family members
US presidents facing controversy over the behaviour - or alleged behaviour - of a family member is nothing new in Washington.
Billy Carter’s Gadafy links
Billy Carter, the colourful younger brother of president Jimmy Carter, caused headaches for his administration in the 1970s.
Initially it was all relatively harmless, with Billy becoming the frontman for a brand of beer. However, things were different when he developed links with the regime of Muammar Gadafy in Libya.
In 1980 he received a $200,000 loan drawn from the account of the Libyan Washington embassy. He was subsequently forced to registered as a foreign agent after a court order.
Roger Clinton’s brotherly pardon
On his final day in presidential office in 2001, Bill Clinton pardoned his half brother, Roger Clinton, who had served a one -year prison sentence for cocaine possession.
He later faced investigation by opposition Republicans in Congress over allegations of lobbying for clemency for others.
Neil Bush’s Silverado connections
Neil Bush, son of president George HW Bush and brother of president George W Bush, faced investigation over his role as an outside director in a Denver-based saving and loan association – Silverado Savings and Loan – which went bankrupt costing US taxpayers about $1 billion
Donald Nixon’s burger-money loan
Richard Nixon’s brother Donald Nixon wanted in the 1950s to establish a chain of burger restaurants. He allegedly borrowed $200,000 from the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. When Nixon ran for president against John F Kennedy in 1960 he had to answer questions about the loan. During the later Watergate era, it was reported that Nixon ordered the secret service to bug his brother’s phone.
Roosevelt’s dog and a warship rescue
On occasion the source of controversy for presidents did not have to be human relative – even pets could be in the firing line. While running for re-election in 1944, Franklin D Roosevelt faced allegations from his Republican opponent that he had spent millions of dollars sending an US warship to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska in 1943 to pick up his dog. The story was that the president’s pet had been left behind after Roosevelt visited the islands after they were recaptured from the Japanese in 1943.