We’ve been seeing him a lot lately, Hunter Biden. He escorted his daughter Naomi to her White House wedding in November. He attended the official dinner in honor of Emmanuel Macron in December. He participated in the traditional Easter egg hunt, still at the White House. In mid-April, he accompanied his father on an official trip to Ireland. At each stage, Joe Biden made a point of presenting it to the public. While the latter has just announced his candidacy for 2024, his youngest son, long in the background, returns to the front of the stage. And yet, Hunter has continued to be a drag.
This 53-year-old lawyer, who lost his mother very young in a car accident, has always been close to his father. He and his brother Beau advised him throughout his political career. But Hunter has continued to accumulate scandals. He is addicted to cocaine and alcohol, as he recounts in a recent book. After his divorce, he begins an affair with his brother’s widow, has a child with an ex-stripper. Above all, he shamelessly uses his name, hence the accusations of influence peddling. He associates with dubious Ukrainian and Chinese businessmen. From 2015, he sits on the board of directors of Burisma, a shady company based in Kiev, earning a salary of 50,000 dollars a month when his father, vice-president, is in charge of the Ukrainian file. Flagrant conflict of interest.
Since then, the black sheep of the family has a new wife, he has taken up painting and says he is sober. But the Republicans are not letting go. They hope to prove that Joe Biden is involved in his son’s schemes. If they are so relentless, it is because the president does not have many pans: “There are few scandals or abuse of power in his administration, his finances are clear”, explains George Edwards, professor of political science at Texas A & M University. They also dream of giving back to the Democrats who denounced the way in which Donald Trump profited, in defiance of the rules, from the largesse of foreign governments during his mandate.
The Biden administration a bit worried
Immediately after regaining control of the House of Representatives last year, conservative elected officials launched several investigations into the Biden family, promising explosive revelations. They are based in particular on emails found in a computer abandoned by Hunter at a repairer. Some were transmitted to the media just before the 2020 presidential election by Rudy Giuliani, the lawyer for candidate Donald Trump. In one of them, dated 2017, an investor associated with Hunter in a partnership project with a Chinese company evokes the possible allocation of shares to “Big Guy”, which, apparently, would refer to Joe Biden. At the time, he was no longer in the White House. The project will not succeed. So far, Republicans haven’t revealed anything implicating the president. At the same time, Hunter Biden has been the subject of a federal investigation since 2018. Initially centered on his actions abroad, it ended up focusing on his tax problems and a false declaration he allegedly made when buying a firearm.
For a long time, son Biden kept a low profile. But he recently surrounded himself with a new, more combative team of lawyers. She threatens her adversaries with proceedings of all kinds and launches lawsuits. “It’s a clever strategy, continues Professor Edwards. Instead of keeping Hunter in the shadows, on the defensive, we put him forward, showing that he has nothing to hide. Thus, we normalize him. “
Will these surveys have an impact on the campaign? “It all depends on whether the Republicans manage to establish a link between Joe Biden and cases of corruption. The administration is a bit worried, which is why it is counter-attacking, estimates Joshua Kendall, author of a book on the daddy-presidents in the White House. The problem with the Republicans is that they went after Hunter in a very aggressive and sensationalized way, which hurts their cause. To convince Democrats and independents, they need to be more measured.”