This presence was not abnormal in itself. First Lady and First Children willingly mobilize in operations that are as much a matter of local diplomacy as of social entertainment – Donald Trump’s family was thus not the last to go to the front as soon as the opportunity arose. But, as discreet as it is, the appearance of Hunter Biden was no less surprising. Because his run-in with the law is once again making headlines, brushing past Republicans and embarrassing the president as he launches his re-election campaign. Because, even more, these disputes mainly concern the dangerous relationships that the businessman has established in China and Ukraine, taking advantage of the notoriety, connections and even support of his father. But aren’t such official banquets the ideal setting for launching or consolidating lucrative businesses?
A childhood marked by drama
We want to think that Joe Biden had not invited his son with such a project. The approach probably came more from the father than from the president, with the concern not to ostracize a man who continues to struggle with serious personal problems (drugs, alcohol, sex), and to show that he continues, on the contrary, to enjoy paternal affection. Joe Biden has repeatedly said that he loves this child and that he is proud of the efforts he is making to break the impasse in which he finds himself.
Joe and Hunter Biden are marked by the same drama. On December 18, 1972, while driving for Christmas with her children, Neilia Hunter, the first wife of the future president, was hit by a truck. She perished in the accident, along with the couple’s daughter, Naomi, who was barely a year old. Two-and-a-half-year-old Hunter and his older brother Beau were seriously injured. It was at their bedside, in the hospital, that Joe was sworn in as a young senator from Delaware – he had just been elected the month before. Hunter was devastated by the drama. His first name was his mother’s name; he named Naomi the first of his three daughters
US President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden and Hunter Biden with his son Beau watch the Independence Day fireworks from the Truman Balcony of the White House in Washington, DC, July 4, 2023. ©AFP gold license holders
Another misfortune will further disrupt family life: the disappearance of Beau, who died of brain cancer at the age of 46, on May 30, 2015. The two brothers were very close and the loss for Hunter was immense – once again, the civil justice his status attests to this closeness: Beau had called his son Robert Hunter, the first names of his brother; Hunter would name Beau Jr the child he would have after his remarriage to South African director Melissa Cohen. “They were one,” said Naomi Biden: “One heart, one soul, one mind. »
Depression, affair, divorce
Hunter sank into depression, leaving her house only to buy booze. Grief ends up uniting brother and widow, Hallie Olivere, who had a three-year affair they resigned themselves to ending just days before Joe Biden announced his presidential candidacy on April 25 2019.
Hunter Biden’s escapades creep into his father’s presidential campaign
Two years earlier, Hunter Biden had finally divorced, after twenty-four years of an often difficult marriage to Kathleen Buhle, a Chicago psychologist whom he had met in 1992 when they were both volunteers for the Volunteer Corps. Jesuits. in Oregon. In a book published in June 2022, If We Break: A Memoir of Marriage, Addiction, and Healing, which has hardly thrilled the critics as it oscillates between banality and sensationalism, Buhle exposes with an obvious thirst for revenge the ordeal endured by the side of a husband. who continually lied, was unfaithful and spent lavishly to satisfy his addictions and lead an extravagant life – to the point of leaving the household in debt.
Discharged from the Navy for cocaine addiction
Hunter Biden’s turpitudes do not date from this time. His alcoholism dates back to adolescence, caused according to him by the trauma of 1972, even if Joe Biden made a point of honor to fill the maternal absence by commuting every day between the Congress of Washington and the family home of Wilmington. , Delaware. The young man studied history at Georgetown University, then law at Yale, two of the most prestigious institutions in the country. That didn’t stop him from taking drugs. Evil would be deeply rooted. Years later, in 2013, after joining the Navy and being sworn in before his father, now Barack Obama’s vice president, Hunter was almost immediately fired after testing positive for cocaine.
The chaotic life of Hunter Biden
This life of a chair stick was to go to prison one day. Hunter Biden now risks taking the path, but for accusations that seem rather minor in view of the five years of investigation of which he is the subject: a case of tax evasion for the years 2017-2018, another concerning the illegal possession of a firearm while using drugs. On June 20, lawyers and prosecutors concluded one of those criminal transactions that American justice is wont to spare the son Biden, in exchange for an admission of guilt, a heavier sentence and possible imprisonment. . At least that’s what they believed since, a month later, a Delaware judge, Maryellen Noreika, torpedoed the agreement by castigating its lack of clarity.
An agent posted abroad?
The defense and the prosecution do not seem to have made the same reading of the document, the first having estimated that it would protect Hunter Biden from any future prosecution. However, the intention of the second is to continue to dig into other files: the affairs of the son Biden in China and Ukraine, and the possibility that he has contravened the Foreign Agents Registration Act which obliges lobbyists linked to foreign governments to register with the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Department of Justice. In China, where he accompanied his father on an official trip in 2013, Hunter Biden was a director and shareholder of the private equity firm BHR which, as it should be under communist rule, has links to power. . In Ukraine, his son Biden also joined the board of local oil and gas giant Burisma in 2014, at a time when his father was seen as having the upper hand in US relations with Ukraine. .
The Republican Obsession
Republicans know Hunter is Joe Biden’s Achilles’ heel, and they have defamed the son to discredit the father, citing damning revelations from a laptop Hunter Biden allegedly left at a Delaware repair shop. This relentlessness became obsessive during the 2020 presidential campaign, after Donald Trump pressured newly elected Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine – an interference that nearly failed and cost the American president his first impeachment. The controversy took a particular turn with the dismissal of the Ukrainian attorney general, Viktor Chokine, in March 2016. At the insistence of Vice President Biden because he wanted to prosecute Burisma for corruption, according to the Republicans. Or because he was, on the contrary, an obstacle to the fight against corruption in his country, according to the Democrats, but also according to the European Union.
It is now up to the “special prosecutor” to shed light. David Weiss took over the post on August 11, having been in charge of the initial investigation, but he finds himself in a position that is unusual and uncomfortable to say the least. He is a Republican whom Donald Trump appointed, in February 2018, federal prosecutor of Delaware. He is also a friend of the Biden family, who often worked with Beau when he was attorney general for the state of Delaware. Those who know him do not doubt his integrity and independence. They recall that during his career, Weiss had condemned prominent Democratic figures. Many elected Republicans, however, say they do not trust him. And yet, if Weiss had been removed from his position by the Attorney General in favor of another special prosecutor, the same people would have cried out about the manipulation of the Democratic administration.
The Delaware Way
The atmosphere therefore lacks serenity, while the file is complex. This is a suspect who is known to have always loved money and often lacked it – to the point that, having become vaguely an artist, because painting was presented to him as therapy, Hunter Biden did not not hesitate to sell his crusts for half a million dollars. The case also has a backdrop of a small state on the East Coast where people pride themselves on practicing the Delaware Way: in this universe where everyone knows each other, political and economic interests marry more than they do. oppose each other, a mechanism that is oiled. , if necessary, with a little “soft corruption”.
Hunter Biden’s private jet flight sparks controversy in the United States: “Six months of alimony”
There is finally, in the Chinese shadow, a president who has not recovered from the loss of a son whom he dreamed of making his heir, and who has transferred all his love to the youngest, more than ever Source of embarrassment, but with whom Joe Biden does not imagine distancing himself.
This article is originally published on news.dayfr.com
