Self-confessed drug addict, with a life of sentimental scandals and shady deals in China o Ukraine, Hunter Bidenthe wayward son of the president of USAadds a new episode to his rebellious life: an accusation for having illegally purchased a weapon for which he could go to prison.
And, as already happened in the campaign of the 2020 presidential electionshis return to the front line of information threatens to complicate the path of re-election for Joe Bidenthe main – and almost only – Democratic bet for the 2024 elections.
Hunter Biden He was charged this Thursday with lying when purchasing a revolver, saying that he was not a drug user. He faces a maximum of 25 years in prison.
Despite attempts to avoid the topic, the White House has made it clear that Biden and his wife, Jill Biden“aman” to Hunter, 53, although the president would not use his power to pardon him if he is convicted.
The indictment filed today is signed by David Weisswho was appointed a few weeks ago as a special prosecutor by the United States Secretary of Justice, Merrick Garlandin an attempt by the Government to demonstrate the independence of the judicial process.
The investigations into Biden Jr. were opened in 2018 during the mandate of Donald Trump and conservatives have relied on them to attack the Democratic president, whom they accuse of not having made any effort to take this investigation to the end.
Political motives aside, the indictment announced today, which does not mention the other crime for which Hunter Biden is also investigated, the irregular declaration of taxes, adds one more dark episode to a life marked by family tragedies.
family tragedies
Born in 1970, Robert Hunter Biden He is the second child that the president had with his first wife, Neilia. In 1972 a car accident killed her and her youngest daughter. Hunter and her older brother survived. Beau.
Hunter studied history at Georgetown Universityin Washingtonand graduated in 1992. Master in advocacy Yale Universityin 1996 he began his career at the bank holding company MBNA and this position was already surrounded by controversy, since Joe Biden, then a senator, promoted legislation that favored the online banking industry.
Another of the great family tragedies in Hunter Biden’s life was the death of his older brother, Beau, in 2015, as a result of a brain tumor.
A dramatic event that worsened his complex relationship with one of the elements that has marked his life: the drugs.
A life of addictions
As he has acknowledged in interviews, Biden Jr. has been a consumer of different types of drugs and alcohol for decades. In 2013 he was kicked out of the Navy for testing positive for cocaine on his first weekend of service.
When his first wife, Kathleen Buhleasked for a divorce and asked a court to freeze his assets for “financial worries for family“since I was spending”extravagantly” money on drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs and gifts for women. He denied these claims.
He did talk about drugs in his memoir “Beautiful Things” and confessed that his addictions worsened when his brother died.
sentimental life
Hunter Biden has five children with three different women: three with his first wife, one with his current wife, Melissa Cohenand a four-year-old girl with Lund Robertsa woman of Arkansas whom he met when he was fighting against his drug addiction.
With the latter he went to court to dispute the paternity of the girl, which ended up being certified by a DNA test.
After Buhle’s divorce after 24 years of marriage, his romance with Hallie, the widow of his deceased brother, was publicized, although they separated shortly after and the president’s son married a South African film director, Melissa Cohenwhom I had just met.
Cloudy business
Hunter Biden’s first major political scandal took place in 2012, when Biden was vice president of Barack Obama and made trips to Ukraine In the midst of the conflict over Crimean peninsula.
Hunter accepted a position on the board of directors of the then largest private gas company in the country, Businesswith a salary of more than $50,0000 per month.
Since then, the question of a possible conflict of interest has been used by Republican figures such as Donald Trump, who accuses, without evidence, the current president of having illegally benefited from his son’s businesses in Ukraine.
But it was in 2018, with Biden already sounding like a presidential candidate, when federal prosecutors led by Trump began an investigation into Hunter’s finances, which showed that he had not paid taxes between 2017 and 2018 and that he had signed agreements for separately with Chinese executives.
In the 2020 presidential campaign the “Hunter theme” was one of the main weapons that Trump used against his rival.
With four criminal charges against him, the accusation against Hunter Biden is a perfect fit for the former president to continue talking about a Biden family network of dark businesses that, for the moment, only exists in his imagination.
