Hunter Biden | |
|---|---|
 Biden in 2014 | |
| Born | Robert Hunter Biden (1970-02-04)February 4, 1970 (age 56) Wilmington, Delaware, U.S. |
| Education | |
| Spouses | |
| Partner | Hallie Olivere Biden (2016–2019) |
| Children | 5 |
| Parents | |
| Relatives | Biden family |
| Military career | |
| Branch | United States Navy |
| Service years | 2013–2014 |
| Rank | Ensign |
| Unit | U.S. Navy Reserve |
Robert Hunter Biden (born February 4, 1970) is an American attorney and businessman. He is the second son of formerpresidentJoe Biden and his first wife,Neilia Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was a founding board member ofBHR Partners, a Chinese investment company, in 2013, and later served on the board ofBurisma Holdings, one of the largest privatenatural gas producers inUkraine, from 2014 until his term expired in April 2019. He has worked as a lobbyist and legal representative for lobbying firms, ahedge fund principal, and aventure capital and private equity fund investor.
Since early 2019, Hunter and his father have been the targets offalse allegations that Joe pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor to protect Hunter, which intensified after theNew York Post published an article in October 2020 about alaptop computer that had belonged to Hunter Biden. Biden was convicted of three federalfirearms-related felony charges in June 2024 after he had admitted to illegally owning a gun while a drug user. Histax affairs have been under federal criminal investigation since late 2018, and in September 2024, he pleaded guilty to all of the tax charges.
In December 2024, Biden's fatherpardoned him for all federal offenses committed between 2014 and 2024, including any potential offenses not yet discovered. In 2025, he was disbarred in bothWashington D.C. and by theConnecticut bar, which he entered soon after graduating from law school.[1]
Robert Hunter Biden was born on February 4, 1970,[2] inWilmington, Delaware. He is the second son ofNeilia Biden (née Hunter) andJoe Biden.[3] His mother and younger sister Naomi died in an automobile crash on December 18, 1972.[4][5] Biden and his older brotherBeau were also seriously injured but survived. Beau suffered multiple broken bones while Hunter sustained a fractured skull and severe traumatic brain injuries.[6] Both spent several months in the hospital, during which time their father was sworn into the U.S. Senate in January 1973.[7][8][9] Hunter and Beau later encouraged their father to marry again,[10] andJill Jacobs Stevenson became their stepmother in 1977.[3] Biden's half-sisterAshley was born in 1981.[11]
Like his father and brother, Biden attended theCatholic high schoolArchmere Academy inClaymont, Delaware.[3] He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history fromGeorgetown University in 1992.[3] During the year after he graduated from college, he served as aJesuit volunteer at a church inPortland, Oregon, and metKathleen Buhle, whom he married in 1993.[3] After attending theGeorgetown University Law Center for one year, he transferred toYale Law School and graduated in 1996.[3]
After graduating from law school in 1996, Biden accepted a consultant position at thebank holding companyMBNA, whose employees donated more than $200,000 (equivalent to $400,976 in 2024) to his father's senate campaigns over the years.[3][12][13] Biden delayed his start date at MBNA to serve as co-chair for his father's reelection campaign.[14] By 1998, Hunter Biden had risen to the rank of executive vice president.[3] Biden departed from MBNA in 1998. He then served at theUnited States Department of Commerce, focusing onecommerce policy forPresident Bill Clinton's administration.[15]
In 2001, Biden became a lobbyist, co-founding the firm of Oldaker, Biden & Belair.[16] According to Adam Entous ofThe New Yorker, Biden and his father established a relationship in which "[Joe] Biden wouldn't ask Hunter about his lobbying clients, and Hunter wouldn't tell his father about them".[3] In 2001, he was also rehired by MBNA as a consultant, where he was paid a yearly $100,000 retainer until 2005.[14] MBNA's rehiring of Biden was controversial because his father was pushing for passage of theBankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, which was beneficial to the credit card industry and supported by MBNA during Biden's time at the bank.[3][17] The legislation made it more difficult to get bankruptcy protection.[17]
Biden was appointed to a five-year term on the board of directors ofAmtrak by PresidentGeorge W. Bush in 2006.[18] Biden was the board's vice chairman from July 2006 until he was replaced as vice chairman in January 2009.[19] He resigned from the board that February,[20] shortly after his father became vice president. Biden said during his father's vice-presidential campaign that it was time for his lobbying activities to end.[3]
Biden's application for a position in theU.S. Navy Reserve was approved in May 2013.[21] At age 43, Biden was accepted as part of a program that allows a limited number of applicants with desirable skills to receive commissions and serve in staff positions.[22] Biden received an age-related waiver and a waiver for a past drug-related incident; he was sworn in as adirect commission officer by his father in aWhite House ceremony.[21][3] Results of a routineurinalysis taken on Biden's first weekend of reserve duty revealedcocaine in his system.[3][22] He wasdischarged administratively in February 2014.[22][23] Biden attributed the result to having smoked a cigarette that he had asked a group of men outside a store to give him, claiming the cigarette contained cocaine as well as tobacco.[3] He did not appeal the discharge.[24][3]
In 2006, Biden and his uncleJames Biden purchased international hedge fund Paradigm Global Advisors with an $8 million promissory note (equivalent to $12,478,046 in 2024).[16] The joint promotion of the fund by an entity of the troubledStanford Financial Group hastened the unwinding of the company in 2010.[25] In September 2008, Hunter Biden founded a consultancy company named Seneca Global Advisors that offered to help companies expand into foreign markets.[26] Biden was a partner in investment vehicles that included the name "Seneca" to denote his participation.[27] In 2009, Biden, Devon Archer, andChristopher Heinz founded the investment and advisory firmRosemont Seneca Partners.[16] Biden also co-founded venture capital firm Eudora Global.[11] Biden held the position of counsel in the law firmBoies Schiller Flexner LLP in 2014.[3] From 2011 to 2017, Biden was on the board of directors of World Food Program USA, a501(c)(3) charity based in Washington, D.C., that supports the work of the UNWorld Food Programme; he served as board chairman from 2011 to 2015.[28]
A detailed analysis of Hunter Biden's hard drive by NBC News showed that Biden and his firm were paid $11 million (equivalent to $14,848,429 in 2024) from 2013 to 2018,[29] including $3.8 million (equivalent to $5,129,457 in 2024) in payments fromCEFC China Energy,[30] a defunctoil and gas company with links to theChinese Communist Party,[31] as well as from Burisma Holdings.[29] In the U.S. criminal tax case against Biden, prosecutors alleged that he accepted payments from Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu to influence U.S. government agencies regarding a criminal probe in Romania. The allegations dated back to his work for Popoviciu in 2015, during Joe Biden's vice presidency.[32]
From 2013 to 2020, Biden served as a member of the board of the China-based private equity fundBHR Partners, of which he acquired a 10% stake in 2017 at a discount to actual value and with borrowed money.[34][35] The founders of BHR Partners included Biden's Rosemont Seneca Partners investment firm (20% equity), along with US-based Thornton Group LLC (10% equity) and two asset managers registered in China.[36][3][26] The Chinese-registered asset managers are theBank of China (viaBOC International Holdings-backed Bohai Industrial Investment Fund Management) andDeutsche Bank-backedHarvest Fund Management.[37]
In September 2019, while PresidentDonald Trump was accusing Hunter Biden of malfeasance in Ukraine, he also falsely claimed that Biden "walk[ed] out of China with $1.5 billion in a fund" (equivalent to $1,844,787,193 in 2024).[38] Later in 2019,The Wall Street Journal confirmed that Trump was incorrect in claiming that Hunter received this $1.5 billion, stating that Trump had no evidence to support the claim and that he incorrectly interpreted BHR's past fundraising target of $1.5 billion; BHR invested money raised from other companies and did not keep the funds.[39] Trump publicly called upon China to investigate Hunter Biden's business activities there while his father was vice president.[40][41]
Hunter Biden announced his resignation from the board of directors of BHR Partners, effective the end of October 2019, citing "the barrage of false charges" by then-U.S. President Trump.[42][43] This was confirmed by Biden's attorney, who said in November 2021 that his client no longer held any direct or indirect interest in BHR.[44] However, as of April 2020, Chinese business records showed that Hunter Biden remained a board member of BHR.[45] According to his lawyer, Biden had "not received any compensation for being on BHR's board of directors" nor had he received any return on his equity share in BHR.[46] Biden's lawyer George Mesires toldThe Washington Post that BHR Partners had been "capitalized from various sources with a total of 30 million RMB (Renminbi), or about $4.2 million, not $1.5 billion".[38] Biden's solely owned company Skaneateles LLC owned a 10% equity stake in BHR as of December 2020.[47][48] In November 2021, New York Times reported that "Chinese corporate records show Skaneateles remains a part owner of BHR".[44] Skaneateles was dissolved in 2022.
BHR Partners invests Chineseventure capital into tech startups, such as an early-stage investment in Chinese auto hailing appDiDi[39] and cross-border acquisitions in automotive and mining, for example, the purchase of a stake inDemocratic Republic of Congo copper and cobalt producerTenke Fungurume Mining.[49][50]The New York Times reported that BHR Partners helped finance a coal-mining company in Australia that was controlled by a Chinesestate-owned enterprise, assisted a subsidiary of a Chinese defense company in acquiring an auto parts manufacturer in Michigan,[which?] and in 2016, facilitated the $3.8 billion (equivalent to $4,978,674,432 in 2024) purchase of the DRCcobalt mine. A former BHR board member told theTimes that Biden and the other American BHR founder,Devon Archer, were not involved in the mine deal.[44][51][52]
In April 2014, Biden joined the board ofBurisma Holdings owned byUkrainian oligarch and former politicianMykola Zlochevsky, who was facing a money laundering investigation just after theUkrainian revolution.[53][54][55] Biden's business partner, Devon Archer, had joined the board of Burisma several months prior. Biden was hired to help Burisma with requesting assistance from the U.S government to expand its business andcorporate governancebest practices, while still an attorney withBoies Schiller Flexner. A consulting firm in which Biden is a partner was also retained by Burisma.[56][57][58][59] Christopher Heinz,John Kerry's stepson, opposed his partners Devon Archer and Hunter Biden joining the board in 2014 due to thereputational risk.[54] Biden served on the board of Burisma until his term expired in April 2019,[58] receiving compensation of up to $50,000 per month (equivalent to $66,411 in 2024).[58][57] Because Joe Biden played a major role in U.S. policy towards Ukraine, some Ukrainian anti-corruption advocates[60][61] andObama administration officials expressed concern that Hunter Biden having joined the board could create the appearance of aconflict of interest and undermine Joe Biden's anti-corruption work in Ukraine.[3][54] While serving as vice president, Joe Biden joined other Western leaders in encouraging the government of Ukraine to fire the country's top prosecutorViktor Shokin,[62][63] who was widely criticized for blocking corruption investigations.[64][65] TheUkrainian parliament voted to remove Shokin in March 2016.[66][67]
Biden lobbied theU.S. State Department on behalf of Burisma to help secure a potentially lucrative energy project in Italy while his father was still Vice President. In 2016, Biden wrote a letter to the U.S. ambassador to Italy,John R. Phillips, which Biden's lawyer described as seeking to arrange an introduction between Burisma and the then president of Italy'sTuscany regionErnico Rossi, the location of a potential Burisma energy project. A businessman involved in Burisma's project said that the outreach was undertaken at a time when Burisma was having difficulty securing regulatory approval for its Tuscany project. Embassy officials who handled the letter were concerned about the son of the sitting vice president reaching out on behalf of a foreign company, and Biden's request for a meeting was ultimately unmet. As President, Joe Biden released records confirming Hunter Biden's lobbying effort after dropping out of his2024 presidential campaign, and denied being aware of it while vice president.[56][68]
Since early 2019, Hunter and his father Joe Biden have been the subjects of false and baseless claims of corrupt activities in aBiden–Ukraine conspiracy theory pushed by then-U.S. presidentDonald Trump and his allies.[69] Trump and his personal lawyerRudy Giuliani claimed in 2019, without evidence, that Joe Biden had sought the dismissal of Shokin in order to protect his son and Burisma Holdings. Actually, it was the official policy of the United States and theEuropean Union to seek Shokin's removal.[70][60][62][71][72] There has also been no evidence produced of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden in Ukraine.[73][74] The Ukrainian anti-corruption investigation agency stated in September 2019 that its current investigation of Burisma was restricted solely to investigating the period from 2010 to 2012, before Hunter Biden joined Burisma in 2014.[75] Shokin, in May 2019, claimed that he was fired because he had been actively investigating Burisma,[76] but U.S. and Ukrainian officials have stated that the investigation into Burisma was dormant at the time of Shokin's dismissal.[54][76][77] Ukrainian andUnited States State Department sources note that Shokin was fired for failing to address corruption, including within his office.[71][61][78]
In July 2019, Trump ordered the freezing of $391 million (equivalent to $480,874,528 in 2024) in military aid,[79] shortly before a telephone conversation with Ukrainian presidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy in which Trump asked Zelenskyy to initiate an investigation of the Bidens.[80][81] Trump falsely told Zelenskyy that "[Joe] Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution" of his son; Joe Biden did not stop any prosecution, did not brag about doing so, and there is no evidence his son was ever under investigation.[82] TheUnited States House of Representatives initiated a formalimpeachment inquiry on September 24, 2019, against Trump on the grounds that he may have sought to use U.S. foreign aid and the Ukrainian government to damage Joe Biden's2020 presidential campaign.[83] Ukrainian prosecutor generalYuriy Lutsenko said in May 2019 that Hunter Biden had not violated Ukrainian law. After Lutsenko was replaced byRuslan Riaboshapka as prosecutor general, Lutsenko and Riaboshapka said in September and October 2019 respectively that they had seen no evidence of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden.[62][84][85]
During 2019 and 2020, Republican senatorsRon Johnson andChuck Grassley investigated Hunter Biden's involvement with Burisma, as well asallegations that Democrats colluded with the Ukrainian government to interfere in the 2016 election. The chairman of theSenate Intelligence Committee Republican senatorRichard Burr privately expressed concerns to the senators that their inquiries could assist efforts by Russian intelligence to spread disinformation to disrupt American domestic affairs.[86] American intelligence officials briefed senators in late 2019 about Russian efforts to frame Ukraine for 2016 election interference.[87] Johnson said he would release findings in spring 2020, as Democrats would be selecting their 2020 presidential nominee, but instead ramped up the investigation at Trump's urging in May 2020, after it became clear that Joe Biden would be the nominee.[88][89] Trump tweeted a press report about the investigations, later stating that he would make allegations of corruption by the Bidens a central theme of his re-election campaign.[87] Johnson decided in March 2020 against issuing a subpoena for former Ukrainian official Andrii Telizhenko, a Giuliani associate who had made appearances on thepro-Trump cable channelOne America News, after the FBI briefed him about concerns Telizhenko could be spreading Russian disinformation.[90] The State Department revoked Telizhenko's visa in October 2020, and CNN reported the American government was considering sanctioning him as a Russian agent.[91] CNN reported that Vladislav Davidzon, the editor of Ukrainian magazineThe Odessa Review, told CNN that in 2018 Telizhenko offered him money to lobby Republican senators in support of pro-Russian television stations in Ukraine.[92] When Johnson released the final report on the investigation, it contained no evidence that Joe Biden had pushed for Shokin's removal in order to benefit Hunter or Burisma.[93][94]
In June 2020, former Ukrainian prosecutor generalRuslan Riaboshapka stated that an audit of thousands of old case files he had ordered in October 2019 had found no wrongdoing by Hunter Biden. Riaboshapka was described by Zelenskyy as "100 percent my person" during the July 2019 call in which Trump asked him to investigate Biden.[95] Ukrainian lawmakerAndrii Derkach, an associate of Rudy Giuliani with links to Russian intelligence, released in May 2020 alleged snippets of recordings of Joe Biden speaking with Ukrainian presidentPetro Poroshenko during the years Hunter Biden worked for Burisma.[96] The recordings, which were not verified as authentic and appeared heavily edited, depicted Biden linking loan guarantees for Ukraine to the ouster of the country's prosecutor general. The recordings did not provide evidence to support the ongoing conspiracy theory that Biden wanted the prosecutor fired to protect his son.[97] Poroshenko denied in June 2020 that Joe Biden ever approached him about Burisma.[98][99] TheUnited States Department of the Treasury sanctioned Derkach in September 2020, stating he "has been an active Russian agent for over a decade, maintaining close connections with the Russian Intelligence Services". The Treasury Department added Derkach "waged a covert influence campaign centered on cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning U.S. officials in the upcoming 2020 Presidential Election" including by the release of "edited audio tapes and other unsupported information with the intent to discredit U.S. officials".[100][101] Close associates of Derkach were also sanctioned by the Treasury Department in January 2021.[102]United States intelligence community analysis released in March 2021 found that Derkach was among proxies of Russian intelligence who promoted andlaundered misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about Biden "to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration".[103][104]
Two Republicans on a Senate investigation committee in 2020 claimed that Russian businesspersonYelena Baturina, the wife of former Moscow mayorYury Luzhkov, wire-transferred $3.5 million in 2014 (equivalent to $4,648,791 in 2024) to Rosemont Seneca Thornton, of which Biden had previously been a partner.The Washington Post reported in April 2022 that the partners of Rosemont Seneca Thornton had agreed to dissolve the organization before the 2014 wire transfer, though it continued to be operated by Devin Archer to facilitate real estate transactions for eastern and central Asia investors, while Biden was uninvolved. Archer received the $3.5 million wire from Baturina to purchase property inBrooklyn, New York.[27] The Senate report cited unspecified confidential documents and gave no evidence that Biden personally accepted the funds.[105] Biden's attorney denied the report, saying Biden had no financial relationship with Baturina and no stake in the partnership that received the money, nor did he co-found the partnership.[106][107] However, Trump's White House spokeswomanAlyssa Farah repeated the claim, and in a press conference Trump repeatedly asserted that Biden received millions of dollars from the former mayor's wife.[105]
In December 2020, Biden made a public announcement via his attorney that his tax affairs were under federal criminal investigation.[108][109]The New York Times and CNN described the investigation as having started in late 2018 and being related to potential violations of tax andmoney laundering laws and Biden's business dealings in foreign countries, principally China.[108][109]The Wall Street Journal reported that Biden had provided legal and consulting services that generated foreign-earned income, citing a Senate Republicans' report that $4.79 million (equivalent to $5,997,974 in 2024) in wire transfers from entities linked to Chinese energy tycoonYe Jianming and his company,CEFC China Energy, were paying for such services.[110]
The New York Times reported in March 2022 that, since 2018, Biden and possibly others had been under investigation by federal prosecutors in Delaware, with a grand jury convened to subpoena and hear evidence. The investigation examined payments and gifts Biden or his associates had received from foreign interests and whether Biden had violated the law by not registering as a lobbyist under theForeign Agents Registration Act (FARA). TheTimes reported it had acquired emails that were authenticated by people familiar with them and the investigation that appeared to come from a laptop belonging to Biden. One April 2014 email, written by Biden to his business partner as their work with Burisma was about to begin, noted that his father, then the vice president who would soon visitKyiv, should "be characterized as part of our advice and thinking—but what he will say and do is out of our hands". The email also stated that Burisma officials "need to know in no uncertain terms that we will not and cannot intervene directly with domestic policymakers, and that we need to abide by FARA and any other U.S. laws in the strictest sense across the board". Biden wrote that his father's visit "could be a really good thing or it could end up creating too great an expectation. We need to temper expectations regarding that visit." He also wrote that his employer, the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, could help Burisma through "direct discussions atstate,energy and NSC [United States National Security Council]". Other emails showed Biden and his business partner discussing inviting foreign business associates, including a Burisma executive, to attend an April 2015 dinner in Washington, where the vice president would stop by.[111]
A July 2022 report fromCNN authenticated emails which showed that Biden was struggling with large debt and overdue tax bills.[112][113] In October 2022,The Washington Post reported that federal agents had determined months prior that they had assembled enough evidence for a viable criminal case against Biden to charge him with crimes related to making false declarations during a gun purchase, as well as tax-related crimes. The next step was for Delaware U.S. attorneyDavid C. Weiss, a holdover from the Trump administration,[114] to decide on whether to file such charges.[115] Federal investigators had also been examining the lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies, which Burisma retained while Biden sat on its board, for possible illegal lobbying of American officials. There was no indication Biden was a subject of the investigation. Blue Star employees said in Senate testimony that Biden was included in emails about the firm's work but that he was not particularly involved. One of the firm's co-founders said Biden did not direct its work. Blue Star's work came after Burisma's owner was criticized by the United States State Department, and the firm's founders testified the firm had merely approached officials to determine the government's views of Burisma.[116][117]
On June 20, 2023, in a deal with prosecutors, Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges of failure to pay income tax, and to enter a pretrialdiversion program related to a felony gun charge of unlawful possession of a firearm.[118][119][120] Prosecutors recommended two years of probation for the tax charges; the gun charge would be dropped at the end of this period if the conditions of the diversion program had been met successfully.[114] Having the gun charge dropped was conditional on Biden remaining drug-free and never being allowed to own a firearm again.[121] Biden's attorney said the agreement with prosecutors "resolved" the investigation, though the Justice Department said the investigation was "ongoing".
In court on July 26, 2023, federal prosecutors explained that the "ongoing" aspect of the investigation referred to possible charges under theForeign Agents Registration Act (FARA); FARA requires that anyone who acts on the behalf of a foreign government, e.g. China or Ukraine, must register with the Department of Justice and file regular reports on their activities for that government.[122] On July 26, the plea deal was rejected by the presiding judge, who cited concerns over immunity Biden might receive from future charges, and gave 30 days to both the government prosecutors and Biden's defense team to provide additional information.[121] Biden changed his plea from "guilty" to "not guilty".[123][124]
On August 8, Weiss requested appointment as aspecial counsel in the Biden investigation, which attorney generalMerrick Garland granted. Garland announced the appointment on August 11, the same day Weiss announced government and Biden attorneys could not reach agreement on a new plea deal.[125][126] The Justice Department said on September 6 that Weiss would ask a grand jury to return an indictment of Biden on a gun charge by September 29.[127] On September 14, Biden was officiallyindicted in Delaware on threefederal firearms-related charges: two for making false statements on a firearm application form and one for prohibited possession of a firearm.[128] He was arraigned on October 3 and pleaded not guilty to all charges.[129] Legal experts noted that prosecutions for these charges are rare.[130][131] In January 2024, prosecutors urged a judge to not dismiss Biden's gun charge, revealing thatcocaine residue was found in his gun pouch.[132]
On December 7, 2023, Biden was indicted in California on nine tax charges, including three felony and six misdemeanor offenses. The indictment reads that "The Defendant engaged in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019." Biden's lawyer said that Biden had repaid his taxes in full prior to the indictment.[133][134] On January 11, 2024, Biden pleaded not guilty to the tax charges.[135][136] The same day, U.S. District JudgeMark Scarsi scheduled the trial for June 20, 2024.[137][136] The trial was later delayed to September 5, 2024, due to the "needs of the defendant" in preparing for his Delaware trial on firearms charges in June.[138] Biden repeatedly sought to dismiss both tax and gun charges against him, without success.[139][140]
In August 2024, prosecutors alleged that Biden agreed to lobby on behalf of a Romanian businessman seeking to "influence U.S. government agencies" while his father was vice president. The businessman, Gabriel Popoviciu, was under criminal investigation in Romania at the time and hired Biden to assist in fighting his criminal charges through the US government. Prosecutors sought to introduce evidence from Biden's work with Popoviciu as part of his charges on tax evasion.[141][142] A pre-trial hearing for the tax indictment which involved Biden's lawyers would be held on August 21, 2024.[143]
During the final hearing, JudgeMaryellen Noreika ruled that prosecutors could not refer to his upcoming California tax trial, child support proceedings in Arkansas, his discharge from the Navy, or include statements which Biden made at a July 2023 hearing where his plea deal collapsed.[144] However, the prosecution was permitted to bring up Biden's drug use, portions of his memoir, and a summary of data from his laptop, phone, andiPad.[144][145]
Biden's trial began on June 3, 2024, on charges of unlawfully possessing a gun as a drug user, lying on a federal form when he bought the gun, and making a false statement about information required to be collected by a federally licensed gun dealer. The charges stemmed from a gun purchased and possessed by Biden in October 2018. During the trial, three of Biden's former partners testified regarding Biden's drug usage and gun purchase.[145] On June 11, Biden was found guilty on three felony charges for federal gun violations.[146][147] The conviction made Biden the first child of a sitting U.S. president to be convicted in a criminal trial.[148] Due to his conviction on felony charges, Biden's license to practice law in Washington, D.C. was suspended.[149] Biden was scheduled to be sentenced on December 12, 2024, which did not occur due to him being pardoned by his father on December 1.[150]
On September 5, 2024, Biden's defense lawyer Abbe Lowell revealed that Biden would change his plea from not guilty to guilty in the federal tax case.[151] Biden had been indicted with three felony charges– one tax evasion count and two counts of filing false returns – and six misdemeanor charges.[152] Under this proposed plea agreement, Biden would have accepted both a sentence and the strength of evidence against him, but also maintained his innocence.[153][154] Later in the day, it was reported that this plea offer would not be accepted by the prosecution.[155] Initially, Judge Scarsi would neither accept the initial plea offer or call off the trial, but also did not make a final ruling and would opt to make a decision about the plea offer at a later time.[153][156]
Prosecutors said they would reject an Alford plea.[157] However, Scarsi accepted a guilty plea by the end of the day, with Biden pleading guilty to all nine charges.[158] During his plea hearing, Biden responded "Yes" after Scarsi asked him "Do you agree you committed every element of the charges in the indictment?"[158] Biden was scheduled to be sentenced on December 16, 2024, and he could have faced up to 17 years in prison. Former federal prosecutor, Tom Dupree, told CBS News he expected the judge to impose a sentence of fewer than five years. President Biden, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, First Lady Jill Biden, and White House spokesperson Andrew Bates repeatedly stated that the president would decline to pardon Hunter or commute his sentence.[158][150]
Although President Joe Biden andhis administration stated on multiple occasions that he would not pardon his son, on December 1, 2024, Biden issued afull and unconditional pardon for his son.[159] The pardon covered all federal offenses committed between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024, including his tax charges, gun charges, and any undiscovered charges within that time. In an official White House statement from President Biden, he said that he believed his son was "selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted", and blamed political pressure for the failure of a plea deal for Hunter.[160][161] He concluded by saying "I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision."The New York Times reported that the plea deal fell apart due to the presiding judge questioning its unusual construction, which violated a basic tenet of federal guilty pleas against having side deals in the plea agreement.[162]
In court filings subsequent to the pardon, special counsel Weiss stated "there was none and never has been any evidence of vindictive or selective prosecution in this case".[163] Judge Scarsi stated that President Biden's characterizations "stand in tension with the case record" and that the Constitution does not "give the president the authority to rewrite history".[164] The scope of the pardon was unusually broad and legal experts could recall onlyRichard Nixon as someonegiven similar terms for a pardon, for a term between 1969 and 1974.[165][166][150] The breadth of the pardon includes Hunter Biden's "entire tenure on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, as well as much of his other international work, including in China."[167]
The pardon received bipartisan criticism from members of Congress as harming the justice system.[168][169] In the months leading up to Hunter's scheduled sentencing, the President had made repeated statements that he would not use the pardon authority for his own son. He and his staff continued to state that there would be no pardon for Hunter as late as November, although internal staff discussions affirmed that the option for a pardon would remain on the table even as Biden publicly stated otherwise.[170][150] Hunter issued the following statement in response to the pardon:
I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction – mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport, I will never take the clemency I have been given today for granted and will devote the life I have rebuilt to helping those who are still sick and suffering.[171]
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On October 14, 2020, twenty days prior to the2020 United States presidential election, theNew York Post published an article based on content provided to the publication byDonald Trump's personal attorneyRudy Giuliani and former chief strategistSteve Bannon. The article concerned what thePost said was a laptop computer that had belonged to Hunter Biden and that was allegedly left for repairs at aWilmington, Delaware, computer shop. According to the narrative in thePost article, this device contained an email that referenced a "meeting" between Joe Biden and Vadym Pozharskyi, a Burisma advisor.[173]
The article's veracity was strongly questioned at the time by manymainstream media outlets as well as dozens of current and former intelligence officials for possibly being a Russian disinformation campaign.[174][175] As of March 25, 2022,Vox reported that there was no evidence to corroborate the intelligence officials' suspicions that the laptop leak was part of a "Russian plot".[172]
In January 2024, federal prosecutors stated that they had possession of a laptop computer which Hunter Biden left at the computer store and confirmed that the device contained files also found in cloud backups to Biden's Apple account.[176] In June 2024, the laptop and its contents were utilized as evidence during a federal court trial of Hunter Biden for firearms charges. FBI investigators testified at the trial, confirming the authenticity of the laptop, and stating that they had cross-referencing texts, emails, and messages found on the laptop with Apple and had verified the serial number on the laptop. Prosecutors also introduced the invoice from the repair shop as evidence.[177][178] Biden was deposed by the House Judiciary and Oversight committees on February 28, 2024, which discussed emails found on the laptop. Biden stated during the deposition that he did not recall sending the laptop for repairs.[179][180]
In February 2023, Hunter Biden's attorneys wrote to theJustice Department National Security Division asking that they criminally investigate "individuals for whom there is considerable reason to believe violated various federal laws in accessing, copying, manipulating, and/or disseminating Mr. Biden's personal computer data". A similar letter was sent to theAttorney General of Delaware. The letters named Giuliani, Bannon, Mac Isaac (owner of the Wilmington computer repair shop where the laptop was abandoned), and others.[181][182] The special counsel assigned to the case later described Hunter Biden's claim of right-wing bias as "fiction designed for a Hollywood script".[176]
Another event resulting from discovery of the laptop occurred in January 2023: an anonymous Twitter account posted a rental application found on the laptop, leading to a false claim that in 2018 Hunter Biden had paid rent while residing at his father's Delaware home, whereclassified documents had been found.James Comer, chair of theHouse Oversight Committee that wasinvestigating the Biden family, inquired whether it was evidence that Hunter Biden illicitly provided money from his foreign business activities to his father. The document was determined to be a quarterly rental payment for office space at theHouse of Sweden inWashington, D.C.[183]
During his father's presidency, Hunter emerged as one of six key individuals who insulated Joe from scrutiny and acted as an intermediary between him and others.[184] After a poorpresidential debate performance by Joe in June 2024 caused intensified public concern about his age and fitness for the presidency, Hunter helped Joe with speech preparation and began joining meetings with the president and his staffers.[185] Hunter maintained daily, often hourly contact with his father on calls. Joe increasingly relied on Hunter for advice, and Hunter emerged as one of the strongest voices in Joe's circle urging him not to drop out of hisreelection campaign.[186][187][188][189]
Hunter had been a regular presence in public White House events, but his increased involvement in Biden's presidency and campaign led to surprise and concern from White House staffers. After Joe's poor debate performance, Hunter advocated for Joe to fire some of his top staffers, includingAnita Dunn andBob Bauer. Hunter also began acting as a "de facto gatekeeper" for access to the president.[187][189][190] During an interview withAndrew Callaghan in July 2025—his first interview since the 2024 presidential election—Biden castigatedDavid Axelrod,David Plouffe,Anita Dunn,George Clooney,Jake Tapper,James Carville, and others, whom he blamed to various degrees for purportedlyforcing his father to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race.[191][192][193] Politico referred to Biden's statements in the interview as "a view of history that is simply inconsistent with the facts".[194]
Between 2023 and 2024, Hunter privately sued numerous individuals, organizations, and the U.S. Government alleging various instances of invasion of privacy and defamation. In September 2023, Biden filed suit against theIRS, claiming unlawful disclosures of his tax return information in relation to two IRS employees who provided information to members of Congress.[195] The D.C. District Court dismissed his claim under the Privacy Act in September 2024, and Biden dropped the suit altogether in 2025.[196] In 2023, Biden suedGarrett Ziegler's Marco Polo organization, accusing the group of invasion of privacy for publishing 128,000 of his emails that were recovered from his lost laptop computer.[197] In March 2025, Biden sought to have the case dismissed due to his worsening personal financial situation and inability to continue to pay for his own legal representation.[197]
In 2024, Biden suedRudy Giuliani alleging Giuliani was responsible for the "total annihilation" of his privacy due to his involvement in releasing data from his laptop computer.[198] He dropped the lawsuit shortly thereafter.[198] The same year, he suedFox News for airing images taken from the laptop, but dropped the lawsuit without explanation the following month.[199] Three months later, however, he resurrected the lawsuit in state court.[200] In a statement, Fox News described the second lawsuit as "devoid of any merit".[200] In June 2025, Biden was sued byWinston & Strawn for over $50,000 in unpaid legal fees from its representation of him in his federal criminal cases.[201]
In February 2020,The New York Times reported that Biden had been painting as an "undiscovered artist" in hisHollywood Hills home. The report also displayed some of his paintings, including "Untitled #4 (a study in ink)" and "Untitled #3 (a signed work)".[202] Biden's art dealer,Georges Bergès, hosted a private viewing for Biden in Los Angeles in fall 2021, followed by an exhibition in New York.[203] Biden's paintings were put up for sale for as much as $500,000 per painting (equivalent to $607,496 in 2024), withKevin Morris purchasing $875,000 (equivalent to $1,063,119 in 2024) worth of his art.[204] Another buyer was Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a prominent California Democratic Party donor who was appointed to theU.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad by Joe Biden.Business Insider was unable to verify how much Hirsh Naftali spent on the art, nor whether the purchase occurred before or after her appointment. An ethicist interviewed by the news website said that the purchase was ethically problematic, particularly if it occurred before her appointment, as "it might be perceived as aquid pro quo."[205] The purchases provoked concerns about possible conflicts of interest and a lack of transparency.[206][207] According to court filings by Biden, between December 2021 and December 2023, he sold approximately $1.5 million (equivalent to $1,822,489 in 2024) of his paintings.[208] From December 2023 to March 2025, he sold $36,000 worth (equivalent to $43,740 in 2024).[208]
His Washington D.C. law license was suspended in 2024, thoughNBC News reported that it was unclear what impact the suspension would have on his livelihood as he was currently working as an artist.[209] In January 2025, his rental home was damaged and left uninhabitable during thePalisades Fire and he had difficulty finding new housing, resulting in him experiencing homelessness. By this point, he was several million dollars in debt and his income severely impacted by flagging interest in his memoir, which was selling less than 200 copies per month. In court filings, Biden averred that he had anticipated earning money from invitations for paid speaking engagements, but no such invitations had materialized.[210][211] In April 2025, Biden consented to disbarment in Washington D.C. in order to avoid disbarment proceedings over his criminal convictions.[212]
In March 2025, Hunter's Secret Service detail was withdrawn on the direction of Donald Trump. Prior to the end of his term, Joe Biden had ordered an extended period of post-presidency protection for Hunter.[213] In August 2025,Melania Trump sent a letter demanding that Biden retract statements he made about her, Donald Trump, andJeffrey Epstein during an interview earlier that month withChannel 5 with Andrew Callaghan. Biden had attributed the information to journalistMichael Wolff.[214] In a subsequent interview, Biden refused to apologize or retract his statements.[215] In December 2025, Waterbury, Connecticut based Judge Trial Referee Patrick L. Carroll III disbarred Biden from theConnecticut bar, which Biden entered his in 1997 a year after he graduated fromYale Law School, after finding that Biden violated state's attorney conduct rules.[1]
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In 1993, Biden marriedKathleen Buhle.[3] They have three daughters: Naomi (named after Biden's sister),[216] Finnegan, and Maisey.[11] The couple formally separated in October 2015, and divorced in 2017.[217][218] Buhle's 2022 memoirIf We Break documents her account of the relationship.[219] In 2016, Biden began a relationship with his brother's widow,Hallie Olivere Biden.[220][3] The relationship ended in 2019.[3][221][222]
Between 2017 and 2018, Biden had relationships withZoë Kestan and Lunden Alexis Roberts.[222] The relationship with Roberts resulted in the birth of Biden's fourth daughter, Navy Joan Roberts, in August 2018.[223][224] Biden initially denied that the child was his, but aDNA test, conducted as part of a paternity suit filed in May 2019 by Roberts, confirmed he is the father. The lawsuit was settled in March 2020 after Biden agreed to pay Roberts $20,000 a month in child support (equivalent to $25,044 in 2024).[225][226] Biden filed a motion in September 2022 to reduce his child support payments, on the basis of reduced income; Roberts opposed this request and also petitioned the Arkansas court to change the child's surname to Biden, so that his daughter might benefit from associations with Biden's family.[227] Biden and Lunden Roberts reached a settlement in June 2023 in which Biden agreed to give several of his paintings to their daughter and pay an undisclosed monthly amount in child support until she turns 18. Biden also agreed to assist with college tuition. Roberts agreed to drop her petition to change their daughter's surname.[228][229][230] As of December 2024, Biden has not met with Navy Joan in-person, and onlymet with her virtually. In December 2024, Biden stopped the virtual meetings, which Lunden Roberts believes was in response to her publishing a memoir about her relationship with him.[231]
Biden married South African filmmaker Melissa Cohen in May 2019, within a week of first meeting her.[24][232] Their son, named Beau in honor of Biden's brother, was born in March 2020 in Los Angeles.[233][234]
Biden has abused drugs and alcohol throughout his adult life, which he has detailed in his 2021 memoir.[235][236] He believes his addiction issues are linked to episodes of family loss he suffered,[237] beginning with the 1972 motor vehicle accident that killed his mother and sister.[238] Biden said that his family never talked much with him about the accident, and this allowed the emotional trauma he felt to remain unresolved; it worsened following the death of his brother, Beau.[237] Over the past two decades, Biden has been in multiplesubstance abuse rehabilitation programs, each followed by an interval of sobriety followed by relapse. At his worst, Biden stated that he was "smokingcrack every 15 minutes".[239] The $11 million (equivalent to $14,848,429 in 2024) Biden and his firm were paid from 2013 to 2018 fueled his addiction. In his memoir, he wrote that the money "turned into a major enabler during my steepest skid into addiction" and "hounded me to spend recklessly, dangerously, destructively. Humiliatingly. So I did."[29] He had anintervention in early 2019.[240]
Biden releasedBeautiful Things, a memoir of the trauma of the accident that claimed his mother and sister, and his later addiction struggles, on April 6, 2021.[241]The New York Times described the book as "equal parts family saga, grief narrative and addict's howl".[242] In his memoir, Biden claims to have no memory of Lunden Roberts, with whom he has a daughter. Roberts characterized the claim as "the greatest publicgaslighting of all time".[231]
There's no reason to think that Biden backed MBNA's position because his son worked there—senators normally line up with their home state's major employers' policy priorities—it's more like Hunter got the job due to his dad's overall cozy relationship with the company.
The dealings got the younger Mr. Biden a discounted stake in a private-equity firm in China... the cost for Mr. Biden's 10% stake, at $420,000, was based on BHR's startup value in 2013, filings show. Of that, at least a third was provided in the form of loans from other BHR principals, according to people familiar with the situation.
Business records show that Hunter Biden is still listed as a board member of Chinese private equity firm BHR Partners, despite his lawyer saying in November that Biden had resigned from the position. Biden remains on the board and still has a 10 percent equity stake in BHR, which manages $2.1 billion in assets
starting in August 2017, entities linked to CEFC's Mr. Ye executed the wire transfers listed as covering legal and advisory costs totaling $4.79 million to Mr. Biden's Washington law firm, Owasco PC... Mr. Biden's October 2019 statement, issued through his lawyer, Mr. Mesires, stopped short of promising he would divest foreign holdings. Corporate records in China suggest he hasn't. A Delaware-registered corporation, Skaneateles LLC, controlled by Mr. Biden, still owns 10% of the Chinese private-equity firm BHR, the records show
Messrs. Trump and Giuliani have suggested that Joe Biden pushed for the firing of Ukraine's general prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, in March 2016 to stop an investigation into Burisma. In Ukraine, government officials and anticorruption advocates say that is a misrepresentation ... Mr. Shokin had dragged his feet into those investigations, Western diplomats said, and effectively squashed one in London by failing to cooperate with U.K. authorities ... In a speech in 2015, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Otto Pyatt, called the Ukrainian prosecutor "an obstacle" to anticorruption efforts
[Former ambassador to UkraineJohn E. Herbst]: 'By late fall of 2015, the EU and the United States joined the chorus of those seeking Mr. Shokin's removal as the start of an overall reform of the Procurator General's Office. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden spoke publicly about this before and during his December visit to Kyiv' [...] [Assistant secretary of stateVictoria Nuland ]: "[W]e have pegged our next $1 billion loan guarantee, first and foremost, to having a rebooting of the reform coalition so that we know who we are working with, but secondarily, to ensuring that the prosecutor general's office gets cleaned up.'
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday he wants and deserves to meet the anonymous whistleblower at the center of the fast-moving scandal that has triggered an impeachment probe against him ... Brandishing what he said were affidavits incriminating Biden's son Hunter over his work at a Ukrainian company, Giuliani said Trump was duty bound to raise the issue with Kiev. Trump and his allies claim Biden, as Barack Obama's vice president, pressured Kiev to fire the country's top prosecutor to protect his son Hunter, who sat on the board of a gas company, Burisma Holdings, accused of corrupt practices. Those allegations have largely been debunked and there has been no evidence of illegal conduct or wrongdoing in Ukraine by the Bidens.
Trump pressed Zelenskiy to investigate the business dealings of the son of his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic front-runner to challenge Trump in an election next year. Zelenskiy agreed. Biden's son Hunter worked for a company drilling for gas in Ukraine. There has been no evidence of wrongdoing by either Biden.
Though the timing raised concerns among anti-corruption advocates, there has been no evidence of wrongdoing by either the former vice president or his son.
There is no evidence of any wrongdoing by the Bidens.
But despite Trump's continued claims, there's no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of either Biden.
(No evidence of wrongdoing was found on the part of Hunter Biden or his father. Mr. Trump denied doing anything improper.)
In court on Wednesday, prosecutors said there was still the possibility of additional charges against the younger Biden under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires anyone acting on behalf of a foreign government to file reports on their activities with the Justice Department.... The judge asked if the continuing investigation could yield additional charges such as violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. "Yes," prosecutor Leo Wise replied.
no evidence has emerged to back up suspicions from former intelligence officials, backed by Biden himself, that the laptop's leak was a Russian plot.
Hunter Biden took aim at several critics of his father during his interview with Callaghan, including actor George Clooney, who penned a New York Times op-ed urging the former president to drop out, and former Obama White House staffers like David Axelrod. "David Axelrod, who had one success in his political life, and that was Barack Obama, and that was because of Barack Obama, not because of fuck— David Axelrod," Hunter Biden said.
"Fuck him!" Biden shouts. "Fuck him and everybody around him!" He then launches into a long tirade about Clooney. "I don't have to be fucking nice! Number one. I agree with Quentin Tarantino. Fucking George Clooney is not a fucking actor. He is a fucking, like, I don't know what he is. He's a brand."
Bruce Weinstein, a professional ethicist and ethics trainer, told Insider that the timing of Hirsh Naftali's purchase was significant. "If it was done after her appointment, and she likes the painting, it's less of an issue," he said. "It's more of an issue if she's deciding to buy it beforehand. Then it might be perceived as a quid pro quo."
His income before December 2023, according to the documents, came from sales of his artwork and his memoir Beautiful Things. "In the 2 to 3 years prior to December 2023, I sold 27 pieces for art at an average price of $54,481.48," Biden said in the filing. "But since then I have only sold 1 piece of art for $36,000."
