In the summer, it seemed that the son of the American president could get away with his dodgy affairs, but it seems that he cannot escape from being called to account for tax evasion either.
The storm clouds still haven't cleared from the head of US President Joe Biden's son Hunter, and it looks like they won't for some time. In July, 53-year-old Hunter Biden appeared to be able to avoid prison time in a plea deal with prosecutors. However, the deal was ultimately not approved by the court, and Hunter was later charged with gun violations.
In addition, proceedings were initiated against him recently for tax evasion. In addition, the Republicans were not idle this year either, they initiated impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden in Congress, as he allegedly abused his power when he straightened out his son's career.
But how did the son of the American president get here? Here's a look at Hunter Biden's tumultuous affairs.
Family tragedies
Hunter Biden has been haunted by his personal problems for a long time. He was just two years old in December 1972 when, less than six weeks after his father was elected to the US Senate, a truck plowed into the family car. In the accident, his mother and younger sister, Naomi, were killed, while he suffered a fractured skull, and his older brother, Beau, suffered a broken leg.
His father is a teetotaler, but Hunter Biden began drinking as a teenager and admitted to using cocaine in college. He went to rehab several times. According to the New Yorker, after the death of his older brother Beau in 2015, he drank excessively, sometimes leaving the house only to buy vodka.
And while his private life issues would not be public, in 2018, two months after he finished rehab, Hunter bought a handgun.
He lied on the firearm use form that he was not using drugs at the time.
Biden pleaded not guilty in October to the charges, which carry up to 10 years in prison.
Right time, right place
After graduating from Yale, Hunter worked for the bank holding company MBNA America, which was later acquired by Bank of America. Joe Biden's close ties to the bank — one of Delaware's largest employers and a major backer of his political campaigns — earned him the moniker "MBNA's Senator." It is a "strange" coincidence that when Hunter Biden was promoted to Executive Vice President,
his father had just passed a bankruptcy reform bill favorable to MBNA through the Senate.
In the early 2000s, while still working as a consultant at the bank, Hunter Biden opened a lobbying office in Washington.
According to the BBC, he then "acquired clients whose interests overlapped with his father's commissions and legislative priorities". All this despite the fact that, according to the confession of the father-son duo, neither of them spoke to the other about lobbying.
In recent years, there has been much talk of Hunter's foreign business interests while his father was vice president. In 2013, he became a founding board member of BHR, a Chinese private equity investment company, with a 10 percent stake in the fund. The company was incorporated in Shanghai less than two weeks after Hunter Biden flew with his father on an official vice presidential trip to China and
met the CEO of BHR, but only for a "cup of coffee"
- or so Hunter claimed later. After his father left office in 2017, Hunter partnered with Chinese oil magnate Ye Jianming on a natural gas project in Louisiana. The deal fell through after Ye was detained by Chinese authorities on corruption charges and then disappeared.
Hunter Biden's dealings in Ukraine have sparked even more controversy, as his father was in charge of US-Ukraine relations in the Obama administration. In 2014, Hunter joined the board of directors of the largest Ukrainian energy company, Buriszma Holdings , where he received 1.2 million dollars (425 million forints) a year.
Viktor Sokin, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, launched an anti-corruption investigation against Burisma in 2016, when
Joe Biden, as US vice president, took a stand in favor of replacing the Ukrainian prosecutor.
Sokin was eventually replaced by parliament - according to Biden's critics, he was fired because he was investigating Burism. Republicans claim that both Joe and Hunter Biden received 5 million dollars (1.7 billion forints) from Burisma leaders in exchange for firing Shokin.
Two things are certain, death and taxes
On December 7 of this year, federal prosecutors filed nine new charges against Hunter Biden.
According to the indictment, he failed to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019.
The three felonies and six misdemeanors include failure to declare and pay taxes, false tax returns and tax evasion. If convicted, the president's son could face up to 17 years in prison.
In a 56-page indictment filed in California, prosecutors say he spent the money on drugs, call girls, girlfriends, luxury real estate, exotic cars, clothes and other "personal" expenses, in short, everything but his taxes. He also often described his personal expenses as business expenses, according to the indictment. In connection with the tax evasion accusations, his already mentioned business affairs came into focus again.
Responding to the new allegations, Hunter Biden's attorney, Abbe Lowell, said that
if Hunter had a different last name than Biden, he would not have been charged."
Featured image: Hunter Biden, son of the US president (j2), arrives for a hearing in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware on October 3, 2023, with his attorney Abbe Lowell (j). Hunter Biden is charged with felony possession of a prohibited weapon. MTI/EPA/Michael Reynolds
