Loose cannon

In addition to campaigning for re-election Democrat US President Joe Biden is fighting off impeachment efforts by Congressional Republicans who cite his possible implication in the illegal activities of his troublemaking son Hunter. A second indictment was issued last week when a California court charged Hunter Biden with tax evasion and other tax-related crimes. He faces nine charges — three felonies and six misdemeanours — and could be jailed for 17 years if convicted. He has already been indicted in federal court in Delaware for purchasing and owning a gun while he was a drug addict.

Joe Biden could risk serious embarrassment if his son stands trial in the months ahead of next November’s presidential election. Joe Biden portrays himself as the ethical and moral candidate in contrast with expected Republican rival Donald Trump. During his term as president (2017-2021), he was impeached twice for misbehaviour and has been indicted since leaving office for retaining classified documents, backing an insurrection and dubious business practices.

A California trial would expose Hunter Biden’s wasteful and wayward behaviour fuelled by millions of dollars spent on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short everything but his taxes,” the indictment states.

The prosecution argues that Biden failed to pay $1.4 million in taxes on $7 million in income between 2016-2019. This came from a salary from the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, which was being investigated for corruption by his father while he was vice president (2012-2018). Hunter Biden earned $1 million out of $3 million paid to his law firm for advising a Romanian businessman to fight bribery charges in Romania. Hunter Biden served on the board of a China-based investment fund owned by the Bank of China. Hunter Biden’s bank accounts allegedly showed that he received $3.8 million from a Chinese oil and gas company attached to the Chinese Communist party.

The ironic aspect of both the Delaware and California indictments is that Hunter Biden is personally responsible for the charges as he described his illegal gun ownership and shockingly expensive and tawdry lifestyle in his 2021 memoir “Beautiful Things.” Despite his notoriety, the book was not a best seller and did not provide him with substantial royalties. Nevertheless, he has said he will write a sequel.

While President Biden is not named in the indictments, his son’s legal peril cannot but undermine his father’s reputation for probity as well as his moral standing. The senior Biden has neither restrained his son’s compromising business involvements nor distanced himself from Hunter while he was under the influence of drugs and booze.

Hunter Biden, born in 1970, grew up in the shadow of his mother’s death when he was almost three in a car crash which also killed his baby sister. This tragedy struck two months before his father was sworn in as a Delaware state senator. Hunter and his older brother Beau, who was nearly four, were badly injured but survived. Beau suffered broken bones, Hunter head injuries and brain damage.

Beau became the apple of his father’s eye. A star. He earned a law degree at Syracuse University in New York state, practiced, joined the Delaware National Guard and, while serving as Delaware’s attorney general, was deployed during 2008 in the US occupation forces in Iraq. He returned to the US where he continued as attorney general. He was diagnosed with brain cancer and died in 2015.

Joe Biden blames the cancer on toxic “burn pits” used by the US military during its occupation of Iraq to dispose of spent munitions, chemicals, plastics and other material. Veterans who developed cancer complained about breathing smoke and gases released by the “burn pits” and forced the Pentagon to close most of them.

Although Hunter became the family scapegrace, he outdid brother Beau by attaining university degrees from upscale Georgetown and Yale. However, he began his career, controversially, at a bank holding company where employees had donated more than $200,000 to Joe Biden’s senate campaigns. Hunter Biden eventually pursued a career as a lobbyist until his father became vice president in 2012. However, his father’s elevation encouraged Hunter Biden to seek employment with Ukrainian and Chinese firms which were looking for potentially influential personages to promote their images. Instead of discouraging his son’s behaviour, Joe Biden took Hunter along on official visits to China.

In a bid to follow in Beau’s footsteps, Hunter Biden, at the age of 43, applied for and secured a commission at officer rank in the US Naval Reserves despite an earlier drug-related record. He was sworn in in May 2013 at the White House by his father but was discharged in February 2014 after cocaine was found in his system in a routine drug check during weekend duty.

Joe Biden does not drink alcohol, but Hunter began imbibing as a teenager, began taking cocaine as a university student, and has had several tours in alcohol and drug rehabilitation facilities. He has claimed he was driven to excesses by grief over Beau’s death. The BBC quoted Hunter Biden’s daughter Naomi who wrote on Twitter,” He and Beau were one. One heart, one soul, one mind.”

While he spent lavishly on drugs, alcohol, and women, he is said to have denied his wife and children funds for daily life. His first marriage ended in divorce after 24 years. The New Yorker reported that he formed a two-year relationship with Beau’s widow. He has fathered two children — a girl and a boy — with two different women but has always been supported by his family. To avoid occasions where he could be tempted to drink or take drugs, he has adopted painting. This has led him to again trade on the Biden name and his connection with the White House: he has charged as much as 500,000 for each painting he has put up for sale.

Photo: TNS