Hunter Biden's Controversies Explained

TIME

TIME Senior Correspondent Brian Bennett explains the long-running investigations into President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden.

Transcript

00:00 (gentle music)

00:02 Let's talk about Hunter Biden.

00:08 Joe Biden's son is at the center of a political storm

00:11 and is shaping up to be a major political liability

00:13 for Biden going into the 2024 election.

00:15 Ever since Joe Biden announced

00:17 he was running for president in 2019,

00:19 Republicans have scrutinized his son,

00:21 Hunter Biden's bouts with drug addiction

00:23 and his business dealings in Ukraine and China

00:26 with an eye toward weakening his dad politically.

00:29 Fast forward to now,

00:30 Republicans have taken the majority in the House

00:33 and control investigative committees

00:35 and the spotlight to Hunter Biden has gotten brighter.

00:38 Okay, let's start at the beginning.

00:40 Who is Hunter Biden?

00:42 Hunter Biden is President Joe Biden's second son.

00:44 His mom was Nelia Biden, Joe Biden's first wife.

00:48 Nelia died in a car crash in 1972

00:51 with her and Joe Biden's one-year-old daughter, Naomi.

00:53 Hunter's older brother, Beau,

00:55 was a former attorney general of Delaware

00:57 and Army JAG officer who died from brain cancer in 2015.

01:01 Okay, let's go to Hunter.

01:02 Hunter himself graduated from Yale Law School

01:05 and has worked as a lawyer, a lobbyist, and an investor.

01:09 Hunter Biden served on the board

01:10 of the Ukrainian natural gas company,

01:12 Burisma Holdings, from 2014 to 2019

01:16 and has worked on investments with Chinese companies.

01:19 He's currently selling paintings

01:20 through a New York art gallery.

01:22 Okay, let's look at who's investigating Hunter Biden and why.

01:25 First, you have the Republicans in the House.

01:28 House Speaker McCarthy launched a formal impeachment inquiry

01:31 into President Joe Biden on September 12th,

01:34 and Hunter Biden is at the center of it.

01:35 - These are allegations of abuse of power,

01:38 obstruction, and corruption,

01:40 and they warrant further investigation

01:44 by the House of Representatives.

01:47 That's why today I am directing our House committee

01:51 to open a formal impeachment inquiry

01:54 into President Joe Biden.

01:55 - But it's important to emphasize

01:56 that House Republicans have so far only found evidence

01:59 of Hunter trading on his family name

02:01 and not of wrongdoing by Joe Biden

02:03 or that Biden was involved in Hunter's business deals.

02:06 Okay, that's Congress.

02:09 Then there's the criminal investigation into Hunter Biden.

02:11 Hunter Biden's the subject

02:12 of a Justice Department investigation into his tax filings

02:15 and a statement he made on a form to purchase a handgun.

02:18 Department of Justice Special Counsel David Weiss

02:21 has charged Hunter Biden with illegally obtaining a firearm

02:24 while addicted to drugs

02:25 and two counts related to false statements

02:27 on the purchase form.

02:29 - I don't have no idea what took the Department of Justice

02:30 so long.

02:32 It's clear he violated the law.

02:34 So I think now there's gonna have to be a real deep dive

02:36 at Maine Justice about why there has been obstruction

02:38 to this degree that's protected the son

02:40 of the President of the United States.

02:42 - It will be the first of many indictments, I imagine.

02:45 - For Hunter. - Yeah.

02:48 - I think our Republican colleagues

02:49 would probably be demanding that the charges be dropped

02:52 if it were for almost any other American.

02:54 They don't believe in gun charges.

02:55 - Those charges stem from Hunter Biden's purchase

02:58 of a Colt Cobra 38 SPL revolver in October, 2018.

03:03 Why is that date important?

03:05 Because Hunter Biden was regularly using crack cocaine

03:08 during that period, according to his own memoir.

03:10 And when someone is purchasing a firearm,

03:12 they're asked if they are addicted to any drugs.

03:15 Hunter answered no.

03:16 Lying on a firearm transaction form is a felony

03:19 and a conviction could carry a prison sentence

03:21 of up to 10 years.

03:22 But legal experts say prosecutors rarely bring charges

03:25 on the infraction.

03:27 Now let's get back to Congress and the impeachment.

03:29 There's little public information, if any,

03:31 showing that Joe Biden was involved

03:33 in Hunter's business transactions.

03:34 James Comer, the Kentucky Republican

03:36 who chairs the House Oversight Committee

03:38 has repeatedly overstated what Republicans have found

03:41 and only had the evidence come up short.

03:44 - The Committee on Oversight and Accountability

03:45 has accelerated its investigation

03:47 of the Biden family's domestic

03:49 and international business practices

03:51 that we began last Congress.

03:53 - There's two aspects of Hunter's overseas work

03:55 that Republicans are focused on

03:57 that are worth digging into.

03:58 All right, there's the big guy email

04:00 and Hunter's work in Ukraine.

04:01 Now let's start with the big guy email.

04:04 Hunter says that his committee's investigation

04:06 is looking into a 2017 email allegedly found on a laptop

04:09 that belonged to Hunter Biden.

04:11 The email includes discussion of setting aside

04:13 a certain percentage of a deal for the big guy.

04:16 One line of that email asked the question,

04:17 "10 held for H by the big guy."

04:19 Now Hunter Biden's former business partner,

04:21 Tony Bobulinski, who was one of Donald Trump's guests

04:24 for a presidential debate in 2020,

04:26 told Fox News he believed H stood for Hunter

04:28 and the big guy was Joe Biden.

04:30 Now beyond that, Fox News has also reported

04:32 there was no evidence that any part of the business deals

04:35 with the Chinese entities went to Joe Biden.

04:37 It's still worth pointing out that when the email was sent,

04:39 Joe Biden wasn't in office.

04:41 It was 2017, he was no longer vice president

04:44 and was nearly two years away

04:45 from announcing his candidacy for president.

04:47 Now Comer claims the email text shows Joe Biden

04:50 was aware of Hunter's business dealings

04:52 with the Chinese company.

04:53 Comer also claims those business ties

04:55 influenced President Biden's policy choices toward China,

05:00 but it's unclear how.

05:01 Biden has kept the Trump era tariffs on China in place

05:05 and added new export controls on US chip-making technology

05:08 since taking office.

05:10 Now let's look at Hunter Biden and Ukraine.

05:12 Republicans in the House have gone back to a long running

05:14 and debunked conspiracy theory that Joe Biden,

05:17 when he was vice president,

05:18 demanded the Ukrainian government

05:20 fire the country's top prosecutor

05:22 to halt an investigation into a Ukrainian company

05:25 that had Hunter Biden on its board.

05:27 - Biden used his official office to coordinate

05:31 with Hunter Biden's business partners

05:34 about Hunter's role in Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.

05:39 Now this is the conspiracy theory

05:40 that Donald Trump was chasing

05:42 when he withheld military aid

05:44 and pressured Zelensky, Ukraine's president,

05:47 to open an investigation into the Bidens

05:49 during the famous 2019 presidential phone call.

05:52 But Joe Biden wasn't alone in encouraging

05:54 the Ukraine parliament to oust prosecutor Viktor Shokin.

05:56 Concerns that Shokin wasn't doing enough

05:58 to root out corruption were expressed

06:00 by European diplomats, international organizations

06:03 like the International Monetary Fund as well,

06:05 and Devin Archer, Hunter Biden's business partner

06:08 who served on the Burisma board with him,

06:10 told House Republicans that Burisma

06:12 didn't even support Shokin's removal.

06:14 And it made it even harder to understand

06:16 why Biden's position would have been

06:18 about helping that company.

06:20 Hunter Biden's business in Ukraine

06:21 while his father was vice president

06:24 did make American diplomatic efforts

06:26 in Ukraine more difficult.

06:28 A 2020 Senate investigation led by Republicans

06:31 found that Hunter Biden, his business partners

06:34 and their firms, made millions of dollars

06:36 doing business in Ukraine

06:37 while Joe Biden was vice president

06:39 and those financial connections

06:42 negatively impacted diplomatic work in the country.

06:45 But that same investigation uncovered no evidence

06:48 of wrongdoing by Joe Biden in the matter.

06:51 So what does Hunter Biden's drug use

06:53 have to do with all this?

06:54 During the years when Hunter Biden was working on deals

06:56 with Chinese companies and serving on the board

06:58 of the Ukraine Energy Company Burisma,

07:00 he was also in a cycle of drug addiction,

07:03 rehab and relapse that spanned 15 years.

07:06 In his 2021 memoir, "Beautiful Things,"

07:08 Hunter describes in detail his crack cocaine binges

07:11 which he called the crack-opalypse,

07:12 his confrontations with his family

07:14 about returning to rehab and his eventual sobriety

07:17 and escape from those troubles

07:19 when he married his current wife, Melissa, in May of 2019.

07:23 Anecdotes of Hunter Biden's drug use

07:25 and photos purportedly from his laptop

07:27 have been highlighted by Biden critics

07:29 to suggest that Joe Biden is compromised by Hunter's actions

07:32 but Joe Biden has spoken openly

07:34 about his son's struggles with drug addiction.

07:36 - He got hooked on, like many families have had happen,

07:41 hooked on drugs.

07:42 He's overcome that.

07:43 He's established a new life.

07:45 He is, I'm confident that he is,

07:49 what he says and does are consistent with what happens.

07:53 - Now has any of this implicated Joe Biden in wrongdoing?

07:57 It hasn't.

07:58 What's known about Hunter Biden's business deals

08:00 with Ukrainian and Chinese companies

08:01 creates an impression he was making a lot of money

08:03 off the prestige of being Joe Biden's son.

08:06 But there isn't evidence

08:07 that Hunter Biden's business transactions

08:09 have influenced decisions that Joe Biden made

08:12 as vice president or as president.

08:14 There's also no clear evidence

08:15 that money from Hunter Biden's business dealings

08:17 ever made their way to Joe Biden's accounts.

08:20 This is for sure.

08:21 The House impeachment inquiry

08:23 and the ongoing criminal case against Hunter Biden

08:25 both mean there will be a lot more scrutiny.

08:27 (silence)

08:29 (silence)

08:32 (silence)

08:34 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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