Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden and a recurring target of the Republican opposition, has admitted guilt in two criminal cases against him, hoping to settle the accounts as his father’s 2024 campaign takes shape. This “ends” the lawsuit against Hunter Biden, 53, his lawyer assured in a statement Tuesday. “Hunter is committed to owning up to the mistakes he made when he struggled in his life with torment and addiction. ยป
“The President and First Lady love and support their son as he continues to rebuild his life. We will have no further comments,” the White House responded. The Republican opposition, for its part, denounced a Ministry of Justice which would go after Donald Trump (recently indicted for his management of top secret documents), while working to avoid at all costs a prison sentence for the son of the current president.
Former President Donald Trump, battling the judiciary in a series of cases, said in a reaction on his Truth Social network that Hunter Biden had only received a sentence akin to a banal “fine for violation of the Highway Code” and claimed that the judicial system was “broken”. The leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, denounced him for “preferential treatment”. The youngest son of the American president – the eldest, Beau, died in 2015 of brain cancer – described his problems with addiction, crack in particular, in a book published in the spring of 2021.
He relates the first drama of his life, the death of his mother and his little sister in a car accident in 1972. Beau and Hunter were seriously injured in the accident, which occurred just after the election of Joe Biden in the senator from Delaware. The Democrat later remarried Jill Biden, with whom he raised his two sons, and had a daughter.
In his book, Hunter Biden, a former lawyer and businessman turned artist, also claims to be now weaned from alcohol and drugs. The American president, candidate for the 2024 election, has always publicly supported him and notably said he was “proud” of him during a heated debate opposing him to Donald Trump before the 2020 presidential election.
The judicial epilogue announced on Tuesday should do nothing to change the Republican opposition’s attacks on Hunter Biden’s business past. Conservative parliamentarians accuse Hunter Biden of doing questionable business in Ukraine and China while Joe Biden was Barack Obama’s vice-president (2009-2017), capitalizing on his father’s networks and name. They focus their attacks in particular on a highly paid position held by Hunter Biden on the board of directors of a Ukrainian gas group, Burisma.
The president’s son has always denied doing anything illegal or even immoral, but acknowledged in his book that if he could back out, he would not take the job. Joe Biden has also rejected these accusations of corruption. “My son didn’t do anything wrong,” he said in a May interview with MSNBC. “I trust him,” added the US president.