85 Facts About Hunter Biden

Hunter Biden is the second son of former president Joe Biden and his first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden.

Hunter Biden was a founding board member of BHR Partners, a Chinese investment company, in 2013, and later served on the board of Burisma Holdings, one of the largest private natural gas producers in Ukraine, from 2014 until his term expired in April 2019.

Hunter Biden has worked as a lobbyist and legal representative for lobbying firms, a hedge fund principal, and a venture capital and private equity fund investor.

In December2024, Hunter Biden's father pardoned him for all federal offenses committed between 2014 and 2024, including any potential offenses not yet discovered.

Robert Hunter Biden was born on February 4,1970, in Wilmington, Delaware.

Hunter Biden is the second son of Neilia Biden and Joe Biden.

Hunter Biden graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Georgetown University in 1992.

Hunter Biden delayed his start date at MBNA to serve as co-chair for his father's reelection campaign.

Hunter Biden then served at the United States Department of Commerce, focusing on ecommerce policy for President Bill Clinton's administration.

MBNA's rehiring of Hunter Biden was controversial because his father was pushing for passage of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, which was beneficial to the credit card industry and supported by MBNA during Hunter Biden's time at the bank.

Hunter Biden was the board's vice chairman from July 2006 until he was replaced as vice chairman in January 2009.

Hunter Biden said during his father's vice-presidential campaign that it was time for his lobbying activities to end.

In September 2008, Hunter Biden founded a consultancy company named Seneca Global Advisors that offered to help companies expand into foreign markets.

Hunter Biden was a partner in investment vehicles that included the name "Seneca" to denote his participation.

Hunter Biden held the position of counsel in the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner LLP in 2014.

From 2011 to 2017, Hunter Biden was on the board of directors of World Food Program USA, a 501 charity based in Washington, DC, that supports the work of the UN World Food Programme; he served as board chairman from 2011 to 2015.

Hunter Biden has pleaded guilty on 5 September 2024 to tax evasion and related charges.

Later in 2019, The Wall Street Journal confirmed that Trump was incorrect in claiming that Hunter Biden received $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.

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-US President Trump.

However, as of April 2020, Chinese business records showed that Hunter Biden remained a board member of BHR.

Hunter Biden was hired to help Burisma with requesting assistance from the USgovernment to expand its business and corporate governance best practices, while still an attorney with Boies Schiller Flexner.

Christopher Heinz, John Kerry's stepson, opposed his partners Devon Archer and Hunter Biden joining the board in 2014 due to the reputational risk.

Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma until his term expired in April 2019, receiving compensation of up to $50,000 per month.

Hunter Biden lobbied the US 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 US ambassador to Italy, John R Phillips, which Biden's lawyer described as seeking to arrange an introduction between Burisma and the president of Italy's Tuscany region, the location of a potential Burisma energy project.

Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani claimed in 2019, without evidence, that Joe Hunter Biden had sought the dismissal of Shokin in order to protect his son and Burisma Holdings.

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.

Trump falsely told Zelenskyy that "[Joe] Hunter Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution" of his son; Joe Hunter Biden did not stop any prosecution, did not brag about doing so, and there is no evidence his son was ever under investigation.

Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko said in May 2019 that Hunter Biden had not violated Ukrainian law.

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 Hunter Biden would be the nominee.

Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii 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 president Petro Poroshenko during the years Hunter Biden worked for Burisma.

The recordings, which were not verified as authentic and appeared heavily edited, depicted Hunter 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 Hunter Biden wanted the prosecutor fired to protect his son.

Poroshenko denied in June 2020 that Joe Hunter Biden ever approached him about Burisma.

Two Republicans on a Senate investigation committee in 2020 claimed that Russian businessperson Yelena Baturina, the wife of former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov, wire-transferred $3.5 million in 2014 to Rosemont Seneca Thornton, of which Hunter Biden had previously been a partner.

The Senate report cited unspecified confidential documents and gave no evidence that Hunter Biden personally accepted the funds.

Hunter Biden's attorney denied the report, saying Hunter Biden had no financial relationship with Baturina and no stake in the partnership that received the money, nor did he co-found the partnership.

In December 2020, Hunter Biden made a public announcement via his attorney that his tax affairs were under federal criminal investigation.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Hunter Biden had provided legal and consulting services that generated foreign-earned income, citing a Senate Republicans' report that $4.79 million in wire transfers from entities linked to Chinese energy tycoon Ye Jianming and his company, CEFC China Energy, were paying for such services.

Federal investigators had been examining the lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies, which Burisma retained while Hunter Biden sat on its board, for possible illegal lobbying of American officials.

Blue Star employees said in Senate testimony that Hunter 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 Hunter Biden did not direct its work.

On June 20,2023, in a deal with prosecutors, Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges of failure to pay income tax, and to enter a pretrial diversion program related to a felony gun charge of unlawful possession of a firearm.

Hunter Biden's attorney said the agreement with prosecutors "resolved" the investigation, though the Justice Department said the investigation was "ongoing".

On December 7,2023, Hunter Biden was indicted in California on nine tax charges, including three felony and six misdemeanor offenses.

On January 11,2024, Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to the tax charges.

Hunter Biden repeatedly sought to dismiss both tax and gun charges against him, without success.

The businessman, Gabriel Popoviciu, was under criminal investigation in Romania at the time and hired Hunter Biden to assist in fighting his criminal charges through the US government.

Hunter 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.

Hunter 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.

Under this proposed plea agreement, Hunter Biden would have accepted both a sentence and the strength of evidence against him, but maintained his innocence.

However, Scarsi would accept a guilty plea by the end of the day, with Hunter Biden pleading guilty to all nine charges.

Hunter Biden was scheduled to be sentenced on December 16,2024 and he could have faced up to 17 years in prison.

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.

On December 1,2024, President Hunter Biden issued a full and unconditional pardon for his son.

Hunter Biden issued the following statement in response to the pardon:.

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 found in cloud backups to Biden's Apple account.

Hunter Biden was deposed by the House Judiciary and Oversight committees on February 28,2024, which discussed emails found on the laptop.

Hunter Biden stated during the deposition that he did not recall sending the laptop for repairs.

James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee that was investigating the Biden family, inquired whether it was evidence that Hunter Biden illicitly provided money from his foreign business activities to his father.

At age 43, Hunter 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.

Hunter Biden received an age-related waiver and a waiver for a past drug-related incident; he was sworn in as a direct commission officer by his father in a White House ceremony.

Hunter 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.

Hunter Biden did not appeal the discharge, stating that he thought it unlikely the panel would believe his explanation given his history of drug addiction.

Hunter Biden stated that he did not appeal due to the likelihood that this would result in the press becoming aware of the discharge; however, it was eventually disclosed to The Wall Street Journal by a Navy official.

In February 2020, The New York Times reported that Hunter Biden had been painting as an "undiscovered artist" in his Hollywood Hills home.

Hunter Biden maintained daily, often hourly contact with his father on calls.

Hunter Biden began acting as a "de facto gatekeeper" for access to the president.

Between 2023 and 2024, Hunter Biden privately sued numerous individuals, organizations, and the US Government alleging various instances of invasion of privacy and defamation.

In September 2023, Hunter Biden filed suit against the IRS, claiming unlawful disclosures of his tax return information in relation to two IRS employees who provided information to members of Congress.

In 2023, Hunter Biden sued Garrett 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.

In March 2025, Hunter 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.

In 2024, Hunter Biden sued Rudy Giuliani alleging Giuliani was responsible for the "total annihilation" of his privacy due to his involvement in releasing data from his laptop computer.

In court filings, Hunter Biden averred that he had anticipated earning money from invitations for paid speaking engagements, but no such invitations had materialized.

Hunter Biden began a relationship with his brother's widow Hallie Olivere Hunter Biden in 2016.

Between 2017 and 2018, Hunter Biden had a romantic relationship with Zoe Kestan.

Hunter Biden has a fourth daughter, born in August 2018 in Arkansas, to Lunden Alexis Roberts.

Hunter Biden initially denied that the child was his, but a DNA 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 Hunter Biden agreed to pay Roberts $20,000 a month in child support.

Hunter Biden married South African filmmaker Melissa Cohen in May 2019, within a week of first meeting her.

Hunter Biden has abused drugs and alcohol throughout his adult life, which he has detailed in his 2021 memoir.

Hunter Biden believes his addiction issues are linked to episodes of family loss he suffered, beginning with the 1972 motor vehicle accident that killed his mother and sister.

Hunter 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.

At his worst, Hunter Biden stated that he was "smoking crack every 15 minutes".

Hunter Biden released Beautiful Things, a memoir of the trauma of the accident that claimed his mother and sister, and his later addiction struggles, on April 6,2021.