by Emily Jacobs
New York Post
October 14, 2020 | 5:34pm
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Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s son Hunter has been back in the news since his father announced his 2020 run last year.
Hunter Biden made headlines again on Oct. 14 when The Post exclusively reported on emails between him and Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board at Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings.
The emails reveal the possibility of a previously unreported meeting between the elder Biden and an official from Burisma, any involvement with which the Democratic presidential nominee has adamantly denied without going into detail.
Here’s what we know about Hunter Biden before he found himself swept up in yet another scandal.
Early life
Born on Feb. 4, 1970, Robert Hunter Biden and his older brother Beau’s lives were rocked when their mother, Neilia Biden, and sister, Naomi, were killed in a car accident in December 1972.
Just one month later, Hunter and Beau found themselves surrounded by reporters as their father was sworn in as the youngest-ever member of the US Senate.

Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Hunter Biden, Beau Biden, Joe Biden Sr.

Hunter Biden (center) with his father, Jill Biden and brother Beau at a campaign event in 1988. AP Photo/Sen. Biden's office
The two boys continued growing up in Wilmington, Del., with their widowed father commuting back and forth each day by train to be with them at night.
The Biden brothers encouraged their father to date in the years after their mother’s passing, and he eventually did, meeting Dr. Jill Jacobs, who later became his wife and took his name.
They had a daughter, Ashley, born in 1981.
Love life
Hunter Biden met and married Kathleen Buhle in 1993. The two divorced in 2017 after a 22-year marriage that produced three daughters. In divorce papers, Kathleen accused her ex of blowing family funds on drugs and prostitutes.
The same year as the split — as was first reported by Page Six — Hunter began dating his widowed sister-in-law, Hallie Biden, who had lost her husband, Beau, to brain cancer in 2015.
The two began dating while he was recovering from a crack binge, which he explained in a New Yorker interview last July took place while grieving his brother’s death.

Hunter and Kathleen Biden
Ron Sachs - CNP
Hunter had been kicked out of his marital home with then-estranged wife Kathleen over his failure to stay sober, and began spending most nights at Hallie’s house “sharing a very specific grief” over Beau.
The former vice president did not initially know of the relationship, and found out after being reached for comment by Page Six.
After being made aware, the VP and second lady offered their blessing of the relationship in a statement.
“We are all lucky that Hunter and Hallie found each other as they were putting their lives together again after such sadness. They have mine and Jill’s full and complete support and we are happy for them,” the two said at the time.
Hunter and Hallie released a similar statement at the same time, which read, “Hallie and I are incredibly lucky to have found the love and support we have for each other in such a difficult time, and that’s been obvious to the people who love us most. We’ve been so lucky to have family and friends who have supported us every step of the way.”
They dated for about two years before splitting in early 2019.
In late 2019, Hunter entered a court battle over unpaid child support for a baby he fathered with ex-stripper Lunden Alexis Roberts.
Roberts filed a suit against Hunter in November after he denied being the father of their child, born in August 2018, and subsequently declined to pay child support.

The New York Post cover featuring Biden and Lunden Alexis Roberts.

Hunter Biden and Melissa Cohen
TheImageDirect.com
In January 2020, an Arkansas judge ruled that Biden was the “biological and legal father” of the baby, noting that a DNA test had showed “with near scientific certainty” that Hunter was the parent.
The two reached an out-of-court settlement in which Biden agreed to retroactively pay child support going back to November 2018.
Hunter has since gotten remarried to a South African woman named Melissa Cohen, whom he wed just 10 days after meeting her. They welcomed their first child, a boy, in April of this year.
Drug problems
Hunter Biden has long suffered from drug problems, and it even ended his brief attempt at a military career in his 40s. He was discharged from the Navy Reserve in February 2014 after he tested positive for cocaine.
He was serving as an ensign after being given two waivers, one for his age and one for his drug use as a younger man.
“It was the honor of my life to serve in the US Navy, and I deeply regret and am embarrassed that my actions led to my administrative discharge,” he said after news of his discharge broke.
When President Trump brought the incident up at last month’s debate, Joe Biden defended his son.
“My son, like a lot of people at home, had a drug problem,” he said. “He’s overtaking it. He’s fixed it. He’s worked on it. And I’m proud of him. I’m proud of my son.”
Hunter discussed his drug use during his New Yorker interview last year, in which he admitted to almost having a brush with law enforcement after damaging a rental car in Arizona in 2016.
After the car was replaced by Hertz, the rental car company, a rental officer found a crack pipe in the car along with a white powder residue.
Police were called, but there was no evidence that Hunter had used the pipe, so narcotics charges weren’t pursued, the magazine reported.
The younger Biden’s drug problems date back far further than 2016, however.
Hunter was arrested in 1988 for drug possession, something he admitted to in a 2006 disclosure form after being nominated to serve on the Amtrak Reform Board.
“I was cited for possession of a controlled substance in Stone Harbor, NJ. There was a pre-trial intervention and the record was expunged,” he admitted.
In November 2019, Page Six exclusively reported that the former vice president’s son was suspected of smoking crack inside a Washington, DC, strip club where he dropped “thousands of dollars” during multiple visits.

Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images
Hunter Biden suspected of smoking crack in DC strip club’s VIP room
by Joe Marino, Elizabeth Rosner and Bruce Golding
pagesix.com
November 26, 2019 | 8:31pm
Hunter Biden was suspected of smoking crack inside a strip club where he dropped “thousands of dollars” during multiple visits — at the same time he held a seat on the board of a controversial Ukrainian natural gas company, The Post has learned.
The incident, which took place at Archibald’s Gentlemen’s Club in Washington, DC, late last year, represents the most recent alleged drug use by Biden, 49, who has acknowledged six stints in rehab for alcoholism and addiction that included a crack binge in 2016.
Workers at Archibald’s, located about three blocks north of the White House, said Biden was a regular there, with two bartenders and a security worker all instantly recognizing his photo and one worker identifying him by name.
Security worker Ranko Petrovic said Biden — the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic front-runner to challenge President Trump next year — would routinely hole up in a VIP room and drink during his visits.
Although Petrovic said the club “had no issue with him,” former Archibald’s managing partner James Ritter said one occasion in late 2018 was marred by a “suspicion of drug use.”
“There was a smell of burning Styrofoam in the VIP room. We told him nothing illegal can go on here,” Ritter said.
“We didn’t see anything illegal. After he was spoken to, the smell stopped.”
“VIP employees suspected it was crack,” he added.
Hunter spent “thousands and thousands of dollars in the Archibald’s VIP rooms,” and paid his bills with “credit cards that didn’t have his name on it.”
The club generally required customers to use credit cards that matched official IDs, but “Hunter was a bit of an exception,” Ritter said.
“Whenever he was in town he came in for two days in a row, disappeared and come back a month later,” Ritter said.
Archibald’s current owner, Dan Harris, didn’t return an email seeking comment.
At the time of the incident, Hunter was a board member of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, which reportedly paid him as much as $50,000 a month.
That job lies at the heart of the ongoing impeachment inquiry against Trump, with Democrats alleging that the president withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in a bid to force an investigation into corruption allegations against Hunter and his dad.
Trump has denied any quid pro quo.
Hunter joined the Burisma board in April 2014 but declined the company’s offer to serve another term in May due to the controversy surrounding his membership, according to a July 1 profile by the New Yorker.
In an interview with ABC News last month, Hunter denied a suggestion that he wasn’t qualified because he “didn’t have any extensive knowledge about natural gas or Ukraine.”
“No, but I think I had as much knowledge as anybody else who was on the board — if not more,” he said.
Hunter — who’s currently embroiled in a paternity scandal with an Arkansas woman, Lunden Alexis Roberts — also conceded that being the son of the then-vice president “of course” played a role in his selection.
Hunter has never detailed the extent of the work he did for Burisma, although the New Yorker report said he attended board meetings and energy forums in Europe “once or twice a year.”
The magazine’s 11,000-word-plus profile was based on a series of warts-and-all interviews in which Hunter detailed a fall 2016 drug binge in Los Angeles, where he repeatedly bought crack at a homeless encampment while going without sleep for several days.
On Oct. 28, 2016, he checked into rehab at the Grace Grove Lifestyle Center in Sedona, Ariz., but left after only a week and headed to the nearby Mii Amo resort spa.
Hunter was joined there by former sister-in-law Hallie Biden — widow of his older brother, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in May 2015 — and they launched an affair that lasted about a year, according to the New Yorker.
Hunter — whose first wife, Kathleen, obtained a divorce from him amid his relationship with Hallie — remarried in May following a six-day romance with Melissa Cohen, 33.
In his ABC interview last month, Hunter said he’d “done estimable things and things I regret,” but was now in “probably the best place I’ve ever been in my life.”
His personal lawyer and spokesman, George Mesires, didn’t return requests for comment.
The incident, which took place at Archibald’s Gentlemen’s Club late last year, represents the most recent alleged drug use by Biden, who has acknowledged six stints in rehab for alcoholism and addiction.
Security worker Ranko Petrovic said Biden would routinely hole up in a VIP room and drink during his visits.
Although Petrovic said the club “had no issue with him,” former Archibald’s managing partner James Ritter said one occasion in late 2018 was marred by a “suspicion of drug use.”
He checked into rehab at the Grace Grove Lifestyle Center in Sedona, Ariz., in October 2016, but left after one week and headed to the nearby Mii Amo resort spa.
It was there that Hunter and Hallie launched their affair, he told the New Yorker.
Page Six has also spotted Biden on multiple occasions at Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club NYC in Hell’s Kitchen. He was seen on each occasion with a woman who was not a dancer at the club. The two spent thousands each night on pricey booze and were joined by several strippers.
Strippers allegedly used sex toy on Hunter Biden at NYC’s Hustler Club
by Elizabeth Rosner
November 27, 2019 | 7:15pm
Hunter Biden spent several thousand dollars at a Manhattan strip club during a pair of visits — including one that sent a staffer scrambling to buy a sex toy so strippers could use it on him, sources told The Post on Wednesday.
Biden — who’s been dogged by a series of strip-club allegations uncovered by The Post this week — was accompanied by a woman both times he went to Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club NYC in Hell’s Kitchen about a year ago, the sources said.
On each occasion, he and his companion holed up in a private room, where they ordered bottles of pricey booze and were joined by several strippers, sources said.
During one particularly wild night, workers suspected Biden — son of former Vice President Joe Biden, the frontrunner in the Democratic primary race to challenge President Donald Trump — was high, and he was warned that drugs weren’t allowed on the premises, sources said.
That same night, a worker had to be sent out to purchase a dildo so the gals could use it on Hunter, sources said.
It’s unclear if the club didn’t have a similar device on hand or if he insisted on a brand-new one fresh out of the package.
Despite the lurid allegations, Hunter was described as an almost-ideal customer.
“He was a pretty nice guy,” one source said.
“He was pretty friendly and a pretty good tipper.”
Hunter’s personal lawyer and spokesman, George Mesires, didn’t return messages seeking comment late Wednesday afternoon.
At one point, a stripper was scrambling to buy a sex toy so others could use it on him.
Ukraine
Hunter did not become a mainstay in the news until his role with Burisma during his father’s tenure as vice president became a primary focus of the Ukraine scandal surrounding Trump, an issue that led to the president’s eventual impeachment trial along party lines in the House and acquittal by the Senate.
During the hearings and subsequent trial, Democrats accused Trump of offering a quid pro quo by requesting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky launch an investigation into the Bidens while Trump was withholding nearly $400 million in aid to the country.
Republicans, meanwhile, argued that allegations against the Bidens were damning enough to merit the president asking for a probe, regardless of Joe’s candidacy for president.
Hunter has been accused of profiting off his father’s vice presidential status by earning tens of thousands of dollars per month to sit on a board for a corrupt company in an industry in which he had no prior experience.
At the time, the elder Biden led the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.
Hunter’s role with Burisma raised red flags for some in the Obama administration’s State Department, which a recent Senate Homeland Security Committee report found were raised to Biden and those in his orbit.
The 87-page report published late last month noted that two American officials — George Kent, former acting deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Kiev, and senior State Department official Amos Hochstein — “raised concerns” to Biden’s staff and directly to Biden, respectively.
“Despite the efforts of these individuals, their concerns appear to have fallen on deaf ears,” the report says.
“Moreover, this investigation has illustrated the extent to which officials within the Obama administration ignored the glaring warning signs when the vice president’s son joined the board of a company owned by a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch.”

Joe and Hunter Biden
AP
Joe Biden said last year of Hunter, “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” including his reported $83,000 monthly pay on Burisma’s board.
Both he and Hunter have denied any wrongdoing with respect to Ukraine, and spokespeople for Joe Biden’s campaign have repeatedly slammed the Senate probe as biased and political.
That Senate report also found that in 2014, the younger Biden received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the richest woman in Russia and the widow of Yury Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow.
“Baturina became Russia’s only female billionaire when her plastics company, Inteko, received a series of Moscow municipal contracts while her husband was mayor,” it said in providing background on the businesswoman.
The report described her involvement with Biden as “a financial relationship,” but declined to delve deeper into why the wire transfer was made.