The scandals swirling around Hunter Biden — what we know, what we don't, and what's next
CBC
For a broad cross-section of Americans, the political scandal of the moment has nothing to do with Donald Trump's various alleged criminal misdeeds.
In conservative America, the one they're talking about involves U.S. President Joe Biden's family and how the family, his son Hunter in particular, gets its income.
Republicans are now warming to the possibility of impeachment hearings targeting Joe Biden after the U.S. Congress returns from its summer recess.
The allegation in a nutshell is that the president's relatives, especially Hunter, drew millions from foreign sources, including some shady ones; that it wasn't disclosed properly; and that this occurred primarily, but not exclusively, while Biden was out of politics.
What's unclear is the president's role, if any.
To toggle between news channels in the U.S. these days is to run the risk of whiplash from the head-snappingly differing treatments of this story.
On Fox News, hosts have mentioned Hunter Biden thousands of times; lately they might squeeze in 100 references to him before lunch without breaking a sweat.
"This is potentially the biggest political scandal in American history," Fox Business host and former Trump White House aide Larry Kudlow said in one recent example.
"The evidence against the Biden crime family is mounting up across the board."
In the other media ecosystem, these claims are dismissed as a partisan joke, a right-wing rabbit hole on par with Benghazi and Barack Obama's missing birth certificate.
Summing up that view, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy recently told CNN: "I think this is a witch-hunt."
So which is this: Silly? A scandal? Or something in between? To help form an opinion on this, it's worth going back three years.
Before the 2020 election some media ran reports alleging influence-peddling by Biden's relatives, that his siblings and his son got paid for their connections to him.
Millions reportedly poured in from foreign countries from 2014 to 2018 – from businesses in Ukraine, Romania, and China.
