President-elect Joe Biden's son Hunter appears on stage after lying low for months amid laptop scandal
President-elect Joe Biden brought his son Hunter Biden on stage during his victory speech on Saturday just weeks after an email scandal surrounding him jeopardized the campaign. Hunter came in, his toddler son tucked in his arm along with the rest of the Biden ménage for the celebrations. The President-elect was beaming with pride as the Biden brood stood next to him, and he was seen kissing his grandson's head, gleefully.
The Biden clan mirrored the feelings of millions of Americans who had slipped into a celebratory mood after Biden and Kamala Harris were announced as the President-elect and Vice President-elect. The family showed no apprehensions as they made an appearance with Hunter after a hard drive from a laptop that reportedly belonged to him was given to Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Guiliani. Hunter had abandoned his laptop that contained a number of controversial emails, pictures, videos, and many such documents at a Delaware store in 2019. All contents came to light last months and what followed were multiple controversies.
Apart from containing personal phone numbers and private email addresses of Bill and Hillary Clinton, his father Joe, and a contact database of 1500 prominent entities, the laptop also brought to light Hunter's sex and drug videos and photos, according to the Post. This including details about $21,000 spent on one "live cam" porn website and "selfies" of him engaging in sex acts and smoking crack cocaine and also $11,400 spent at a strip club in a single night.
The contents also included an email from his first wife, Kathleen, saying: "You told me if you started drinking again it would kill you. I feel like you are torturing me." Log-in details and passwords for many sex sites and many payments to women whose names link back to escort websites were found. One message from the Jasmin porn site showed Hunter's attempt to buy credit which was "declined due to insufficient funds on the credit card".
Many had thought that all this information could severely cost Joe Biden and his campaign in the election, putting his chances of winning the Presidency in jeopardy. To add to that, the Trump campaign has tried to highlight Hunter's ties to the Chinese and Ukrainian governments, according to a Sun report. Donald Trump has repeatedly alleged fraud by Hunter during his time on the board of Ukrainian gas giant Burisma, all this without offering any evidence of malpractice.
The reliability of the story about Hunter's laptop, originally published by The New York Post, has been widely disputed. Biden brushed off the report, calling it a "smear campaign," and implied that Giuliani was fed "Russian disinformation."
Hunter is a self-confessed recovering drug addict. His addiction had come up during the first presidential debate between his father and Trump in September. The latter had brought it up in a bid to denigrate his opponent, however, Biden was quick to defend his son. "My son, like a lot of people you know at home, had a drug problem," he said. "He's overtaken it. He's fixed it. He's worked on it, and I'm proud of him. I'm proud of my son."