The day Biden considered suicide... the rampant generational addictions... the deaths, affairs and dodgy dealings: All the tragedy and sordid scandal Joe's weathered over 52 years in politics - revealed

One of nan nastiest moments during nan acrimonious 2020 election conflict betwixt Joe Biden and Donald Trump came during their first TV debate, erstwhile Biden started listing his son's accomplishments.

'He's sewage a Bronze Star,' he said.

'Really?' President Trump interrupted. 'Are you talking astir Hunter?'

Biden barked back: 'I'm talking astir my boy Beau Biden!'

'I don't cognize Beau, I cognize Hunter,' Trump replied, earlier reminding voters of nan latter's sordid conflict pinch narcotics and his questionable business history.

Biden's 2 sons, Beau and Hunter – 1 a authorities Attorney General who died aged 46 from a encephalon tumor, and nan different a ace addict, alcoholic and convicted felon – are not easy confused, though together they epitomize nan copy themes of calamity and contention that person dogged nan existent president's agelong governmental career.

And arsenic he now – yet – bows retired from nan statesmanlike title and heads for what galore would surely qualify arsenic a long-overdue retirement, his chap Democrats are showering him successful praise… moreover arsenic they hide their sighs of relief.

Biden, 81, nary uncertainty still genuinely believes he was nan only Democrat who could hit Trump successful November.

However, for each nan 2 men's communal antipathy, nan truth remains that Biden should beryllium eternally grateful that his rival has specified a sleazy individual and business history.

For it took nan spotlight disconnected his and his family's not inconsiderable shortcomings.

Controversies mini (Hunter's depraved backstage life) and awesome (evidence that Hunter and his uncle James Biden many times tried to rate successful connected Joe's sanction and connections) were either downplayed, wholly ignored aliases moreover falsely dismissed arsenic Kremlin propaganda.

The wide media preferred to attraction connected Joe nan mean man, beset by calamity – alternatively than Joe nan transactional politician, dogged by controversy.

In this erstwhile narrative, nan empathetic and straight-shooting 'Middle-Class Joe' (as he has called himself) couldn't beryllium much different to Trump.

But, from his ain endless capacity for telling complete whoppers, to nan accusations of Biden family greed and graft, was Uncle Joe really that acold removed from The Donald?

As nan Second World War raged successful Europe, Biden was calved successful 1942 successful Scranton, Pennsylvania, to an Irish-Catholic family plagued by alcoholism (the logic why Joe now doesn't drink).

His father, a lowly second-hand car salesman, moved nan family to Delaware, wherever Biden trained arsenic a lawyer and overcame his stutter successful his 20s by reciting poesy successful a mirror.

In 1972, aged conscionable 30, he became 1 of nan youngest Senators successful US history – representing his location state.

However, only weeks aft being elected, calamity struck: his woman of six years, 30-year-old Neilia, died on pinch their 13-month-old girl Naomi successful a car clang while retired Christmas shopping. Biden had been distant successful Washington DC hiring staff.

Beau and Hunter, past aged conscionable 3 and two, were besides successful nan car but survived pinch non-life-threatening injuries – Beau pinch a surgery limb and his younger relative pinch a fractured skull.

Biden, who considered resigning to attraction for nan boys, was truthful distraught he concisely considered committing termination by jumping disconnected nan Delaware Memorial Bridge.

The deaths rocked his Catholic faith, he later admitted, emotion that 'God had played a horrible trick' connected him.

He would locomotion astir seedy neighborhoods astatine night, wherever he 'thought location was a amended chance of uncovering a fight', he wrote successful his memoir years later. 'I had not known I was tin of specified rage.'

Distracted by grief, Biden recalled having specified problem concentrating connected his occupation that his staffers took bets connected really agelong he would last.

But he would flooded his despair and anger, and moreover find emotion again. Three years later successful truth – when, successful 1975, he met divided coach Jill Jacobs connected a unsighted date.

They joined successful 1977 and had a daughter, Ashley, successful 1981.

But his woes were only conscionable beginning.

In 1988, Joe's first tally for nan presidency was derailed aft it emerged he'd exaggerated his schoolhouse grounds and plagiarized a reside by a British politician, erstwhile Labour leader Neil Kinnock.

Meanwhile, Beau, nan pome of his father's eye, became an service lawyer successful Iraq and later Delaware's Attorney General.

'I really do respect Beau much than anyone I know. He's a decent, honorable man,' Joe said during his son's successful 2006 tally for nan AG position.

And yet Joe, who had taken his Senate oath successful nan chapel of nan infirmary wherever his sons were being treated aft their mother's fatal car clang – making judge he was pictured adjacent to Beau who was still successful bed, his limb elevated successful a support sling – wouldn't person his favourite boy astir for overmuch longer.

In 2015, Beau died of encephalon crab – not successful Iraq, arsenic his begetter often now claims, but astatine Walter Reed National Military Medical Center successful Maryland.

Hunter was now each Joe had near of his first matrimony – so, predictably, his tight grip connected his boy only hardened.

But their 'incredible bond', arsenic Joe has called it, has surely been tested complete nan years.

Hunter attended Georgetown University and Yale Law School, besides joining a Jesuit unpaid group successful Portland, Oregon.

It was done religion that he met his first wife, Kathleen Buhle.

They wed successful 1993 and had 3 children – Naomi, Finnegan and Maisy.

However, successful 2017 they separated – Kathleen by past having had capable of Hunter's terrible addictions and chaotic spending habits.

Hunter had started drinking arsenic a teenager. By nan clip he was successful college, he was abusing cocaine.

Working retired of assemblage arsenic a lawyer and lobbyist, Hunter later admitted he was 'functioning alcoholic'.

He was discharged from nan US Navy Reserve successful 2014 aft testing affirmative for cocaine – though Hunter often insists his constituent maltreatment only drastically accrued aft his relative Beau died nan pursuing year.

On galore days he reportedly only near his location to bargain vodka.

'He and Beau were one,' Hunter's girl Naomi erstwhile tried to explain. 'One heart, 1 soul, 1 mind.'

His 2017 divorcement pinch Kathleen was acrimonious. It came conscionable arsenic Joe was stepping down arsenic Barack Obama's Vice President – pursuing Trump's triumph – but Kathleen didn't clasp backmost connected publically revealing what a nightmare Hunter had been for illustration to unrecorded with.

She described really he would obsessively trawl done net porn, often hired prostitutes and had specified a superior supplier problem that she recovered a ace cocaine tube successful their ashtray.

In tribunal papers, she accused him of 'spending extravagantly connected his ain interests (including drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, portion clubs, and gifts for women pinch whom he had intersexual relations) while leaving nan family pinch nary costs to salary morganatic bills'.

His rampant intersexual behaviour had different superior consequences.

A DNA trial successful 2019 revealed he was nan 'biological and ineligible father' of a kid calved to Lunden Roberts, a stripper from Arkansas.

Hunter claimed successful his memoir to person 'no recollection' of gathering Roberts, but he has since settled a paternity suit and pays kid support.

For years, nan Biden family refused to admit babe Navy Joan – now 4 years old. But aft important media pressure, nan President past twelvemonth yet publically recognized his seventh grandchild.

But nan Hunter humiliations didn't extremity there.

His matter pinch his ain brother's widow, Hallie Biden, while still joined to Kathleen, was peculiarly shocking.

In his 2021 memoir 'Beautiful Things', Hunter tried to elicit sympathy, saying nan pair's two-year fling was owed to bonding complete a 'very circumstantial grief' they shared aft Beau's death.

But fairytale it was not. Testifying astatine his national weapon proceedings successful June, Hallie said Hunter 'introduced' her to ace cocaine.

The proceedings – astatine which Hunter was convicted – besides heard really he boasted of his 'superpower of uncovering ace anywhere, anytime'.

Hunter claims to beryllium 'the target of nan unrelenting Trump onslaught machine' – but Republicans could hardly beryllium blamed for nan toe-curling and shameful specifications we now cognize astir nan First Son's life.

Many of nan astir lurid specifications were made nationalist conscionable weeks earlier nan 2020 election, courtesy of Hunter's laptop being leaked to nan media aft it was abandoned astatine a Delaware computer-repair shop.

A photograph – extracted from nan machine – of Hunter lying comatose successful furniture pinch what appeared to beryllium a ace tube hanging retired his rima seemed to sum up really debased he'd sunk.

So excessively did nan aggregate nude pictures of him, often seen engaging successful activity and taking narcotics pinch prostitutes.

At nan time, nan Biden squad insisted it was each a 'smear campaign' engineered by Russian disinformation, pinch much than 50 erstwhile elder intelligence officials signing a missive saying they agreed.

It was months earlier nan US media was capable to rustle isolated that dishonesty and beryllium nan machine was so authentic.

And there's caller embarrassment to come: Hunter goes connected proceedings successful Los Angeles successful September connected charges that see failing to salary taxes, taxation evasion and filing mendacious taxation returns. (He denies nan offenses).

In June, a national assemblage recovered him blameworthy spell 3 felony weapon charges related to lying connected authorities forms erstwhile purchasing a firearm. He awaits sentencing.

But while it's hardly a concealed that supplier addiction and alcoholism makes group behave appallingly successful their individual lives, Hunter's alleged financial misconduct and suspicious business behaviour is harder to blasted connected vodka aliases ace cocaine.

A unreality has hung complete Hunter's profession – and so his father's – ever since, aft graduating from Yale Law School successful 1996, he sewage a occupation astatine MBNA America, a slope holding institution headquartered successful Delaware.

It was a slope pinch which, arsenic 1 of his apical run funders, Joe had specified adjacent ties that he was jokingly nicknamed 'the legislator from MBNA'.

At nan aforesaid clip that Hunter was promoted to nan rank of executive vice-president, his begetter was moving to push authorities that was favorable to MBNA done nan Senate.

In 2001, Hunter became a Washington lobbyist, while still receiving consulting fees from MBNA that roseate to $100,000 a year.

Although it led to him landing clients that overlapped pinch Joe's senatorial committee activity and legislative priorities, Hunter has ever insisted they had an statement whereby begetter and boy ne'er discussed his lobbying work.

In 2006, Hunter and his uncle James Biden, Joe's younger brother, bought an world hedge money called Paradigm Global Advisors.

According to an insider who said to Politico, connected their first time successful nan job, nan brace marched into Paradigm's Manhattan office, had nan president fired and told staff: 'Don't interest astir investors. We've sewage group each astir nan world who want to put successful Joe Biden.' (A fewer months later, Joe was to return complete arsenic president of nan Senate Foreign Relations Committee and motorboat a 2nd statesmanlike bid).

According to nan Politico source, James Biden made it clear publically that he viewed nan money arsenic a measurement to return money from rich | foreigners who could not legally springiness money to his older relative aliases his run account. The Bidens denied this.

However, 3 erstwhile Paradigm executives said James and Hunter besides sought to capitalize connected Joe's beardown ties to labour unions successful nan dream of landing investments from them.

Charles Provini, who concisely served arsenic Paradigm's president, said some James and Hunter many times cited Joe's governmental ties erstwhile they recruited him.

The money would spell connected to go connected pinch respective alleged fraudsters, including Texan financier R. Allen Stanford, who was convicted of moving 1 of nan biggest ever Ponzi schemes.

However, nan Bidens denied immoderate wrongdoing and ne'er faced charges. And successful 2010, they liquidated nan money and returned money to investors.

'There's nary grounds that Joe Biden utilized his powerfulness inappropriately aliases took action to use his relatives pinch respect to these ventures,' Politico concluded successful a awesome 2019 investigation. 'Interviews, tribunal records, authorities filings and news reports, however, uncover that immoderate members of nan Biden family person consistently mixed business and authorities complete astir half a century, moving from 1 business to nan adjacent arsenic Joe's stature successful Washington grew.'

Similar allegations of dubious associations and imaginable conflicts of liking continued to canine Hunter.

In 2013, he took a founding committee spot astatine BHR, a Chinese backstage equity firm.

The institution was registered successful Shanghai little than a fortnight aft Hunter flew pinch his father, by past Vice President, connected an charismatic US travel to China and met BHR's main executive. Hunter later insisted it had been for nary much than a 'cup of coffee'.

Joe had near agency erstwhile Hunter past went into business pinch Chinese lipid tycoon Ye Jianming successful 2017 connected a earthy state task successful Louisiana.

Ye was arrested by nan Chinese authorities connected corruption charges and nan woody fell apart.

An email from that twelvemonth — extracted from Hunter's notorious laptop — indicated he was receiving a $10 cardinal yearly interest from a Chinese billionaire for 'introductions alone' while another, sent by 1 of Hunter's business associates, projected including nan 'big guy' successful a planned task pinch a Chinese company.

The subordinate admitted he'd been referring to Joe but insisted nan task ne'er went anywhere.

Given his begetter was successful complaint of handling US-Ukraine relations successful nan Obama administration, Hunter's determination to subordinate nan committee of Ukrainian power institution Burisma Holdings successful 2014 — earning arsenic overmuch arsenic $1.2 cardinal a twelvemonth — proved peculiarly controversial.

Joe was, astatine nan time, encouraging Ukraine to clamp down connected corruption and urging its authorities to occurrence its apical prosecutor, Viktor Shokin.

He was ousted 2016 — but nan truth that Shokin had been investigating Burisma inevitably muddied nan waters.

In 2023, 1 of Hunter's erstwhile business partners, Devon Archer, told a US legislature sheet that Hunter put his begetter connected speakerphone up to 20 times while speaking pinch business associates. Though Biden said successful 2019 that he had ne'er discussed pinch his boy aliases anyone other successful nan family 'anything having to do pinch their businesses'.

An email suggested Hunter group up a gathering betwixt his begetter and an executive astatine Burisma, though Team Biden insists nary gathering ever took place.

Republican claims that Burisma bosses paid some Joe and Hunter $5 cardinal for removing nan Shokin 'threat' were undermined this twelvemonth erstwhile nan US Justice Department charged an ex-FBI informant pinch falsely concocting nan bribery strategy because he disliked President Biden.

After truthful galore family tragedies, it's not difficult to understand why a begetter should beryllium super-protective of his 'only surviving son', arsenic Biden often calls Hunter.

However, his loyalty to Hunter — nan root of truthful galore of nan President's messes — has been arsenic ferocious arsenic it has uncompromising.

'You're a damn liar,' he memorably snapped astatine an mean elector successful Iowa who had questioned Hunter's business dealings successful 2019.

In doing so, Biden displayed nan aforesaid stubbornness that made his last farewell to US authorities not a clip for acknowledgment and ceremony but for alleviation — and not a small anger that he didn't do it agelong ago.