Is There Really a Biden Crime Family?
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So

Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri. I'm Puck's senior political correspondent, and this is Somebody's Gotta Win. Here's a wild story. Back in January 2021, shortly after Biden's inauguration, I was driving down I-95 in my Mini Cooper to Delaware. Yes, Wilmington, Delaware, home of the Bidens. I had two documents in my hand, a police report detailing this bizarro story about how Haley Biden, the widow of Beau Biden,

found a revolver in Hunter Biden's car, and then she threw it out in a trash can in a parking lot at a grocery store. The other document I had was a firearm transaction record signed by Hunter Biden for that gun. I had heard that while the gun was missing for a number of days, there was concern that it could be used in a crime and

And that gun could then be tied to Hunter, even if he didn't commit the crime. I was told by my sources that the Secret Service went to the gun shop where it was purchased to try to retrieve that document. The fact that Hunter Biden lied on the form when he was asked if he was using illegal drugs was not the story to me at the time. That crime is very rarely prosecuted. To me, it was a bigger story about a potential Secret Service cover-up.

For what it's worth, the Secret Service said they have no record of the incident. But clearly this document was trouble. The gun ended up being located days later and was thankfully not used in a crime. But like I said, I broke that story back in 2021 for Politico. And I can tell you, I would have never thought that three years later that Hunter Biden would be prosecuted for lying on that form because people are rarely prosecuted for that. But during that time, I did learn a lot about the Bidens,

their lives in Wilmington, and how the town felt about them. I also learned a ton from my reporting partner on that story, Ben Schreckinger, who is still at Politico and has a book called The Bidens. I brought him into this story because he knew so much about the family and how they operated. The Hunter Biden story is a very sad one. We know that. He faced a lot of trauma at a young age when his mother and his sister died in a car accident that he was involved in. He then slipped back into addiction when his brother Beau died.

All of this has been wearing on President Joe Biden in the middle of an election. Ben, or Shrek as we call him in the business, has so much context on the family. He is truly the guru when it comes to the Bidens. He's on the line to tell me what this all means, the guilty verdict,

And where the truth lies when Republicans call the Bidens the Biden crime family and when the White House says that Joe Biden had no idea about what Hunter was up to. Ben thinks the real trial to watch is the one in September about Hunter's taxes. Ben, thanks for coming on the show. It's

Hey, Tara. Good to be here. Yeah. So the reason I wanted you to come on the show, not just because you have a book on the Bidens and you know the family inside and out, you understand the family dynamics of the five decades since Joe Biden became a politician, his brothers, his sons, his sister, the whole family, and how they kind of all orbit around Joe Biden, which is something interesting that I've learned from you and your reporting and his political career. And they all seem to sort of be in like influence adjacent type jobs, his three brothers being lobbyists.

But we were working together when I ended up getting this firearm transaction record.

that is the reason that Hunter Biden is now possibly facing jail time. He was found guilty on three counts for this. And I remember when we were working on the story, I don't think either of us thought that this would lead to any sort of criminal conviction. Yeah, well, certainly not of Hunter Biden. You know, it was I think if you look at that story, the existence of this form and the fact that he was a drug user is buried there.

pretty deep down. And the real question at the top of this, the real, you know, the reason for the, the main reason for the story was, uh,

What you heard about the involvement of Secret Service agents who were trying to get the form essentially from the gun shop owner, which is not their job way outside their legal mandate. Hunter Biden wasn't a protectee at that time, even if he was unclear. And that remains a mystery. And if anything, if you know, if I had to guess about anything that would lead to an investigation out of the story, it would have been that and not.

this. So it's kind of funny that we're here. And we even wrote in the story, these kind of cases so rarely prosecuted, right? And it's likely because Hunter was the son of a vice president at the time, son of a president now. The fact that he wrote a memoir about his drug addiction. So it's pretty clear cut that he was addicted to drugs at the time. And

the fact that, you know, there was the police report too that we were working off of at the same time. I mean, we did tell a story for the first time about this gun that was thrown out in a garbage can by Haley Biden, who is his brother's widow. And they were dating or together at that time.

So, yeah, it just was a small detail in our story. The story was about a Secret Service cover-up. And the Secret Service ultimately said they didn't have a record of the incident. And we were really never able to get to the bottom of it. But what I gathered from being down in Delaware sort of backed up the reporting that you had already gathered before. And that there was a feeling inside of Delaware that...

Hunter was going through the worst throes of his addiction. And, you know, obviously with these types of addictions, the worst behavior inside of Wilmington. And he was surrounded by law enforcement, a community that sort of protected him from, you know,

some of them being criminal. And I think that's where the frustration over the idea of Secret Service trying to come in and sweep the whole thing under the rug. And that's where this story sort of originated from. I sense that a lot of people in Wilmington were frustrated with him. They knew that he had addiction and he had faced trauma, but they kind of saw him as like a Tommy boy, mainly because you just don't want that kind of stuff happening.

in your backyard. You don't want guns thrown out in garbage cans across from schools. You don't want fights that involve drugs, cocaine, hookers, et cetera. And yes, people suffer from addiction, but nobody wants it happening in their backyard. And they don't want it to be someone who seems to be getting away with it, right? Because of the fact that the Biden family has been around for, you know, five decades, including in law enforcement with both Biden being the attorney general. What's your experience been from reporting in Wilmington about

the family and how, and this Hunter saga. - Yeah, I was actually there just last week, taking the temperature of people, both just people on the street and sort of Wilmington insider types about what they thought about

This trial is sort of an episode in the long running Biden family saga. Sponsor was pretty muted. I think there are a few reasons for that. I think people are a little burned out on politics generally. And I think maybe especially if you're in the president's backyard, people just sort of feel bad for Joe Biden, especially, and just don't want to engage.

I also think the Biden show has been going on in Delaware for a very long time. Joe Biden's family travails have been big news there for a long time. And many of those early travails, obviously losing his

his wife and daughter in a car accident, were very sympathetic. Obviously losing Beau Biden in 2015 was very sympathetic. But now it's the part of the Biden show that's less sympathetic. A lot of people suffer from addiction issues, but one person said to me when I asked about this, in Janssen's, the grocery store in Joe Biden's neighborhood where this gun incident originally went down, she said, "Send him to jail."

That was the attitude among some people there. I think people are just a little sick of the drama around us in Delaware. That's what I gathered as well, especially people like around law enforcement or feeling like he was kind of getting away with the kind of behavior that another addict probably wouldn't get away with for many years. Sadly, though, falling into the addiction after the death of his brother, which is obviously sad, but there is a sort of mini oligarchy in this situation.

state that's only 96 miles long. And, you know, the Biden family is basically at the top of it, right? I mean, are there any other major families in Delaware? No, I mean, the DuPonts were the major family and they were much bigger than the Bidens ever were for literally centuries. There was another family called the Bayards. They were both

French Huguenot families. Like blue bloods, essentially, right? Yeah. And if you look at the list of senators from Delaware, you know, for like 150 years, it kind of just trades between those two names. And Biden was really the new blood. He came out of nowhere in 1972, son of a car salesman, was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, wasn't even born in the state. And at the time, it was a breath of fresh air. You know, the two punts had been around a long time and there were people who were ready for change.

But now we're talking in sort of historic scales of time once you go back more than half a century. And it's been the Biden era for more than half a century.

And, you know, this is not a chapter that is making, I think, people in Delaware eager for the Biden era to go on for decades more. Oh, really? You think they're done with it? I mean, also, you know, the, you know, Beau Biden was really the heir apparent politically in that state. You know, maybe things will skip a generation. Joe Biden has a lot of grandchildren, although I'm not aware of any of them.

really setting up a Delaware presence at this point in their life. So, you know, the sort of Biden era of Delaware may end whenever Joe Biden's presidency ends. Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, you talk about like dynasties. That's how we talk about politics, right? Like the Clinton dynasty that never really happened. The Bush dynasty kind of happened, right? Halfway. We thought Jeb might come through. I mean, there are other Bushes out there that might reemerge, but I think that's the past in terms of the Republican Party. And

Like who would carry on the Biden family legacy or dynasty, whatever you want to call it, probably would have been Beau, right? But that's not the case. That's not to say, like you said, the grandkids come out and end up...

in some way moving back to Delaware and claiming their turf. But it is an interesting thing. I also thought the whole idea of what you wrote about the culture of silence is just, is fascinating as well. But you followed the trial. Like, was there anything surprising that happened during the trial? I thought it was surprising that they brought in all of his former lovers. Like, I think that it was, you know, two ex-girlfriends, an ex-wife. It seemed like a lot of people that weren't really inclined to protect...

hunter and probably were not treated so well during his drug addiction. Yeah, that's his ex-wife. There was one ex-girlfriend, Zoe Keston, who from what I saw, you know, did not seem to

have any hard feelings against Hunter. Talked about him using drugs constantly, but also said she felt very safe around him, was charmed by him, fell for him. But yeah, you know, Hallie Biden went in front of a jury and said this gun incident happened not only because Hunter Biden had this gun, left it in his car, was using drugs, I didn't feel safe. Her own judgment was compromised because she was using crack cocaine. And at the prompting of the prosecutor explained that

Hunter had introduced her to crack cocaine in the wake of her husband, Beau Biden's death. Those are the kind of details that are not going to make a jury sympathetic. Yeah, and it was, you're right, it was striking. You know, you can read, you could read about a lot of this stuff in the tabloids for the last five years. Some of it made it, you know, into

other coverage as well, but seeing it in a courtroom is a, is another thing. Pretty striking. Yeah. Were there any tears? Like, did you feel like a lot of emotion in that? So I was only physically there for jury selection and there actually was some emotion around jury selection, but it was, uh, you know, a guy in the juror pool who had to recount his family history with, uh, a

addiction and sort of broke down. Hunter, I did see the reporting that Hunter's daughter, she did shed some tears after being called to testify. And I did see a juror go on CNN yesterday and say, you know, it was really a mistake for the defense to call Hunter Biden's daughter to the stand. Or at least they just, you know, they're hearing about how he was not a good father to her in his criminal, and she's having to speak about it on the stand. And at least one juror said that really didn't help.

Hunter's case. Okay. You have been covering the Biden family forever and the Republicans love to say that it's a Biden crime family. What's your impression? Is it a Biden crime family or is it a Biden influence family? Because in my impression from what I know, and I don't know it as well as you, I think it's a family that's been driven by influence. And by influence, I mean,

that everyone around him works in government lobbying and, you know, Joe is the star they all rotate around. But I don't think the Republicans were able to prove that Joe Biden is a criminal. But I would love to hear your take on it. I know you had a piece this week about how often people that worked for Joe Biden also worked for members of his family.

and that there was a lot of overlap. So to say that he was separate from this influence, this lobbying political influence game is not fair. I'm curious, what do you think? Well, first of all, the only person who's been convicted of a crime here at this point is Hunter Biden, and it wasn't really a corruption-related crime. You're getting a little warmer when he goes on trial for tax evasion.

in September. But even that, you know, that's not, he's been not being charged with a fair violation. He was investigated for fair violations. Was he acting as an unregistered foreign agent? But he hasn't been charged with that. And what I would say is that, you know, the Republicans have set down a marker in their rhetoric of the Biden crime family and president Biden has set down a marker and what he said on the campaign trail of, I've never discussed my family business dealings with anybody ever. And,

And so those two things are pretty far apart. And not surprisingly, the truth is somewhere in the middle of that. And, you know, I'm still reporting on stuff related to this. There are still subpoenas being issued by House Republicans. We don't know for sure what executive branch is.

I've reported on some criminal investigations into things related to Jim Biden's dealings that have been active recently. But that doesn't mean that Jim Biden is under investigation. You know, a lot of this is murky, very clearly,

Hunter and Jim Biden were going around invoking Joe Biden's influence in some cases implicitly, in other cases explicitly. Which is actually very common in Washington, by the way. Probably almost every member of Congress

or senator has, not to say it's right, but just to give you an idea of how Washington works, probably has a family member that is trying to make money in the influence game off of that person and their proximity power. And if not family members, former staffers. Yes. But they did it for foreign agents. That's the problem. Sure. Or if they broke, I mean, there are other domestic laws around

influence and what you can and can't do in terms of getting money from somebody who's seeking something from an office holder. But yeah, there's a big influence industry in Washington. And I think that that's why the closer a lot of people are to the sausage making factory, the more likely they are to shrug at some of this stuff. Obviously, there are partisan considerations in terms of how different people respond to the same set of facts. But in some ways, it's, you know,

it's an unflattering look not just at what Jim and Hunter Biden have been doing, but how, you know, what the sort of culture is around power and influence in Washington. And, you know, I think increasingly over time,

as the United States looks more and more like a, you know, a globe-spanning empire with interests everywhere, you know, around the world, the foreign element of this becomes a bigger thing. Based on what you know about Joe Biden and what you've been reporting on him, how do you think he feels about this criminal conviction for his son? Torn up. The most universal thing I heard from people, people who liked President Biden, people who don't like President Biden is,

you know, the family thing is not an act. This is an extremely tight-knit family. And I think some of my colleagues at Politico reported, you know, just how tormented Joe Biden is by this. But that's a story that comes out somewhere every three months or so is just how torn up. I would say every three weeks. Yeah. So, and I think that that's, I think that that's sort of

helped Joe Biden in terms of how the public and voters respond to this. The images they saw out of yesterday were of Joe Biden hugging Hunter Biden. A lot of people look at this as a loving, supportive father of Joe.

somebody with an addiction issue. I think that there's a lot of truth to that. I also think that both Joe and Hunter Biden are pretty skillful at projecting public images. I think it's arguably politically helpful for them that this was the first criminal trial that Hunter faced. It's about his personal problems. It's not about his taxes, where his money was coming from.

The sad thing for the Bidens politically is that that trial is coming in September. It's going to be closer to the election. So this is a very tight-knit family. And on the one hand, I think people are very sympathetic to that. On the other hand, it makes it

harder for Joe Biden to distance himself from what his brother and son were doing and say, this has nothing to do with me and I've never spoken to anybody about it, which is the position he staked out. What do you think the tax trial will reveal? Well, I was looking at a document that was outlining some of prosecutors' cases and some of the prosecutor, some of the prosecution's case, excuse me. And it's going to go into money Hunter Biden was getting from

entities and people affiliated with CEFC, which is a Chinese energy company, money he was getting from his board service on Burisma. Obviously, the Burisma board service has been litigated for years. Donald Trump was impeached for his own attempts to gin something up over the Burisma work. People are probably less familiar with the CEFC work.

Again, it's not flattering. If you read the testimony of Rob Walker, one of Hunter's business partners, there was a $3 million payment from CEFC that came in 2017. But Rob said that was really a thank you for help that Jim and Hunter gave to this company in its overseas expansion efforts while Joe Biden was vice president. Yeah.

There's a message that Hunter Biden sent to a CEFC related executive when some money didn't come later. This is when Joe Biden was out of office, but it says, you know, you owe us this money. If we don't get it soon, I'm sitting here with my father. We're going to come after you with everything I have. Joe Biden said, I wasn't actually there. Hunter Biden has said, I was, you know, addicted to drugs at this time. That's why, you know, that's the explanation for this.

But $5 million did flow from the CEFC side to the Hunter Biden side a few days later. I don't know if prosecutors are going to get into that, that stuff that's come out in various places, but it's come out in the impeachment inquiry. If it does get into that sort of thing,

that's not something that you as Joe Biden want being discussed. No, not in September during early voting. Hell no. And that's exactly what I've heard from the Trump team, that they are going to play up as much as possible. This idea of a Biden crime family because it lowers, obviously, Trump's weakness, which is the idea that he is lacking in integrity and values. And that's what the impeachment is. Well, it lowers voters, I guess, importance of integrity and values to who gets the job done.

They put them on the same playing field, apparently. All Hunter Biden family stories that kind of just helps Republicans. So yeah, it was it was interesting that that was the statement I saw from the campaign yesterday. This is just a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden crime family. It would not be hard for me to imagine Donald Trump not resisting the temptation to just

slam Hunter Biden for his personal life, for the addiction issue, probably is more strategic to try to really focus people on the influence side of this. Maybe I don't remember this clearly, but did he slam Hunter for being an addict

in 2020 my memory is that he did oh he did more than once but i could be wrong it didn't go over so well right was that the thinking i just don't remember i would imagine that it would not go over well with a lot of people that would you know yeah overly aggressive yeah i remember in the debates it came up but i can't remember the context of it it was such a mess that debate

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Republicans have said that the hush money trial was politically motivated. You know, it was a miscarriage of justice. Now that Hunter Biden has been found guilty, do you think that that argument is now moot? Do you think Republicans are now inoculated? They can't use that anymore? You know, I think that in terms of political talking points and arguing back and forth, it represents a counterpoint.

I think that if someone wanted to really sit down and argue this thing out, it is apples and oranges at the end of the day. It is just two different situations. And you can look at the political context for both of them. You can look at the fact that Alvin Bragg was elected and spoke while running about his experience.

assuming the Trump administration. And you could also look at the Hunter Biden case as a case that was never expected to be tried because there was a plea deal and this plea deal fell apart. And we don't know what was going through Mary Ellen Noriega's head. But we do know that it was in the wake of two IRS agents on this case.

coming to Congress as whistleblowers and saying there were political considerations here, we were stymied, we were prevented from looking into avenues that could lead to Joe Biden. Do you think that our reporting caused this case? Well, I think it's very possible that

Our reporting caused the gun form issue to come on the radar of White's, you know, special counsel David Weiss's team. Obviously, it was just sort of an adjunct to a larger investigation that was really about his taxes and about other things that haven't been charged, like Farah. But it was just like the clearest cut, easiest way to get him, basically, that form. Was it more clear cut than the tax situation? I don't know. I mean, it is pretty simple. I think it may simply be

if you are a target of a criminal investigation and other potential criminal behavior ends up in the newspaper, that could make its way into a case. It's like when you get a mobster on a tax charge. Well... Not to say he's a mobster. The prosecutors had this gun part of it was going to be a diversionary, probationary agreement. I don't think he was going to even have to

necessarily plead anything on it in his plea deal. But when that plea deal fell apart, all of a sudden the stance of the prosecution changes and says, well, I guess we're going to bring both of these cases as felony cases. I think that they probably overplayed their guards. I bet that he wishes that he would have just taken the plea deal that he had done because there was like a non-prosecution part about it. And I think that's what the judge didn't agree to, right? A non-prosecution agreement for future crimes or past crimes. Yeah, it had to do with the scope of the immunity.

And, you know, she clearly was familiar with the fact that there had been at some point a FARA element of this and said, well, could he still be charged for FARA violations? And

Hunter's side said, no, we're getting immunity from that. And Weiss's team said, no, he's not. This doesn't immunize him from that. People have speculated that, you know, they were feeling political pressure. They look like too much of a sweetheart deal or something like that. Yeah, and that they sort of changed their position on the spot when a judge started asking them about it. That's, I have no idea. That's speculation. Yeah, the judge said, I will not rubber stamp this. I remember that. Yeah, it's sort of a mess. It's sort of, you know...

A trial that wasn't really supposed to happen, basically, but it happened. And here we were, just little players in that trial by way of our reporting. Wild to think that, three years later, since we wrote the story back in January 2021. Yeah, it's been a long time. I still want to know what happened with the Secret Service. Yeah, they didn't really deny it, though. And neither did Hunter. He was asked about it by CBS.

He was like, not to my knowledge. And the Secret Service was like, we don't have a record of it. Okay, you don't have to have a record of it, right? Yeah, and there's an element of this that did not go on the story because this was three and a half years ago. But there were text messages on the laptop or a text message where he's talking about this incident and says the Secret Service also showed up at the scene at Janssen's, the market. Okay, wow. At the time...

you know, the intelligence community said, this looks like Russian disinformation. I was still reporting out. So we couldn't use it as a source. I remember that, that we weren't able to use it as a source. But three and a half years later, after some of those text messages were used in this trial and after all the reporting I've seen on

On those files, yeah, I'll mention that Hunter himself mentions the Secret Service in the text message from that time. Wild, wild, wild. And yeah, the prosecution did use the laptop as evidence. So we had to go to Wilmington and, well, I went to Wilmington for that story and tried to get down to the bottom of it without having the Secret Service being able to use the laptop as a source.

But I did find when I was there that there was a real feeling like the law enforcement community was ready to help Hunter whenever there was an issue. FBI agents were tailing him for white collar stuff, but getting a sense of the drug use and the sort of long binges.

There's been a lot about that at Chateau Marmont out in, is that Malibu? Yeah, West Hollywood. He was doing that kind of stuff in Delaware as well, apparently. And it just wasn't, you know, law enforcement. It wasn't.

It wasn't their priority, the people who were telling him at that time. Yeah, exactly. Okay. One last thing to end this. Obviously, this is a political show. It's about an election. Somebody's got to win. And I was just wondering, like, obviously, gun control is a huge issue for Democrats. Not the best messaging to have the president's son owning a gun, no less a revolver. And I just was thinking to myself, like, why did the White House hold a gun safety event on the same day that the verdict came down?

I mean, it was this really vivid illustration of the White House and the president really want to conceive of Joe Biden as, you know, these are the four corners of the job. He shows up at official events. He takes official actions. That's what people should be looking at and focusing on. And that's our message. And the reality that when you hold

the highest office in the land, people aren't going to just look at those four corners. And if your son is doing something that clashes with the message you're projecting your day job, well, it's not just a day job.

And inevitably, and unfortunately for the White House, you know, that is going to create a split screen effect for people. Well, thanks for coming on the show, Ben. Is there anything else you want to kind of note or think that the media has missed in this whole story? I do. I think that a trial and drug addiction and a gun are really easy things to focus on. And there's been...

huge coverage of this trial. And I think the coverage of the impeachment inquiry has really not been great. There is a lot that I've learned and been surprised to learn from reading interview transcripts and looking through other records that have been released

that do shed more light on what Hunter and Jim Biden were doing in terms of how they were making their money. So I'm interested in that. And I would be I'd love to read great in-depth coverage from all the other news outlets about that stuff as well. You think they're missing it because it's become so politically tainted that they refuse to look at the actual documents and the transcripts.

and the evidence? I think that's part of it. And again, when there's a hearing and Republicans and Democrats are shouting at each other and Hunter Biden showing up and refusing to testify, you know, it's easy to cover the circus. Yeah. And the circus can be, I don't know, it's maybe more entertaining, but there is substance here. There's a huge, huge, you know, distance between the Biden crime family and we've caught Joe Biden with a briefcase full of cash on the one hand and Joe

Joe Biden has absolutely nothing to do with this and there's nothing to see here on the other. And the truth lies somewhere in the middle. And the way to get at that is to examine the actual evidence. And you've been doing that. You should follow Ben's reporting. He really has been ahead of the curve on all this and he's been reading the details. He just knows everything about the Biden family. He's been following it for many, many years. Ben Strechinger is my colleague. When I was working at Politico, he's still working at Politico and you should check out his work. And Ben, plug your book.

The Bidens. You should read it. It's great. There you go. All right. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me, Tara. That was another episode of Somebody's Gotta Win. I'm your host, Tara Palmieri. I want to thank my producers, Christopher Sutton and Connor Nevins. If you like this show, please rate it, subscribe, share it with your friends. If you like my reporting, please go to puck.news slash Tara Palmieri and sign up for my newsletter, The Best and the Brightest. You can use the discount code Tara20. I'll be back on Tuesday.