Robert Hunter Biden (born February 4, 1970) is an American lawyer who is the second son of U.S. President Joe Biden and his first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden. Biden is also a hedge fund, venture capital, and private-equity fund investor who formerly worked as a lobbyist, banker, public administration official, and registered lobbyist-firm attorney.
Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings, one of the largest private natural gas producers in Ukraine, from 2014 until his term expired in April 2019. Since the early months of 2019, Biden and his father have been the subjects of unevidenced claims of corrupt activities in a Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory pushed by then-U.S. President Donald Trump and his allies, concerning Hunter Biden's business dealings in Ukraine and Joe Biden's anti-corruption efforts there on behalf of the United States during the time he was vice president.[1] United States intelligence community analysis released in March 2021 found that proxies of Russian intelligence promoted and laundered misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about the Bidens "to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration."[2][3]
After graduating from law school in 1996, Biden accepted a position at the bank holding company MBNA, a major contributor to his father's political campaigns.[5] By 1998, Biden had risen to the rank of executive vice president.[5][10] He then left to serve at the United States Department of Commerce until 2001, focusing on ecommerce policy for President Bill Clinton's administration.[11] Biden then became a lobbyist, co-founding the firm of Oldaker, Biden & Belair.[12] According to Adam Entous of The New Yorker, Biden and his father established a relationship in which "Biden wouldn't ask Hunter about his lobbying clients, and Hunter wouldn't tell his father about them."[5]
Hunter Biden was appointed to a five-year term on the board of directors of Amtrak by President George W. Bush in 2006.[13] Biden was the board's vice chairman from July 2006 until 2009; he resigned in January 2009,[14][15] shortly after his father became vice president. Biden said during his father's vice-presidential campaign that it was time for his lobbying activities to end.[5]