Biden, in Bringing Hunter to Ireland, Doubles Down on His Prodigal Son

The decision by President Biden to take along his embattled son Hunter on his four-day trip to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland — an ancestral homecoming — suggests that the president is doubling down on his support for Hunter, just as Hunter pursues an aggressive new strategy of confronting his various troubles head on. The trip, which begins at Belfast and will wind through Dublin, County Louth and County Mayo, is intended to commemorate the Good Friday Agreement, which marked the end of decades of violence known as the Troubles. A spokesman for the president notes that Hunter and Mr. Biden’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, will “cover all additional personal expenses” for the trip.Hunter was seen, umbrella in hand, on the tarmac at Dublin as his father greeted Ireland’s Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, on Wednesday afternoon. Mr. Biden is set to address the Irish parliament and dine at Dublin Castle. The first lady did not accompany the president overseas. The president’s only surviving son, who’s long been public about being an addict in recovery, is under investigation by House Republicans over whether he illegally profited from his father’s connections, and is reportedly also under investigation by federal law enforcement over his taxes and firearms purchases.The budding painter is also facing questions about the high-priced sales of his art, and is in an ongoing dispute over child support with the mother of his love child, who’s also suing him to have the surname of their daughter, Navy Joan Roberts, changed to Biden. Hunter’s very public presence at his father’s side comes shortly after he filed a lawsuit against the computer repairman who made public the now notorious laptop that was filled with embarrassing nude photos as well as intimate text messages laying bare various Biden family traumas — not to mention evidence of interest to various congressional investigators.At Belfast, the president called for the Stormont, Northern Ireland’s devolved parliament, to end its gridlock, expressing his hope that the “assembly and the executive will soon be restored.” That call was rejected by the Democratic Unionist Party, with one member, Sammy Wilson, accusing Mr. Biden of being “pro-republican, anti-unionist, anti-British.”Mr. Biden said of Northern Ireland, long a site of internecine violence carried out at intimate scale, that “this is a place [that] is transformed by peace, made technicolor by peace, made whole by peace.” In addition to these affairs of state, the trip is a homecoming of sorts for the president — and, by extension, Hunter. They count among their Irish ancestors clans from Ballina in the west and the Cooley Peninsula in the east. Mr. Biden’s father is of English extraction, and he has mused that his middle name, Robinette, derives from French Huguenots. The president recalls in his memoir his aunt quipping, “Your father’s not a bad man. He’s just English.” During St. Patrick’s Day remarks last month at the White House, he recalled his grandfather intoning, “Joey, remember, the best drop of blood in you is Irish.”Now, that Biden blood has gotten into some trouble, and the administration is seeking to stem the political hemorrhaging. Hunter — who was also seen at the Easter Egg Roll and at Camp David — will need some proverbial Irish luck as he faces investigations on a number of fronts. There is the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating Hunter for lucrative overseas work undertaken during the Obama-Biden administration. The chairman of that committee, Representative James Comer, has pledged to investigate the “Biden family’s domestic and international business dealings.” Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop has likewise become a source of controversy. Mr. Comer has claimed that “America witnessed a coordinated campaign by social media companies, mainstream news, and the intelligence community to suppress and de-legitimize the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop and its contents.” Greater legal jeopardy for Hunter looms from the Department of Justice, which is pursuing allegations of tax fraud as well as lying about his drug use in order to purchase a gun, not to mention his potential violation of statutes governing foreign lobbying. There could be further legal storm clouds on the horizon. Mr. Comer said on “Fox & Friends” last week: “I had two calls yesterday, one from a county attorney in Kentucky and one from a county attorney in Tennessee,” who “want to know if there are ways they can go after the Bidens now.”

Biden, in Bringing Hunter to Ireland, Doubles Down on His Prodigal Son

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