When Hunter Biden’s laptop emerged with evidence of drug use and accusations of nudity in the presence of a teenage girl in his household, law enforcement agencies punted rather than aggressively investigate the state’s most powerful political family.
As soon as the police department in President Biden’s home county received the laptop in October 2020, police officials turned it over to Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, who promptly handed it off to the FBI’s Baltimore field office.
Two years later, there is still no evidence that Delaware law enforcement or child welfare officials took action to determine whether Hunter Biden’s household had a child endangerment situation.
The hard drive contained photographs of Hunter Biden puffing on a crack pipe and walking around naked inside the Delaware home he shared with his girlfriend and her teenage daughter. It also revealed text messages in which Hunter Biden protested complaints by relatives about his “sexually inappropriate” behavior in front of the teenage girl.
The Washington Times obtained a copy of the laptop hard drive and reviewed Hunter Biden’s text messages, photographs and other documents.
It is another example of President Biden’s family getting a pass, said Rep. Dan Bishop, a North Carolina Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.
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“Departments of social services, local prosecutors exist in significant part to address exactly those kinds of harm,” he said when The Times presented him with details of the Delaware law enforcement response.
“Americans have been aware of all of the tales concerning Hunter Biden, whether they be handling of weapons, the inexplicable payments of massive sums of money from abroad, and then these lurid allegations … of grossly irresponsible personal conduct extending over a period of many years, and yet he seems to defy gravity,” he said. “People who have a certain status or certain advantages seem never to come under scrutiny from law enforcement as others would.”
When The Times asked the FBI whether it investigated potential child endangerment involving Hunter Biden, the FBI said it was agency policy to neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation. The FBI declined to provide additional comments.
Under Delaware’s mandatory reporting law related to child endangerment, “Any person, agency, organization or entity who knows or in good faith suspects child abuse or neglect shall make a report.” The law specifies Delaware law enforcement agencies as mandatory reporters.
State law also stipulates that the “investigation and disposition of cases involving child abuse or neglect shall be conducted in a comprehensive, integrated, multidisciplinary manner.”
The attorney general and the New Castle County Police Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The Delaware Division of Family Services should receive confidential reports from police, medical professionals or civilians when child abuse or neglect is suspected. The department would not confirm nor deny whether it had received an inquiry involving Hunter Biden.
Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik came into possession of the laptop, which had been abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop. As soon as they saw evidence of what they viewed as child endangerment, they said, they turned over the laptop on Oct. 20, 2020, to law enforcement authorities in New Castle County, Delaware.
In a recent interview, Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Kerik said they were confounded that neither the police nor the state attorney general looked into the activities of Hunter Biden, a known drug addict, while he lived with a girlfriend and her teenage daughter and son.
Mr. Kerik said they felt compelled to turn over the evidence and expected police to conduct a child welfare investigation.
“Why would you not, at least, conduct a minimal inquiry?” Mr. Kerik said. “Why would you not interview the child [or] the child’s mother? Nobody was interviewed. Under state law, they should have conducted an investigation, period. It’s their jurisdiction.”
In a text message to his father, Hunter Biden complained that his girlfriend Hallie Biden, his brother’s widow, kept him away from her daughter, who is also his niece. Hunter Biden wrote that Hallie Biden accused him of doing drugs and talking to “girls” in front of the child.
In several text messages with family members, Hunter Biden talked about troubling accusations made by Hallie Biden while she was his live-in girlfriend beginning in 2017.
As his relationship with Hallie Biden fell apart, Hunter Biden texted members of his family about it. He said Hallie Biden told his therapist that he was “sexually inappropriate” with her underage daughter and “walking around naked, watching porn, masturbating and doing drugs” in front of the child, as first reported by the New York Post’s Miranda Devine.
The Times redacted the name of the teenage girl for this article.
In a March 13, 2019, text to Ashley Biden, his half sister, Hunter Biden said Hallie Biden “told my therapist that I had been sexually inappropriate with [REDACTED] … my therapist had to question her for close to 10 minutes to make certain that she did not have an obligation to report me to the police.”
Hunter Biden insisted that the accusation was false.
“So she told my therapist that I was sexually inappropriate with [REDACTED] when she says that I face time naked with her and the reason I can’t have her out to see me is because I’ll walk around naked smoking crack [talking to] girls on face time,” he wrote in another text to his father. “When she was pressed she said [REDACTED] never said anything like that but the bottom line is that I create and caused [a] very unsafe environment for the kids.”
The Times could not verify the accusations referenced in Hunter Biden’s text messages. The Times also reached out to Hallie Biden and Hunter Biden for comment but did not hear back from them.
Hunter Biden’s uncle, James Biden, responded to his complaints in a text dated Aug. 10, 2018. “Hunter, it is imperative you call me or your father. Your father is getting, as I am, barraged by Hallie,” James Biden said.
James Biden said: “He has not responded. We both agree with you and trust you. She is spreading what you told me and I believe you !!!! Are lies. Once again we both need you side of the story so we can shove it down her f—-ing throat!!!!
“I implore you to call. Please I/ we are on you side. I believe you, this is nothing short of character assassination. Love, U Jim,” he wrote.
Although Hunter Biden and Hallie Biden were reported to have broken up in the spring of 2019, Mr. Kerik said law enforcement was obliged to determine the frequency of Hunter Biden’s contacts with Hallie Biden and her underage daughter when they received the laptop evidence.
The Biden family has been firmly entwined in Delaware’s business and politics for half a century since Mr. Biden was first elected to serve on the New Castle County Council in 1970. Two years later, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he would serve until 2009 when he was sworn in as President Obama’s vice president.
His son Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in May 2015, served as Delaware attorney general from 2007 to 2015 and launched the state’s child predator task force.
The information that Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Kerik red-flagged to New Castle County law enforcement authorities, Mr. Kerik said, was treated like a hot potato. He said he and Mr. Giuliani were viewed as “suspects” when officials attempted to question each in separate rooms.
“So, they wound up talking to us in one room, and we told them what we believed. We told them what we found on the machine. We told them what should be investigated,” he said.
The New Castle County Police and the Delaware attorney general were primed to hand off the laptop’s contents to the FBI, Mr. Kerik said.
“They knew we were coming the day before, so they must have notified the FBI and told them,” he said. “They had them waiting, and they just turned it over to them.”
The bureau launched an earlier investigation into how the laptop arrived in Mr. Giuliani’s hands and was reviewing the authenticity of its contents at the time.
Mr. Giuliani said he and Mr. Kerik acted responsibly by delivering the laptop and reporting on Hunter Biden’s behavior to Delaware law enforcement, but he wonders why the authorities did not follow through with an inquiry.
He added, “As far as I know, nothing was ever done with it. When this gets investigated, somebody’s got to figure out who violated Delaware law by not acting on that,” Mr. Giuliani said. “I gave it to them directly, and then they just passed it on to the FBI.”
Mr. Kerik said the police never opened an inquiry to his knowledge.
“Given the fact that they immediately handed over the hard drive to the FBI, they didn’t do any local investigation,” he said. “Nobody interviewed the kid or interviewed the mom.”
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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