 Paul Morigi/Getty Images for World Food Program USA
- Hunter Biden, the former vice president's middle child, is at the center of a controversy that is being stirred by President Donald Trump's administration over a possible conflict of interest involving a business he was involved in and the Ukrainian government.
- Biden's personal life has created tension as it has played out amid his father's political life for years, and despite being cleared of any wrongdoing, his entanglement in the administration's contact with Ukraine is proving controversial.
- See how Biden rose through the ranks of Washington to land in President Donald Trump's latest scandal.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe Biden's middle child, is at the center of President Donald Trump's Ukraine scandal that launched an impeachment inquiry.
The 49-year-old's personal life has created tension as it has played out amid his father's political life for years, and is now coming into sharper focus as his dad has led the field of Democratic voters for months.
See how Hunter Biden rose through the ranks of Washington and found himself involved in Trump's latest scandal. Joe Biden's sons have been well-known fixtures in his public life since they were children.
 Bettmann / Contributor via Getty Images
Joe Biden was sworn into office for a Delaware Senate seat in a Wilmington, Delaware, hospital where his two young sons, Hunter and his brother Beau, were taken after being severely injured in a car accident that killed Biden's wife and baby daughter, Naomi, in 1972.
The senator's daily 90-minute train commute to Washington, DC, and back to Delaware to care for his sons earned him the nickname "Amtrak Joe."
Biden later married Jill Jacobs, Hunter and Beau's stepmother, in 1977. The brothers' half-sister, Ashley, was born on June 8, 1981.
Hunter Biden followed in his father's political footsteps and worked his way up in Washington.
 Cynthia Johnson/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Image
Hunter Biden studied at Georgetown University and graduated in 1992. It was while earning his undergraduate history degree that he began to differ from his teetotaler father as he began to ramp up his social drinking habit into smoking Marlboro Reds and occasionally using cocaine, according to a 2019 interview with The New Yorker.
After graduation, he spent a year in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, working in Portland, Oregon, before earning a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1996.
In 1997, Hunter Biden returned to the family's roots in Wilmington, Delaware, where he began a career that immediately caused conflict-of-interest questions.
 Shutterstock
Hunter Biden bought a historic estate in Wilmington in 1997, where he lived with his wife, young daughters, and brother Beau. He assumed a role as an executive vice president at MBNA bank but later said he disliked the stiff corporate culture.
"If you forgot to wear your MBNA lapel pin, someone would stop you in the halls," he later told The New Yorker.
His role at the bank raised eyebrows as MBNA was known as a massive donor to several of Joe Biden's campaigns over the years, but he stayed with the company for nearly five years.
In 1998, he reached out to William Oldaker, a Washington, DC-based lawyer who had worked on Joe Biden's 1987 presidential campaign about getting a job in President Bill Clinton's administration, according to The New Yorker.
See the rest of the story at Business InsiderSee Also: SEE ALSO: The Joe and Hunter Biden Ukraine investigation, explained
SEE ALSO: Joe Biden is running for president in 2020. Here's everything we know about the candidate and how he stacks up against the competition.  |