A Conversation with Miles Carter and Claude (Anthropic AI)
We Spent Four Years Investigating Hunter Biden.
Here’s What We Found — and What We’re Looking at Now.
The investigations were real. The findings were specific. And the standard they established is worth applying consistently.
March 31, 2026 · Reviewed by Grok, Gemini & Claude
Teaser: Four years of investigations into Hunter Biden produced documented findings — and a specific threshold that was never crossed. This post walks through what was found, what wasn’t, and what that standard looks like when applied to what’s visible today.
Miles
I want to understand the Hunter Biden investigations clearly — not to relitigate them, but because I think the details matter. We had years of hearings, a special counsel, congressional investigations, wall-to-wall coverage. What did they actually find, and where did they land?
Claude
The investigations were real, the findings were substantive, and the concerns that drove them were not invented. That matters for understanding what the process actually produced.
The laptop was genuine. Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings — Burisma in Ukraine, arrangements in China, other international relationships — were documented and, given his father’s policy role as Vice President, raised legitimate questions about appearances. Bank records showed financial flows to Hunter and James Biden from foreign entities. Devon Archer, a business associate, testified that Joe Biden joined calls and dinners where Hunter’s business relationships were present. Joe Biden made the comment that his family didn’t discuss his business — a claim the record complicated.
The 2020 Senate report called some of these dealings problematic. Republican-led House committees spent two years building a case. A special counsel, David Weiss, was appointed and given broad authority. Whistleblowers came forward claiming the DOJ had handled the investigation with unusual deference. An FBI form — the FD-1023 — alleged a bribery scheme involving a foreign national’s claims about Joe Biden.
Those are the documented concerns. They were not baseless. They reflected a genuine pattern of a vice president’s son trading on the family name in ways that created real appearance problems.
What the Investigations Established — and the Threshold They Never Crossed
What was documented: Foreign payments to Hunter and James Biden. Business relationships during Joe Biden’s vice presidency. Phone call appearances and dinners. Influence peddling patterns. Tax violations and a false statement on a federal firearms form — charges Hunter was convicted on.
What was not established: That Joe Biden took a specific official action — changed a policy, directed a decision, intervened in a proceeding — in exchange for or in connection with those foreign payments. Multiple investigations with Republican leadership, subpoena power, and years of work did not produce that evidence.
The distinction matters. Appearance concerns and documented awkwardness are real findings. They are not the same as a proven exchange. The investigations ran the full distance and landed at that line.
Hunter Biden was convicted — on federal gun charges for lying about his drug use on a federal firearms form, and on federal tax charges for failing to pay over a million dollars in taxes. He faced real legal accountability. His father later pardoned him, which generated its own round of criticism.
That is the full picture. Documented concerns. Legitimate scrutiny. Convictions on personal conduct charges. And a specific threshold — did the president exchange official action for personal financial benefit — that four years of investigation did not cross.
Miles
So the standard that drove four years of scrutiny was essentially this: is the president’s family financially benefiting from relationships that could influence how the president exercises official power? That was the concern. That was what justified the investigations. I’m curious what that same standard looks like when you apply it to what’s currently visible — the branded cryptocurrency, the Bibles, the foreign gifts, the family financial arrangements. What are we actually looking at?
Claude
Here is what is publicly documented as of early 2026. No conclusions attached — just the factual record, applied to the standard you just named.
What Is Currently Documented — The Public Record
The Trump Bible. A branded religious text sold at $59.99, personally endorsed and marketed by the president. Presidential identity used as the commercial selling point.
$TRUMP and $MELANIA meme coins. Personal branded cryptocurrency launched days before the inauguration. Estimated $100 million or more in trading fees generated, flowing through entities connected to the Trump organization. The coins carry no underlying asset value — their price is derived entirely from the presidential identity. Buyers can purchase anonymously. There is no disclosure mechanism that identifies who is acquiring them or at what scale.
The Qatar 747. A $400 million aircraft gifted by the government of Qatar, routed through the Department of Defense for use as Air Force One. Ethics experts across the political spectrum have described the legal distance created by the DoD routing as thin. Qatar’s relationship with the United States — including basing rights, arms sales, and regional diplomacy — is shaped by presidential decisions.
Jared Kushner and Affinity Partners. A $2 billion investment from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund into Kushner’s private equity firm. Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the United States — including arms sales, oil production decisions, and regional security arrangements — is among the most consequential foreign policy portfolios a president manages. Kushner has continued to engage informally in Middle East diplomacy while managing a fund financially dependent on Saudi capital.
There is one feature of several items on this list that is worth naming carefully, because it changes how the standard can be applied.
The concern that drove the Hunter Biden investigations was that foreign financial relationships might be creating hidden influence over presidential decisions — influence that couldn’t be seen or traced. Investigators could follow bank records, subpoena witnesses, examine documented flows. The process was slow and imperfect, but the transactions had names attached to them.
The Anonymous Buyer Problem
Branded cryptocurrency purchased by anonymous buyers creates a condition that is structurally different from the Hunter Biden concern — not because it is necessarily worse, but because the investigative tools that applied there do not apply here.
A foreign government, a foreign national, or a domestic interest with business before the administration can purchase $TRUMP coins in volume, anonymously, generating direct financial benefit for entities connected to the president — with no disclosure requirement, no subpoena trail, and no mechanism to trace the relationship between the buyer and any subsequent presidential decision.
The standard applied to Hunter Biden assumed that financial relationships creating potential presidential influence should be visible and traceable. The anonymous buyer mechanism makes that assumption structurally impossible to fulfill.
None of the items documented above have produced a criminal conviction. None have been proven to represent a specific exchange of official action for financial benefit. The investigations that would establish that — if they exist — are not yet complete or have not yet begun.
What they represent is a publicly visible set of financial arrangements connecting the presidency to foreign governments, foreign capital, and anonymous purchasers — measured against a standard of scrutiny that was, four years ago, considered not just appropriate but urgently necessary.
The Only Question This Post Is Asking
The standard applied between 2020 and 2024 was this: when financial relationships exist that could create presidential influence — documented or potential, direct or indirect — they warrant sustained, serious public scrutiny.
The only question worth sitting with is whether that standard is being applied now — with the same consistency, the same resources, and the same urgency — to what is visible today.
Sources & Notes
1. U.S. Senate Homeland Security & Finance Committees — Hunter Biden Report, September 2020
2. U.S. House Oversight Committee — Biden Family Investigation, Republican majority findings, 2023–2024
3. Special Counsel David Weiss — Final Report on Hunter Biden investigation, 2024
4. U.S. Department of Justice — Hunter Biden conviction records, federal gun and tax charges, 2024
5. Devon Archer congressional testimony — House Oversight Committee, July 2023
6. Wall Street Journal — $TRUMP meme coin launch, trading fees, and connected entities, January 2025
7. Reuters / Associated Press — Qatar 747 aircraft, DoD routing, ethics analysis, 2025
8. New York Times — Jared Kushner, Affinity Partners, Saudi sovereign wealth fund investment, 2021–2025
9. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) — Presidential conflicts tracker, ongoing 2025–2026
10. God Bless the USA Bible — product listing and presidential endorsement documentation, 2024
11. Politico — “Letter of 51” intelligence officials on laptop story, October 2020; subsequent corrections and congressional review, 2023
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