“Joe Biden sold us out – he sold our oil to China just so his son could benefit,” he tells the Financial Times from the shade of a back porch. Melby’s anger stems from a conspiracy theory involving the recent release of American oil from its strategic oil reserve. The story, which has picked up in right-wing circles over the past two weeks, is largely based on a misreading of US oil policy. It’s also symptomatic of conservatives’ growing fixation on one figure: Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Hunter Biden has been at the center of Republican attacks since the 2020 election, when former President Donald Trump repeatedly targeted his rival’s son over his foreign trade dealings. An analysis for the FT by media monitoring firm Critical Mention shows that Hunter Biden has been mentioned on Fox News nearly 9,000 times over the past two years. That’s nearly double the number of mentions for Hillary Clinton, a previous focus for the conservative news outlet. In recent weeks the focus on Hunter Biden, who declined to comment for this story, has intensified. Then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden watch an NCAA basketball game between Georgetown University and Duke University in Washington in 2010 © Reuters Republicans have accused the president of prioritizing electric vehicles because an investment firm founded by his son once helped a Chinese conglomerate buy a company that mines cobalt, a critical ingredient in electric car batteries. Hunter Biden was not affiliated with the company at the time, and Democratic officials point out that promoting electric vehicles is a long-term policy with broad support across the party. When asked recently about enacting gun control measures, Ron Johnson, the Republican senator from Wisconsin, replied: “Before we pass anything new, let’s enforce the laws we already have. Let’s start with Hunter Biden.” Fox News anchor Jeanine Pirro presents a four-part documentary titled Who is Hunter Biden? which promises to delve into the “independent” life of the president’s son. There are aspects of Hunter Biden’s life that make him an obvious target for political attacks. In 2014, he took a lucrative board position at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Trump later claimed it was what prompted then-Vice President Joe Biden to push in 2016 for the firing of Ukraine’s attorney general, Viktor Shokin, who he claimed had been removed because he was investigating the company. The president says his efforts were part of a broader international push to oust Shokin because he was unwilling to pursue anti-corruption cases. Trump’s push for Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, to investigate the matter led to his first impeachment. But the issue also fueled broader conservative suspicions about Hunter Biden’s international business dealings. Further details of these activities were found in documents obtained from a laptop hard drive once owned by Hunter. The New York Post was suspended by Twitter for reporting on the content of the documents on the grounds that they were not verified, prompting conservative claims of censorship. Since then, the documents have been more widely reported as other outlets have authenticated them. Hunter Biden is under investigation by the Justice Department for his business interests, but has not been charged with a crime and denies wrongdoing. He has also been open about his struggles with drug and alcohol addiction and was accused by his ex-wife of infidelity, which he says played a role in their separation and divorce. He has previously said he exercised “poor judgment” in his business dealings in China and Ukraine, which had left his father open to political attacks. But he denied that he did anything wrong. While many conservatives are convinced of a massive cover-up, Democratic strategists say the recent focus on the president’s son is largely about this year’s midterm elections. “It’s no surprise that the right is refocusing on Hunter now — they’re desperate to find something to fire up their supporters in November,” said one Democratic strategist. The story that angered Melby, a retired construction worker, has its roots in the Biden administration’s recent decision to release about 180 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to lower global oil prices and curb rampant inflation. . Under US law, the government must accept the highest bids for oil from any company not subject to sanctions, and in April, that included a bid for 950,000 barrels from Unipec, a subsidiary of Chinese state oil company Sinopec. Hunter Biden once had business dealings with Sinopec, although he was not an employee of the company. That led the conservative feds to publish a story titled “Biden sold oil from emergency stockpile to Chinese gas giant linked to his scandal-plagued son.” That prompted a flurry of tweets from Republican members of Congress, including Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene’s call for the president to be impeached. Harriet Hageman has asked Congress to investigate Hunter Biden as he races for a Wyoming House seat © Natalie Behring/FT The issue has reached the campaign trail. In Wyoming, Melby nodded as Harriet Hageman, Trump’s challenger for the state’s House seat, called for a congressional investigation into Hunter Biden and oil barrels. During a campaign rally in the small town of Pinedale, Hageman told supporters: “We’re finding out a lot about Hunter Biden — including the fact that a million barrels of oil have been shipped to us in China through the company he worked for. .” Pollsters say, however, that while such messages are being heard by loyal Trump supporters, they are unlikely to gain much traction with the wider electorate.

In an April Morning Consult poll, only 28 percent of voters said a congressional investigation of Hunter Biden should be a top priority, including only half of Republican voters. Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster, said: “I ask people what is the most important issue in America and Hunter Biden doesn’t even rank in the top 10.” “Some people don’t like their president [Trump] was accountable [by being impeached and losing office] and thus vent their enmity on his successor’s child.’