Joe Biden's brother has revealed how the US president-elect earlier cautioned the Biden men after he feared their scandals could tarnish his presidential bid.
In a Monday interview with TC Scornavacchi, podcast host of "TC After Dark", Frank Biden pointed out that when the Biden men were under close press scrutiny in the run-up to the 3 November US presidential election the "natural instinct was to defend".
"Imagine Jim, Hunter and I, how awful we felt that we're reflecting poorly on Joe. That if something goes wrong here it's our fault. See that, Joe took us off that guilt train like nobody's business, 'Don't you dare! Don't you dare buy into that'", the 67-year-old said, apparently citing the then-Democratic presidential hopeful as saying.
At the time, President Donald Trump called for a probe into Hunter Biden's Ukrainian business dealings, while Jim was facing questions over his cooperation with Hunter on a failed Chinese investment venture.
In addition, Frank was facing a burden of paying a 1999 car crash victim's family a one-million dollar compensation that he owed them.
Frank Biden's Monday interview came a few days ahead of the president-elect's inauguration and a month after Joe Biden again stood up for his son in connection with an investigation into Hunter Biden's taxes by the US Attorney's Office in Delaware.
Speaking to CBS Evening News in mid-December, the president-elect expressed "great confidence" in his son, adding that he is "not concerned about any accusations" made against Hunter.
Hunter Biden earlier confirmed that he is under federal investigation over his "tax affairs" linked to business dealings in Ukraine and China as Fox News claimed he had failed to report some $400,000 in income he received from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.
The developments followed a scandal in October, when the New York Post published an article about two alleged emails that Hunter Biden had purportedly received from a top Burisma official while he was on the board of the firm.
In one email, Burisma board adviser Vadym Pozharskyi asked Hunter Biden to "use [his] influence" to politically support the Ukrainian company, while in another one, Pozharskyi thanked the younger Biden for arranging a meeting with his father.
The alleged emails were reportedly sourced from the hard drive of a damaged laptop said to belong to Hunter Biden that was dropped off for repairs at a shop in his home state of Delaware.
Joe Biden, for his part, has repeatedly insisted that he never had anything to do with his son's business dealings, slamming the allegations against his son as "smears from [US President] Donald Trump's henchmen".
President Donald Trump has, in turn, long criticised the media for paying almost zero attention to the Biden family's alleged corruption.
