Jill Biden's Ex-Husband Once Accused Joe Of Stealing From Him. Here's What Biden Allegedly Took

Giving speeches is a huge part of political life, especially for someone like President Joe Biden, who began his first Senate term at just 29 years old and has been an active part of U.S. politics ever since. Coming up with original material for your speeches probably becomes difficult after so many years, but is it possible that some of Biden's stories aren't original after all? That's exactly what Bill Stevenson, first lady Jill Biden's ex-husband, has claimed. 

In a conversation with the New York Post, Stevenson revealed that the president once stole a story from him and passed it off as his own. What's worse, Stevenson claims Biden committed this act of oral thievery right in front of him. This situation supposedly happened at the beginning of Biden's political career in the 1970s but, unfortunately, it may not be an isolated incident. Stevenson isn't the only one that has witnessed this behavior from Biden, as it appears that this alleged bad act was just the start of a longstanding bad habit of borrowing other people's stories without asking — or giving them credit.  

Bill Stevenson was married to Jill Biden in the early 1970s, when President Joe Biden was just a Senate hopeful in Delaware. Unfortunately, Biden made a very negative impression on Stevenson when the two first met. In 2023, Stevenson told the New York Post that the soon-to-be senator brazenly passed off one of Stevenson's stories from prep school as his own. The incident allegedly happened in 1972 when Biden was visiting Stevenson's night club, Stone Balloon. According to the article, Stevenson told Biden about a funny experience he had, and Biden borrowed the story just a few hours later. As Stevenson remembers: "I just stared at him in shock ... He just acted like it was his own story." 

Furthermore, Stevenson noted that this incident was only the beginning of Biden's bad habit of appropriating other people's words: "People are only now starting to think that something is wrong with Joe, but back then I saw the roots of his plagiarism." This situation clearly left its mark on Stevenson, who has repeatedly made harsh claims against the first family. For example, in a Newsmax interview, Stevenson described how Biden allegedly led him into tax-related legal troubles while he was still in the process of divorcing the first lady. He even goes as far as calling the Bidens "The Biden Crime Family" in the interview. 

Although Bill Stevenson's descriptions of Joe Biden may raise a few eyebrows, this isn't the only time the president has faced consequences for pilfering parts of his speeches, stories, or campaign materials. In the late 1980s, Biden made an early bid for the presidency and got caught red-handed recycling the words of several other politicians. In 1987, Time described coverage of this very public act of plagiarism as "... endless TV sequences of Biden's words on the campaign trail juxtaposed with almost identical oratory coming from the mouth of Robert Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, and British Labor Party Leader Neil Kinnock." Less than a month later, another Time article announced Biden's withdrawal from the race in response to the scandal. 

However, the president's history of failing to cite his sources doesn't end there. In 2019, Biden came under fire for plagiarism yet again when The Washington Post reported that campaign staffers hadn't included proper source attributions in multiple documents. Political scientist Leah Stokes explained this situation: "Biden appears to be taking ideas from other people and not giving credit. You can't do that ... It speaks of pulling an all-nighter and reading off of your friend's essay." It appears Biden didn't take the lessons he learned about plagiarism from his 1980s campaign to heart.