A political scholar believes the controversy surrounding Joe Biden's son could weigh down on the former vice president.

Fox News recently released a photo from August 2014 showing Biden and his son Hunter playing golf in the Hamptons with a board member of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings.

Biden has insisted that he never discussed his son's foreign business dealings with the executive, but Dr. Merrill Matthews, resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation and author of On the Edge: America Faces the Entitlements Cliff, says the photo is incriminating.

"Joe Biden playing golf with the head of the company that Hunter Biden was getting $50,000 a month from -- for Joe Biden to claim he had no contact with that, hadn't discussed it with his son, he's playing golf with the guy in 2014! Does anybody really believe that he's not playing golf with his son and the head of that company from Ukraine and they didn't talk anything about the company's policies and things that the company would like to see done," Dr. Matthews poses. "I think this could end up ultimately weighing down on Joe Biden."

Matthews

But this is probably encouraging news for Biden's Democratic competitors, the political scholar continues.

"I suspect that a number of the Democrats who are sitting in the wings right now are somewhat thankful this happened because it gives them a chance to come up and maybe supplant him," Dr. Matthew says.

According to at least one poll, OneNewsNow recently reported that Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has already done that.