The Biden case
This article by John Solomon is well worth reading:
[Joe] Biden’s memo argues there is no evidence that the former vice president’s or Hunter Biden’s conduct raised any concern, and that Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin’s investigation was “dormant” when the vice president forced the prosecutor to be fired in Ukraine.
The memo calls the allegation a “conspiracy theory” (and, in full disclosure, blames my reporting for the allegations surfacing last year.)
But the memo omits critical impeachment testimony and other evidence that paint a far different portrait than Biden’s there’s-nothing-to-talk-about-here rebuttal.
Here are the facts, with links to public evidence, so you can decide for yourself.
Fact: Joe Biden admitted to forcing Shokin’s firing in March 2016…
Fact: Shokin’s prosecutors were actively investigating Burisma when he was fired…
Fact: Burisma’s lawyers in 2016 were pressing U.S. and Ukrainian authorities to end the corruption investigations…
Fact: There is substantial evidence Joe Biden and his office knew about the Burisma probe and his son’s role as a board member…
Fact: Federal Ethics rules requires government officials to avoid taking policy actions affecting close relatives…
Fact: Multiple State Department officials testified the Bidens’ dealings in Ukraine created the appearance of a conflict of interest…
Fact: Hunter Biden acknowleged he may have gotten his Burisma job solely because of his last name…
Fact: Ukraine law enforcement reopened the Burisma investigation in early 2019, well before President Trump mentioned the matter to Ukraine’s new president Vlodymyr Zelensky…
Many details at the link.
I don’t know if the Bidens broke any laws. Probably not. And maybe old Joe didn’t pay any attention to what Hunter was doing in his business life. That’s possible. Nevertheless, it looks very BAD.
“Profiles In Corruption,” a new book by Peter Schweizer has a 70 page chapter covering the activities of Joe’s relatives, (son, brothers, daughter, & son-in-law) who managed to land sweet deals while Joe was VP. Maybe not prosecutable, but certainly corrupt nepotism.
See an interview with Schweizer here: https://www.foxnews.com/media/peter-schweizer-how-biden-family-got-rich
All crooked all of the time.
(In which case, never crooked?)
…So what ARE the odds of “For eight years, there wasn’t one single hint of a scandal or a lie” ever achieving the iconic status of “I am not a crook”? (To be sure, there is virtue in brevity….)
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jun/18/lyin-joe-biden-not-a-hint-of-a-scandal-during-obam/
My husband worked for several large corporations in the course of a career spanning nearly fifty years. Over and over he was taught that he must avoid, not only impropriety, but the appearance of impropriety (price-fixing, nepotism, personal misbehavior at work). Biden either never got this training, or, more likely, decided that ethics are for little people.
It is impossible to imagine that Trump, with his large wealth, would actually make policy decisions based on who’s staying at his hotels, nor is there any evidence he has done so. But Biden? It’s impossible for me to believe he didn’t know perfectly well his family was getting public money, either American, or Ukrainian, or Communist Chinese.
You know that off camera, perv ‘Uncle’ Joe is smirking and thinking “Guilty as hell, free as a bird” while laughing all the way to the bank.
May he receive an appropriate reward from St. Peter @ the pearly gates because lately justice is in short supply down here.
The law he broke is Bribery.
But, like the Clinton Bribery Foundation, punishment depends on a trial, and if the DOJ won’t even investigate, much less prosecute, of course he remains free.
Like the guilty Clinton, who handled State Dept. stuff in a criminal manner, but the DOJ allowed the sham-investigating FBI to declare unintended guilt, and no prosecution.
Everybody should be outraged over this. But Dems aren’t.
Joe Biden’s brother and son have a long history of profiting off his name
Stanford had links to fund run by Bidens: report
At Good Morning America show Hunter confessed on ABC’s
“I don’t think that there’s a lot of things that would have happened in my life if my last name wasn’t Biden,”
Joe Biden’s Family Has Been Cashing in on His Career for Decades. Democrats Need to Acknowledge That.
And for long history read: Biden-Ukraine
The Bidens are not alone when it comes to political corruption. It is a common occurrence.
There is an ironic side story to the Bidens and Burisma along the lines that Kate mentions above.
Hunter Biden was partnered with Christopher Heinz in the investment firm Rosemont Seneca, when Hunter decided to join the board of Burisma.
According to the NYPost,
So Christopher Heinz, the son of a billionaire heir to the Heinz food empire thought that the activities of Hunter Biden, son of the Dem VP of the U.S.A, were just too suspect for Christopher to be associated with him.
To be fair, I don’t recall Joe Biden giving a great deal of lip service against corrupt CEOs and billionaires, or corrupt politicians either. But certainly, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (not sure about Buttigieg) have lectured us endlessly about how corrupt these corporate tycoons are and how we must put our trust in politicians instead.
@oann exposes those DemocRATS & their Ukraine ties Joe & Hunter & Nancy & Paul; seems like it’s a Family Affair
Say hello to Paul Pelosi Jr.
2014 Washington Times story about Paul Pelosi Jr:
Company co-founded by Nancy Pelosi’s son charged with securities fraud
Why isn’t the corruption of the Bidens the number one story? Answer: Impeachment trial.
China Joe was crying on Morning Joe Show the other day and said the beloved Beau Biden should be running instead of Joe. Why? Beau was just another Dem hack.
Adam Schiff and Ukrainian arms dealer Igor Pasternak:
Adam Schiff comes under fire for having his own connection to Ukrainian businessman whose company manufacturers airships and weapons for both the US and Ukraine
This crap will not stop until Democrats start going to jail.
JohnnyB on January 23, 2020 at 10:33 pm said:
This crap will not stop until Democrats start going to jail.
* * *
And probably a few Republicans with them.
Why else do you think the Deep State is so successful?
Yep, both Dems and Reps need to be going to jail.
To stop/ slow down, this corruption. But who at the DOJ will investigate, who will prosecute?
Personnel is policy, and Trump has been lousy on personnel. Virtually all in gov’t not hired by him are against him, and many, if not most, of those hired “for him”, are GOPe deep state folk more than conservatives.
I sent a copy of “Profiles in Corruption” to my sister. I will need a shower when I finish the Biden chapter. The whole family are crooks. His brother Frank might be worse than Hunter. Frank has been evading a $500,000 judgement in a hit and run fatality case for ten years.
Trump has been lousy on personnel.
Why do you think he relies so much on family ? The last honest person left DC and environs when Reagan was president.
Personnel is policy, and Trump has been lousy on personnel.
I have a suspicion that what happened was that Reince Priebus put some skeevy insiders in the White House personnel office and they’ve been generating bum appointments ever since. Also, we have reason to believe that some of the people who were not bums to start out were undermining him later. See Nikki Haley’s account of her conversations with Rex Tillerson.
The number of discretionary appointments which require congressional confirmation is absurd, IMO.
ArtD – “skeevy insiders”? I’m sure you’re right. But Trump was expecting, at the time, to make lots of deals with the Dems, and for the Dems to respect his win.
He was wrong.
Very wrong. Like Andy McCarthy, he didn’t think the FBI would be violating the law to get him.
Too many GOPe folk, even if not NeverTrump, still wanted politics as business deals to go on, with the GOP “unhappily” accepting small or large Dem steps towards elite-crony capitalism.
Trump’s first “House majority” included lots of such GOPe folk, including Paul Ryan. Who DID help get the huge Tax Cuts passed, but that’s about all, tho it was quite important for the econ boom.
The illegal Russia set-up was to cover up for Hillary’s illegal bribe acceptance Foundation, and her illegal emails.
I have Herculean dreams of Trump winning in 2020, and Reps taking the House & Senate, and passing new gov’t employment laws that allow quicker dismissal for illegal acts and violations of written policies. Sometimes even “packing Homeland Security” — while eliminating the DOJ & FBI thru 0 budget for a year. To be rebuilt without the current DC Dem bias. I guess that’s one of the few ways to legally clean out the dirty stables.
Mike K on January 24, 2020 at 2:17 pm said:
I sent a copy of “Profiles in Corruption” to my sister. I will need a shower when I finish the Biden chapter. The whole family are crooks. His brother Frank might be worse than Hunter. Frank has been evading a $500,000 judgement in a hit and run fatality case for ten years.
* * *
The Bidens are not the only family that has fattened off the government slops.
Could that possibly be why there is so much opposition to Trump among the left and the right in Congress & administrative state’s upper levels?
Tom Grey on January 24, 2020 at 3:51 pm said:
ArtD – “skeevy insiders”? I’m sure you’re right. But Trump was expecting, at the time, to make lots of deals with the Dems, and for the Dems to respect his win.
He was wrong.
* * *
Yep. Most of the revelations about corruption are own-goals by the Democrats, the operation of the Streisand effect.
Wikipedia:
The Streisand effect is a phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet.[1] It is an example of psychological reactance, wherein once people are aware that some information is being kept from them, their motivation to access and spread it is increased.[2]
It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose 2003 attempt to suppress photographs of her residence in Malibu, California, inadvertently drew further public attention to it. Similar attempts have been made, for example, in cease-and-desist letters to suppress files, websites, and even numbers. Instead of being suppressed, the information receives extensive publicity and media extensions such as videos and spoof songs, often being widely mirrored on the Internet or distributed on file-sharing networks.[3][4]