XPost: alt.politics.miserable-failure, talk.politics.guns, sac.politics
XPost: alt.politics.republicans, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns From: democrat-criminals@mail.house.gov

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/12/hunter-biden-corruption- 515583

During the presidential campaign, liberals had plenty of reason to tune
out the Hunter Biden story.

For one, it was being pushed by Donald Trump, whose administration was
awash in ethics scandals of its own, and who failed to make a convincing
case that Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian energy company influenced
his father’s actions as vice president. And it was unclear what to make of
the alleged leak of material from Hunter Biden’s laptop, especially after social media companies moved to restrict access to the story and a bevy of former U.S. intelligence officials dismissed it as likely “Russian disinformation.”

Following the election, it seemed the whole Hunter Biden saga might fade
away amid Trump’s efforts to overturn the result, the storming of the
Capitol and an ongoing pandemic. Instead, he has remained in the
headlines.

Most recently, news broke this summer that Hunter Biden would begin
selling paintings, with initial prices as high as $500,000. It was an extraordinary sum for a debut artist, and immediately invited concerns
that people who wanted to ingratiate themselves with the president would overpay for his son’s art.

The White House responded that the identities of the buyers would be kept secret, both from the painter and the public, while leaving it to the art dealer to weed out any suspicious patrons.

Many ethics experts expressed sharp disapproval of the arrangement,
including a former head of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub,
who described the sums of money involved as “absolutely appalling.”

So far, right-leaning outlets that devoted less attention to the ethical
issues raised by the activities of Trump’s relatives have had a field day
with the Hunter Biden story. Interest in his activities, meanwhile, has
been relatively muted on the left.

That may be changing. Along with new evidence that at least some of the
alleged laptop material is genuine — as well as other emerging evidence
about the deals family members have sought or received from people with an interest in influencing Biden — the bipartisan outcry over the painting
venture suggests that the Hunter Biden issue is not going away, and that liberals may increasingly tune in.

After all, concerns about money influencing politics have traditionally animated liberals more than conservatives. In fact, one of the most
scathing critiques of Biden came during the Democratic primary, from the progressive reformer and Bernie Sanders surrogate Zephyr Teachout, who
authored an op-ed for the Guardian accusing Biden of having a “corruption problem” (the column prompted Sanders to apologize to his former Senate colleague).

And with his father in office, Hunter Biden’s activities no longer bear on
an electoral choice between Biden and Trump. Instead, they threaten to complicate the White House’s efforts to position Biden as a global anti- corruption crusader, along with its contention that “we have the highest ethical standards of any administration in history.”

It is impossible for the public to know everything that goes on inside a government office, let alone inside a family, especially one as tight knit
as the Bidens. Ethics experts generally maintain that officials should
avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest, a standard that
becomes especially stringent at the highest levels of government.

Yet there is evidence that the Biden family’s activities over the years
have regularly presented such an appearance. Far from ethical concerns
about Hunter Biden being debunked, the case for close scrutiny only grows stronger when viewed in the full context of the family’s story and in
light of events that have unfolded since Election Day.

Biden’s relatives have denied allegations of wrongdoing, and none have
been accused of criminal misdeeds related to their business dealings. The president has said that he does not discuss his relatives’ dealings with
them, and no proof has emerged that he has taken official actions on
account of their business interests.

But in recent decades, members of the First Family, including Hunter
Biden, have repeatedly entered into financial relationships with people
who have an interest in influencing their powerful relative — including
taking loans from lobbyists; seeking business from labor groups; taking a
job with a bank that relied on Biden’s support to pass a personal
bankruptcy law loathed by progressives; and, of course, taking a seat on
the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, that faced allegations
of corruption, even as Biden headed up U.S. anti-corruption efforts in
Ukraine.

Several former business contacts have also accused Biden relatives of explicitly invoking their political clout to advance their business
interests, charges that members of the family have denied. And since 2007, several of their business associates have been convicted of federal fraud
or corruption charges, though no members of the First Family have been implicated in those crimes.

Meanwhile, since the election, Hunter Biden’s business dealings, along
with those of other relatives, have remained in the news.

In December, Hunter Biden acknowledged the existence of a federal criminal investigation of his tax affairs, which has focused on his dealings
overseas, including in China. POLITICO also reported on the FBI’s interest
in one of Biden’s brothers, James Biden, as part of an ongoing
investigation of a hospital operator to which he was tied. That
investigation, which remained active as of late last year, focused in part
on alleged representations James Biden made in investment pitches about
the value of his last name and influence, according to a former official
with firsthand knowledge of it.

On his first day in office, Biden named a law partner of his son’s defense attorney as interim head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, an arrangement that risked running afoul of the department’s conflict-of-
interest rules. On the same day, Biden’s brother Frank highlighted his relationship to the president in a newspaper ad for a Florida law firm.
Since then, Biden’s other brother, James, bowed out of an energy venture
in the U.K. following a White House ethics review, according to the
Financial Times.

Meanwhile, reporting I’ve done for my book, The Bidens: Inside the First Family’s 50-Year Rise to Power, as well as information that has emerged publicly, supports the conclusion that a purported leak of Hunter Biden’s computer files contains genuine material. Hunter himself has told CBS News
that the laptop “certainly” could be his.


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