By Emily Jashinsky
In a healthy Democratic Party, Joe Biden’s primary opponents would have cared about his family’s documented habit of trading on their powerful last name, almost certainly with the former vice president’s knowledge. People can disagree over the scale of the corruption, whether it reflects only on Hunter and James or on Joe as well, but it’s unequivocal that influence peddling has been a steady pursuit for the Bidens.
Even as the corporate media downplays recent revelations about Hunter, The New York Times reported new documents from Tony Bubulinski that “show that the countries that Hunter Biden, James Biden and their associates planned to target for deals overlapped with nations where Joe Biden had previously been involved as vice president.”
“The records make clear that Hunter Biden saw the family name as a valuable asset, angrily citing his ‘family’s brand’ as a reason he is valuable to the proposed venture,” the Times noted. That name trading seems to have been explicit in some cases, as even Ben Smith of the Times tweeted on Tuesday.
Here’s part of an NBC News report from last October:
[A]s he accompanied his father to China, Hunter Biden was forming a Chinese private equity fund that associates said at the time was planning to raise big money, including from China. Hunter Biden has acknowledged meeting with Jonathan Li, a Chinese banker and his partner in the fund during the trip, although his spokesman says it was a social visit.
The Chinese business license that brought the new fund into existence was issued by Shanghai authorities 10 days after the trip, with Hunter Biden a member of the board.
Hunter Biden took Air Force Two to meet with a Chinese banker who also happened to be his business partner, and 10 days later their fund’s license was approved, but we’re supposed to believe it was a “social visit”? And we’re supposed to believe the veep had no clue his son was meeting with business partners on their trip to China?
Crucially, we know Joe Biden lied about his knowledge of Hunter’s overseas business. There is, unfortunately, even some evidence he received financial benefits from it. The lie alone is reason for suspicion.
The point is that Democrats were negligent not to press this issue during the primaries. The evidence had been clearly reported by The New York Times, NBC, and other major outlets.
We’re certainly learning more now about Hunter’s work in places like Ukraine and China, but his intent to make money off the Biden name in either country was known to Democrats and media while his father was running in the primary. Curiously, however, Biden’s opponents pretty much ignored the entire story. This is incredible given that merely demonstrating Biden’s knowledge of the dealings would have been damning.
It’s also incredible given that Biden was competing against a slate of staunch, allegedly anti-establishment progressives who decried the influence of money in politics. Meanwhile, the son of their opponent, who happened to be the former vice president, was caught selling access to his father’s administration, raking in hefty sums based on this perceived ability to influence policy for a fee. Beyond being a powerful campaign attack, the issue raises serious questions about Joe Biden’s commitment to ethical conduct.
But nobody wanted to touch it. The negligence was so glaring that even Ezra Klein wrote a story last October headlined, “Sorry, but Democrats need to talk about Hunter Biden.”
“Democrats are afraid to talk about Hunter Biden. Trump won’t be,” said the subheading. In the piece, Klein argued, “Biden’s vulnerability here needs to be tested in the primary, when Democrats have other choices, rather than in the general, when they won’t.”
The New York Times described the Democratic field as “Tiptoeing Around Hunter Biden,” listing the gentle rebukes and firm disinterest Joe’s opponents mustered. So why the silence?
Writing in CNBC last December, Jake Novak contended, “It’s not a mystery why the Democrats who supposedly want to defeat Joe Biden for the nomination are so quiet about all this. They clearly don’t want to be seen as advancing President Trump’s efforts to get Ukraine to investigate the Hunter Biden deal.”
I think that’s correct. With the possibility that Biden would win the primary, the other candidates were also probably terrified of being cannibalized for damaging him beyond viability in the general election.
The result, however, is the second cycle in a row in which the Democratic Party has failed to use the primary process to vet its perceived frontrunner, which means it’s also the second cycle in a row in which Democrats have nominated an entrenched career politician weighed down by the baggage of corruption. This is exactly what happened in 2016, when Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) refused to really take off his gloves against Clinton, leaving the party ill-equipped for the general election.
It was a gentle primary.
Once the fix was in for Biden, the other candidates dropped out (except non-player Bernie and Bernie-vote-stealer Liz Warren).
Biden won by default.
He never really had to take a tough question about Hunter or his sale of influence thru his family.
BTW, vote cheating is being caught everywhere.
No rare or minor problem.
This election is going to be a mess.
Hell, forget the deep digging and careful deliberations, the low-hanging fruit should have been enough to disqualify Biden. Let’s just consider the things that liberals have been ranting and raving about for the past 4 years.
Corruption: I’m not sure when Hunter’s, James’ and Ashley’s shenanigans started to surface, but Biden openly and publicly bragging that he blatantly extorted Ukraine to stop an investigation of a corrupt company his son was drawing a big, fat paycheck from should have been enough. Considering Pelosi and Schiff impeached Trump in a kangaroo court for the very thing that Biden actually did would indicate they at least view such behavior as “bad”, much less disqualifying. Subsequent evidence discovered proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that Hunter’s purpose on the board of Burisma was to keep pesky prosecutors from knocking on their door and that Hunter served his purpose superbly.
#BelieveHer: In addition to the cavalcade of videos of Biden groping, fondling, sniffing and grabbing young and just young enough girls there is at least one very credible and believable accusation of rape. Tara Reade makes a case that is far more substantial than any of Trump’s here-today-gone-after the election accusers. But the reaction of the Democrats was a bit of a variation from their usual sympathetic support of an accuser of a Republican. #BelieveHer was killed forever, replaced by “That lying bitch!”
Racism: Like his extortion and groping, Biden never hid his racism has always been on full display. It goes back as far as Joe does, where he latched on to powerful segregationists to learn his trade, determined blacks were “predators” better off in prison, that we can’t subject our lily-white children to the “racial jungles” that would evolve from desegregation, but Joe happily provides fresh examples, such as all black people think and act alike (kind of like… stereotyping?) and black people give up their melanin if they don’t vote for Biden.
Like someone on Fox News said about verifying the Hunter emails, that they just contacted the persons on the other end of the email and asked them if the email was real, vetting Biden as a suitable candidate wasn’t that hard.
But, all along, it was understood the media would power up the shields. That’s all it takes; suppression of the truth.