On Wednesday, House Republicans held a press conference where they claimed to have evidence of President Joe Biden’s corruption. Rep. James Cromer (R-Ky.), ranking member of the Oversight Committee, kicked off the press conference with a bevy of allegations and theories, but there was one thing missing: A thread leading to Joe Biden.
The press conference, available on C-SPAN, was accompanied by the release of a report and a media blitz that touted suspicious payments to the “Biden family.” The gist of the allegations is that members of the Biden family, specifically Hunter, James, and Hallie, created a number of limited liability companies to receive millions of dollars from foreign sources. The Republicans allege that these payments were part of an influence-peddling scheme with Joe Biden at the top.
I am not saying that President Biden is incapable of being corrupt, but at this point, his accusers have not presented evidence of wrongdoing by either the president or his family. What they have presented is their interpretation of bank records that they say they have.
At this point, I think the American people deserve better. Republican investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden started well back into the Trump Administration as a strategy for 2020. If, several years later, they have evidence of wrongdoing by the president, the voters deserve to see it and judge for themselves rather than being subjected to more innuendo. The fact that a centerpiece of the press conference was Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) rehashing tired old claims about Hunter’s laptop does not instill me with confidence.
At one point, I might have taken Republicans at their word, but after hearing the same song and dance for so long, they should have something more substantial to bring before the country.
One of the first things that I noticed about all the coverage of the event and the allegations was that Joe Biden was not named. All the references were to the “Biden family.” This suggests a couple of things to me. One is that Republicans have learned something about defamation and the second is that they don’t have information that points directly to Joe. If they did, it would be in the headline.
In fact, the Republicans seem to realize that don’t have anything concrete. The bank transactions are not necessarily tied to anything illegal and none of them are traceable to Joe. Further, several are in late 2016 and 2017 when Joe would have had little if any influence to peddle as a lame-duck and former vice president.
This is probably why the committee writes that it “seeks to craft legislative solutions aimed at deficiencies it has identified in the current legal framework regarding ethics laws and disclosure of financial interests related to the immediate family members of Vice Presidents and Presidents—deficiencies that may place American national security and interests at risk.”
It is interesting that these ethics laws would only extend to the “immediate family members of Vice Presidents and Presidents” and not, for example, to the family of members of Congress or Supreme Court justices.
The accusations are serious. If President Biden did sell his influence, then the voters need to know and Republicans would be justified in moving forward with an impeachment.
But I’m not sure these serious accusations deserve to be taken seriously. Senator Ron Jonson (R-Wis.) said the quiet part out loud in a conversation with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News.
“On the bank records, you’re not going to see a bribe to change this policy,” he said. “You have to infer what’s happening here… You’re not going to get necessarily hard proof.”
I’m sorry, Senator. That’s not good enough.
When President Trump was impeached (the first time), there was a mountain of hard evidence despite stonewalling by the Administration. In addition to the whistleblower report, we had a summary of the “perfect” phone call that corroborated the whistleblower’s account as well as sworn testimony by other members of the Administration. The timeline for the release of the aid to Ukraine fit the evidence of Trump’s political maneuvering. Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney even admitted at a press conference that release of the aid was tied to Ukraine investigating Hunter Biden.
There is nothing like that pile of evidence in the allegations against Joe Biden. And this isn’t the beginning of the investigation into the Bidens. This has been going on for about half a decade. (See Mick Mulvaney’s comments above.)
It may be that some members of the Biden family engaged in shady deals with foreigners. But that fact (if it becomes established fact) itself would not not implicate Joe Biden in any wrongdoing.
If Hunter is really an unsavory character, it would not be impossible for him to sell access to Joe without Joe ever knowing about it doing anything wrong. Hunter might be culpable for criminal activity in such a case, but Joe would not be.
What we need to see from Republicans is some evidence that Joe Biden was aware of the payments and knew that they constituted a quid pro quo (sound familiar?) for some action or assistance on his part. That might be tough to prove, but if you want the nation to buy that its president is corrupt, you’re going to need more than bank statements.
What the Republicans seem to be doing is rehashing the Hunter storyline that failed to capture the imagination or interest of voters in 2020. I see very little new or of substance in what I’ve seen so far.
Rather than running on recycled conspiracy theories and about Joe Biden and more congressional investigations, Republicans might do better to campaign on a positive vision for America. The problem is that the GOP frontrunner is Donald Trump, a man who lacks positivity and any coherent vision beyond aggrandizing his own ego.
So the Republican talking points will veer between Joe Biden as a master criminal and sufferer of dementia, The fact that they can make both claims simultaneously with straight faces is another reason that I’m skeptical of their allegations.
Show me the evidence. Put up or shut up.
Surely you remember when Biden gave his daughter and son-in-law White House jobs and gave his son-in-law an unarmed security clearance. Honestly, everything with Republicans is projection.Report
WHAT ABOUT TRUMP
oh someone already made that jokeReport
Yea, see, that wasn’t the joke.
It wasn’t even really a joke. It was a point.
Republicans want to point at non-corruption and say it is corruption because it involves Democrats while simultaneously pointing at corruption and saying it is non-corruption because it involves Republicans.
WHATABOUT-ism is a way of saying, “Yea, maybe this was wrong but it’s okay because the other guy did it, too.”
This ain’t that. This is: “You want to talk about corruption? Let’s talk about ACTUAL corruption.”Report
I think you missed the humor of the bit. Mike Schilling responded to the article as if it said that Trump was innocent and Biden was guilty. Like the crime of defending Trump is so grave that not even innocence is a defense.Report
Reading comprehension is hard.
Schill wasn’t responding to the OP but to the Republicans described therein.Report
Why aren’t you talking about marijuana legalization instead of what you want to talk about?Report
Why don’t you know what words mean?Report
We are going to talk about what I want to talk about, Kazzy. We aren’t going to talk about what you want to talk about and we *CERTAINLY* aren’t going to talk about whether the Biden connections are sketchy.
Marijuana is still Schedule I. What’s up with that?Report
I dunno. Ask your local rep.Report
That was a perfect opportunity to explain that Trump didn’t legalize it either.Report
I don’t wanna talk about Trump. Nor did Schill. Just about what is or isn’t corruption.Report
The main essay comes out and talks about Trump. That’s the crazy thing. The main essay points out that there are differences between Trump and Biden and Trump was on that side of the line and Biden is on this side of it.
Not enough, though. Not enough.Report
Whoa, did you just say “Trump”? He’s bad, you know.Report
Not enough… what?Report
Well, it talked about how what Biden is doing might *SEEM* sketch. Then it compared to how Trump actually did stuff that there are rules against.
“Seems” sketch?
WHAT ABOUT TRUMPReport
Republicans are alleging corruption. To help us determine whether those allegations deserve to be taken seriously, it is not unreasonable to consider how those same Republicans have responded to corruption in the recent past. Please, can we stop playing the Jaybird game of deliberately missing the point?Report
I’m not deliberately missing the point. I’m deliberately rolling my eyes at attempts to change the point to “look at Trump” instead of “look at the allegations”.
I mean, goodness. Imagine if someone alleged Trump was acting unethically and the response was “Yeah, like I’d trust people who defended The Clinton Foundation”.
You’d *IMMEDIATELY* see through that crap, right?
Well, I’m saying that that crap remains that crap even if the tables were turned (as they have been and will be again).
As it is, my tentative conclusion is that we’ve got yet another Perfectly Legal Thing going on that everybody in Washington does. It’s greasy and gross but, hey, it’s not illegal.
And if your definition of “nothingburger” begins and ends with criminal charges, we’ve got a nothingburger here.Report
Welp i guess no on has got any way to support the allegations against Biden. The pol’s like ronjon and boebert are just peddling the “isn’t circumstantial proof about hsi family good enough!?” line.Report
For what it’s worth, the whole “appearance of impropriety” shows up a lot when it’s convenient.
The stuff like the connections for Hunter are part of the perfectly acceptable corruption in Washington. Did Hunter have interesting insight into Oil and Gas when he got added to the board at Burisma? Of course not. He got that seat because of the list of people who pick up the phone when he calls them.
“But that’s not *ILLEGAL*!”, you may say. Sure it’s not. Only crazy people would say that it is.
Did Hunter somehow get Burisma sweet deals that they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise or avoid investigations that would have shown up otherwise? We have no evidence of that happening.
It’s just regular Washington swampy stuff. Look at any given Senator and see whether their siblings or kiddos or nieces/nephews have sweet sinecures at companies that have upcoming legislation. Of course. And that’s not illegal.
Quite honestly, it makes a lot of sense. These companies would be foolish to not take advantage of hiring a guy who gets a hand-signed birthday card from a senator every year.
Is it tacky? Eh.
It’s the way the world works.
What can you do?Report
Umm strict ethics rules for everybody. Maybe the FBI should investigate that hunter guy. Sure seems like he’s a bit shady. Have all prez candidates fully release all their info. Make them divest all their holdings at least into blind trusts if not completely.
Really seems like i got some ideas. Ideas which NOBODY has ever thought of before thank you very much.
Fwiw…..Sure seems like hunter traded on his name for deals. I AM THE FIRST LIBERAL to every claim this. So i’m in the vanguard again. All you slackers need to try to catch up to me. The FBI really should investigate him, it’s a scandal they haven’t.Report
“The scandal isn’t what’s illegal, the scandal is what’s legal!”
Kinsley said that, I think.Report
YES. So lets make a lot of things illegals. Make the supremes abide by the Fed Judge Ethics rules. They all had to at one point. Change the laws to make any shady crap done by the bidens and any other pol illegal.Report
WHAT ABOUT THOMASReport
Indeed.Report
Do you think Biden or his children are guilty if any crimes: yes or no?Report
There does seem to be some illegal drug usage in Hunter’s past…Report
Fine. Lets have the FBI investigate.Report
Federal prosecutors and a federal grand jury are already investigating. It’s well past the point where the FBI would be involved.Report
So you agree that the claims of corruption are not legit.
Do you think we should take GOP leaders seriously with regards to their concerns about corruption? Please consider all data points.Report
The four types of corruption discussions:
1. When you are clean but your opponent is dirty;
2. When you are dirty, but your opponent is dirtier;
3. When you are dirty, but your opponent is cleaner;
4.When you are dirty but your opponent is clean;
If you are either 1 or 2, you do what Biden is doing;
When you are 3 or 4, you do what the Trumpists are doing, which is to throw clouds of dust in the air and shout that everyone is dirty, the whole system is dirty, it always has been so whachagonnadoo and it really doesn’t matter anyway.Report
We can’t solve political corruption, says the only nation who doesn’t have strict rules and laws resulting in regular indictments and successful prosecution as.
Where have I heard that before?Report
There is no dictatorship in the Ukraine. Nice Russian Trolling though.Report
So the finale to this damp squid is that the lead R ,Comer, can’t find his informant. Which is a problem given their evidence was already circumstantial. D’oh and double D’oh.Report