About Those ‘Biden Family’ Allegations

President Joe Biden hugs his family during the 59th Presidential Inauguration ceremony in Washington, Jan. 20, 2021. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took the oath of office on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol. (DOD Photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Carlos M. Vazquez II)

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.