Just how badly damaged is “brand Biden”? As probes continue into the Biden family business dealings and Hunter Biden’s torpedoed plea deal on felony weapons and tax crimes, even the mainstream media are finding it difficult to keep pretending that there’s nothing to see.
Of course, they’re still trying to spin a spiralling situation in Joe Biden’s favour. NBC provoked ridicule with a puff-piece that wittered about Biden’s “brand as a family oriented public servant [which] has been a signature political asset that for more than 50 years”. In the same way, I guess, that Lucky Luciano sat at the head of a family oriented outfit.
But Joe din’ do nuffin’. Just ask him.
Biden has repeatedly claimed that he never discussed business deals with his son.
“I’ve never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Biden told [Peter Doocy] in September 2019.
Of course, Biden can sputter that, ‘I never talked business with anybody,’ and, ‘It’s not true,’ that Hunter regularly got his then-vice president father on the line to grease up business deals, but then he flatly denied, in a televised presidential debate, that Hunter’s ‘laptop from hell’ was genuine. As we all know, that was a known, damnable lie.
And, despite White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre asserting that, when it comes to Joe’s involvement in Hunter’s overseas business deals, “the answer is not going to change” – the answers are changing all the time.
Once the House Oversight Committee suggested it had evidence that Biden communicated directly with several of Hunter’s foreign business associates, the White House appeared to change the position from Biden having “never discussed” business deals to “never in business” with his son.
But when it comes to ‘Brand Biden’, Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer has testified that :
“Obviously, that brought the most value to the brand… It was Hunter Biden and him […] that was a differentiating component of us being able to raise capital.”
Fox News
And what a lot of capital the family of this “family oriented public servant” managed to raise.
New detailed bank records show $20 million in payments to the Biden family and their partners from foreign actors in places like Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan during Joe’s time as vice president […]
The new evidence backs up Archer’s bombshell testimony to the committee that Hunter was raking in large amounts of cash from foreign deals, and how his father Joe was present in-person during dinner meetings and sat in on at least 20 phone calls with foreign associates.
From Kazakhstan to Ukraine, there wasn’t a corrupt oligarch who wasn’t prepared to shower Hunter with cash for… well, for what, exactly, is not very clear. There was the $142,000 from a Kazakh oligarch that Hunter used to buy a Porsche before arranging a dinner with the then-vice president. That was chickenfeed, though, compared to the million per annum from Ukrainian oil company Burisma. Or the millions from Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina, linked to Vladimir Putin.
Then-Vice President Biden attended a dinner with Baturina, Hunter, Archer and other[s] at Cafe Milano in Washington, DC in the spring of 2014.
When Biden sanctioned a slew of Russian oligarchs after the nation’s invasion of Ukraine, he left Baturina off the list.
Just a coincidence, no doubt.
Just as there’s no doubt that yet more multi-million dollar deals are going to be ferreted out of the financial woodwork.
The Oversight Committee has subpoenaed bank records from six different banks and received thousands of records but has not ‘yet’ subpoenaed bank records for the Biden family.
On Tuesday House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called on President Biden to ‘give us his bank statements’ as Republicans have threatened to launch an impeachment inquiry […]
At first, aides said the president had ‘no knowledge’ of his son’s overseas deals, but have recently tweaked the narrative to say Joe was ‘never in business’ with his son.
“It appears no real services were provided other than access to the Biden network, including Joe Biden himself. And Hunter Biden seems to have delivered,” [James Comer chair of the House Oversight Committee] said in a statement Wednesday.
“It’s clear Joe Biden knew about his son’s business dealings and allowed himself to be ‘the brand’ sold to enrich the Biden family while he was vice president of the United States.”
Daily Mail
As social media wags were quick to point out, in the wake of the NBC puff piece, it’s pretty hard to tarnish a brand that’s indelibly filthy with corruption already.
