RUTHFULLY YOURS

On January 21, Peter Schweizer’s newest book, Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite, will be released. It should sell well given that pre-sales have already put it at #14 on the Amazon charts. As a preview of coming attractions, the New York Post published an extract from the book detailing “How five members of Joe Biden’s family got rich through his connections.”

According to Schwiezer, Biden was fibbing when he announced last year, “I never talked with my son or my brother or anyone else — even distant family — about their business interests. Period.” The truth is that Biden’s business conversations not only benefited Hunter, they also benefitted Biden’s son-in-law Howard, his brothers James and Frank, and his sister Valerie. Loose lips enrich sibs.

James Biden was a welcome friend in the Obama White House. “Sometimes, James’ White House visits dovetailed with his overseas business dealings, and his commercial opportunities flourished during his brother’s tenure as vice president.” For example, just three weeks after Biden’s longtime friend Kevin Justice, president of HillStone International, a subsidiary of a huge construction management firm, visited the White House, HillStone announced that James Biden was its new Executive Vice President.

No one cared that Biden had no experience in construction management. What might have mattered was that, six months later, the firm got a contract to build 100,000 homes in Iraq, plus a $22 million U.S. federal government contract to manage a State Department project. An executive in the parent company later told investors it helped to have the vice president’s brother as a partner.

The book excerpt also tells how Hunter — a man known for drugs, alcohol, taking up with his brother’s widow, fathering a child on a stripper, dumping the stripper and his child, and marrying another woman –made bank in Ukraine thanks to  his father’s connections. It’s a complicated, unsavory story, but the bottom line is the same as for James: Hunter got an immensely profitable job for which he was completely unqualified because Biden allowed Hunter to piggyback off of Biden’s connections.

When it came to his kids, Biden didn’t stop with Hunter. His daughter, Ashley, married a doctor, Howard Krein. Howard and his siblings open StartUp Health, an investment consultancy firm. In 2011, when the firm had just opened, two of the firm’s executives were invited to meet with Obama and Biden. The next day, this barely hatched entity hit the big time:

The following day the new company would be featured at a large health care tech conference being run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and StartUp Health executives became regular visitors to the White House, attending events in 2011, 2014 and 2015.

How did StartUp Health gain access to the highest levels of power in Washington? There was nothing particularly unique about the company, but for this:

The chief medical officer of StartUp Health, Howard Krein, is married to Joe Biden’s youngest daughter, Ashley.

For years after, including his years in the White House, Biden made a point of promoting the company.

James also wasn’t the only one of his siblings Biden helped. In March 2009, Biden went to Costa Rica. The last time a high-ranking American official went to Costa Rica was in 1997 when Bill Clinton traveled there. Biden’s trip may not have been a coincidence:

Joe Biden’s trip to Costa Rica came at a fortuitous time for his brother Frank, who was busy working deals in the country. Just months after Vice President Biden’s visit, in August, Costa Rica News announced a new multilateral partnership “to reform Real Estate in Latin America” between Frank Biden, a developer named Craig Williamson, and the Guanacaste Country Club, a newly planned resort.

[snip]

As it happened, Joe Biden had been asked by President Obama to act as the Administration’s point man in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Frank’s vision for a country club in Costa Rica received support from the highest levels of the Costa Rican government— despite his lack of experience in building such developments. He met with the Costa Rican ministers of education and energy and environment, as well as the president of the country.

The same amazing coincidences played out with Biden’s sister Valerie, to whom his campaigns ended up paying $2.5 million in consulting fees in 2008 alone.

Considering that the New York Post article is merely a short excerpt from Peter Schweizer’s Profiles in Corruption, readers can expect to be exposed to a massive, but readable data dump, explaining how taxpayer funds and political connections have been funding the lifestyles of the rich and progressive.