Bondi, Biden and Corruption The Trump campaign shouldn’t cede the character issue. By James Freeman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bondi-biden-and-corruption-11598464976?mod=opinion_lead_pos11
The second night of the Republican National Convention was a lot like the first, with uplifting messages centered around patriotism, liberty, economic revival and second chances. And then there was Pam Bondi. The former Florida Attorney General made the case that Joe Biden doesn’t deserve another political office given the way his family monetized the last one.
Ms. Bondi took on a tough job and while her message may not have warmed as many hearts as the other presentations, the issue is relevant as the former vice president now seeks the presidency. The Biden global enrichment project is a scandal for which the family still hasn’t paid a political price.
Much of the media establishment dismisses questions about how the Bidens earn so much money from politics by pointing out the prominent roles played by Trump family members in the President’s administration and campaign. But the Trumps were rich before entering politics.
On Tuesday night Ms. Bondi reminded viewers that during the Obama administration a Ukrainian oligarch put Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden “on the board of his gas company,” even though the younger Mr. Biden “had no experience in the country—or in the energy sector. None. Yet he was paid millions to do nothing. He only had one qualification that mattered: He was the son of the man in charge of distributing U.S. aid to Ukraine.”
The oligarch who hired Hunter Biden was being investigated by a Ukrainian prosecutor and as Ms. Bondi noted on Tuesday, “Joe Biden— the Vice President of the United States— threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine unless that same prosecutor was fired . . . and then he was fired.”
A lot of media folk argue that the investigation of Hunter Biden’s business associate had essentially ended long before the elder Biden forced the sacking of the prosecutor. But even a long-winded effort to make this argument by the Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” column in 2019 acknowledged that an asset seizure order against the oligarch had been reinstated a mere two weeks before the prosecutor’s firing. The story also acknowledged that the asset seizure wasn’t lifted and the case wasn’t closed until after the Ukrainians had complied with the Biden demand to fire the prosecutor.
Even if the conventional media view of the case is accurate, it still doesn’t explain why the Ukrainian energy tycoon felt the need to rent a Biden who knew nothing about Ukraine or energy.
But the Post’s “Fact Checker” was back in action after Tuesday’s Bondi speech, calling the Biden family’s lucrative adventure in Ukraine “a complex story” around which Team Trump has tried to “build an appearance of scandal.” The Post report does acknowledge that withholding foreign aid to force the firing of a government official overseas actually took Joe Biden longer than he claims:
Biden had exaggerated what happened. At a January 2018 Council on Foreign Relations event, he bragged about firing the Ukrainian prosecutor, telescoping the timeline from months of diplomacy into hours. “I’m leaving in six hours,” Biden claimed he had said. “If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch, he got fired.”
As the 2020 presidential campaign heated up, Trump’s allies circulated a video of Biden’s boast, making it appear as if Biden were a shakedown artist.
Is it a Trump ally or Mr. Biden himself who is making the former vice president appear to be a shakedown artist? The Post “Fact Checker” does admit that “Hunter Biden showed questionable judgment in taking such a position while his father had a high-profile role in U.S.-Ukraine relations, and the possible conflict of interest was well-documented in news reports at the time.”
But it wasn’t a “possible” conflict of interest. It was a clear conflict of interest, one that would not be tolerated at any major corporation in America. Fortunately for everyone involved in the deal, Ukraine has no Foreign Corrupt Practices Act like the U.S. does, and so Hunter Biden’s hiring was not a crime. A remaining mystery is how this arrangement got past the Obama White House counsel’s office. Are the Bidens allowed to do anything as long as news reports document it?
Hunter Biden for his part may appreciate the Post’s defense of his conduct, even if he doesn’t find it persuasive. He has pledged not to enter into such arrangements if his father becomes President.
Joe Biden and most media institutions share the opinion that Joe Biden is a good man while Donald Trump is not. On Tuesday Ms. Bondi directly challenged that view, and voters may wish to consider her case, even if most media folk long ago made up their minds.
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