Biden Inc.: Hunter, Joe, and the
Mexican Oligarchs
By Charles Lipson
July 10, 2021 "Information
Clearing House" -
- "RCP"
- The indictment of the Trump
Organization’s chief financial
officer has received a lot of press,
and properly so. But while the media
has been focused on the former
president, they have ignored another
corruption story involving the
sitting president and his family.
Like so much news that has been
buried, the latest comes from Hunter
Biden’s infamous laptop. You know,
the one the Bidens and their allies
in Congress and the media suggested
was a “Russian plant” and
disinformation campaign, before
that cynical claim was
demolished by the director of
national intelligence.
The latest buried story involves
some photographs, taken in Joe
Biden’s office in 2014. They include
the then-vice president, his son
Hunter, and Carlos Slim, the richest
man in Mexico (and once the richest
in the world), plus some of Slim’s
associates.
Why are the pictures newsworthy? Not because some
U.S. officials met with some rich foreign
businessmen. That happens all the time. Their real
significance is that the vice president met with
these guys and included his son at the same time
Hunter was working on lucrative business deals with
the same people. That looks like self-dealing by the
Biden family, despite Joe’s repeated insistence that
he knew nothing about his son’s business.
Hunter had other meetings with Carlos Slim and
associates in Mexico. Those came after he flew there
with his father on Air Force Two, just as he had
flown to similar business meetings in China. When
you arrive on Air Force Two, when your father is the
second-highest official in the U.S. government, and
when you bring your business associates to meet him,
you are sending a clear signal to potential partners
around the world: “I’m incredibly well connected
and, if you do business with me, I can open the
biggest and best doors in the U.S. government for
you.”
Since Hunter has no other marketable skills,
opening those doors is the only thing you
are paying him for. In country after country, the
oligarchs Hunter was wooing had the good fortune to
meet with the vice president, meetings that Hunter
apparently arranged. Some were held in the host
countries, some on the White House grounds.
When you have connections like this in Chicago,
you whisper, “I know a guy.” Hunter virtually shouts
it. He knows a guy: the “Big Guy,” as one of his
secret notes describes his father. That note laid
out how the lucre from another deal would be
divided, with the “Big Guy” as a silent partner.
A partner in that deal, Tony Bobulinski, has
publicly stated that all the partners knew the “Big
Guy” (or BG) was Joe Biden.
It seems that Joe Biden was the key to all
Hunter’s business deals.
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What’s wrong with the picture? Aside from the
unseemly grifting and the dubious denials from the
White House that Joe Biden had even the slightest
inkling about these deals, there are two things:
The first problem, which should be obvious by
now, is that the Biden family has gotten rich from
plying all these political connections. Actually,
they have only one connection: Joe Biden. His
prodigal son has no appreciable skills and raises
more red flags than a Beijing parade. His one job is
monetizing his father’s power and influence.
Hunter is not alone. Joe’s two brothers, Jim and
Frank, have been credibly accused of doing the same
thing. Politico termed it “Biden
Inc.” and laid out the seamy connections in an
extensive 2019 investigation. “Over his decades in
office,” Politico reported, “‘Middle-Class Joe’s
family fortunes have closely tracked his political
career.”
Not that the most influential newspapers in the
country will tell their readers anything about this.
Carlos Slim is the largest investor in the New York
Times, so maybe its editors have a vested interest
in ignoring the stench. What’s the Washington Post’s
excuse? The story about Hunter’s deals in Mexico,
like the previous ones about Biden family
corruption, is missing from its news pages. To
paraphrase their self-serving mottos: The story dies
in darkness, unfit to print. To read it, you’ll need
to check out the New York Post and Britain’s
Daily Mail. This suppression of legitimate news
is a scandal in its own right.
Monetizing political connections is standard
practice in Washington, where politicians and senior
bureaucrats move seamlessly from their government
positions to K Street lobbying. Gone are the days
when retired members of Congress or presidential
aides returned home after stints in government. Too
much money is floating around the Swamp for the
taking. Both parties have their “insider” wings of
lobbyists, lawyers, and think tanks, much to the
disgust of populists, left and right. In that sense,
the Bidens’ influence peddling is just standard
practice, conducted on a far smaller scale than the
Clintons’ industrial-strength operation.
But that’s not the only problem raised by Joe and
Hunter’s photos with Carlos Slim. The photos deal
yet another body blow to President Biden’s customary
tale that he knows absolutely nothing, zero, zip,
nada about his son’s business dealings. The more
often Joe is seen meeting with Hunter’s business
contacts, the less plausible the president’s “I know
nothing” story sounds. As the Daily Mail put it in
its headline:
EXCLUSIVE: Joe Biden
entertained Hunter's Mexican billionaire business
associates in the vice president's office in 2014
and even flew with his son to Mexico City on Air
Force 2 so Hunter could attend meetings over a 'flippin
gigantic' deal
The Mail reached the obvious conclusion: “The
revelations, laid bare in photos and emails on
Hunter's abandoned laptop, suggest Joe's claim that
he never spoke about business with Hunter was
false.”
Biden White House aides have yet to explain these
photos and emails. Why should they bother when
journalists are not pushing for answers? The
apathetic press is behaving just like it did during
the 2020 campaign, when it rarely questioned Biden
about his family’s deals in Ukraine and China. When
the New York Post did report on them,
the social media giants blocked the story. Too
toxic for their users to see before the election.
It’s almost like they had a favorite candidate and
controlled the information flow as an in-kind
contribution.
Despite Joe’s “see no evil, hear no evil”
denials, he took Hunter with him on multiple
official trips and kept meeting his son’s business
associates at his request. Not once or twice, but
repeatedly. These business meetings yielded big
payoffs for Hunter, including
a huge investment from a Chinese state bank that
Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan couldn’t snag. Yet
Hunter Biden reeled it in, despite having no
investment experience.
To believe Joe’s denials, we have to believe
Hunter never even mentioned his enormous success in
China on a 20-plus-hour return flight with his Dad.
Ask yourself this: “If your child just landed a
multimillion-dollar profit on one of your business
trips, and if you spent the next day flying home
with him, do you think he would never mention it?”
Although President Biden seldom speaks to the
press unscripted, when a pointed question does crop
up (a rarity), he spews anger at the questioner,
says how proud he is of Hunter, and orders an ice
cream cone. The reporters dutifully ask, “What
flavor?”
Hunter’s private correspondence tells a story
far different from the White House version. Those
emails describe his family’s crucial importance for
his influence peddling. As Yahoo News’ Mairead
McArdle reported:
In leaked emails from
2014, [Hunter] Biden appears to try to leverage his
influence with his father, then-vice president Joe
Biden, who was heavily involved in U.S. policy on
Ukraine, referring to the elder Biden as “my guy.”
He also attracted
criticism for entering into a consulting contract
with China’s largest private energy company that
initially earned Hunter Biden $10 million a year
“for introductions alone,” according to leaked
emails.
The White House press team dismisses all this
evidence and depicts Joe Biden as if he were Sgt.
Schultz, the clueless comedy foil on the old TV
sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes.” Schultz was responsible for
guarding some prisoners but never seemed to know
they were constantly plotting escapes and other
mischief. When Schultz’s boss asked about it, the
good Sergeant always insisted, “I see nothing! I
hear nothing! I know nothing!”
Here’s a free tip for the president and his press
office: Sgt. Schultz’s defense is not a good motto
for you. You can’t be clueless and competent at the
same time. It’s not a good look for the White House
press corps, either, even though it is a sadly
accurate one when their favorite party is in power.
Charles Lipson is the Peter B. Ritzma
Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the
University of Chicago, where he founded the
Program on International Politics, Economics,
and Security. He can be reached at
charles.lipson@gmail.com.
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