Over at National Review, Charles Cooke approvingly cites this passage from a recent David Ignatius column about Joe Biden:
He should have stopped his son Hunter from joining the board of a Ukrainian gas company and representing companies in China — and he certainly should have resisted Hunter’s attempts to impress clients by getting Dad on the phone.
This is offered up as.......something. Cooke doesn't come right out and claim it's impeachable behavior, but that's the gist of his piece. This is a remarkable movement of the goalposts: high crimes and misdemeanors be damned, Biden should be impeached for not stopping Hunter's (legal) foreign activities and not knowing that Hunter sometimes had his pals in the room when they talked on the phone.
But you can't have it both ways. Biden says he didn't discuss business with Hunter, and if that's the case he couldn't have counseled Hunter to stand down. He could only have done that if he did talk business with Hunter, but Republicans all insist he shouldn't have done that.
This stuff is getting completely ridiculous. Do conservatives seriously think Biden should be impeached for not doing something six years before he became president? Come on. This is inane.
" Do conservatives seriously think... "
Actual Conservatives may seriously think sometimes. Cooke and National Review are not conservative and haven't been for a long time. They are firmly "keep rich people rich" party, and if they ever seriously think about anything, it is about how to bamboozle the public to support it.
National Review describes itself as "Leading conservative magazine and website covering news, politics, current events, and culture with detailed analysis and commentary." Conservatives have been the "keep rich people rich, and throw a bone to the Evangelicals to keep in power" party for forty years. Why do you say National Review is not conservative?
Because the word "conservative" has a real word meaning, and just becaue somebody call themselves "conservative" does not affect the real world. In the real world, they are not conservative.
In the same way that if somebody call themselves "the party of god", that doesn't make them the party of god (unless god agrees).
Just because someone believes they are "conservative" for principled or ideological reasons, it means nothing in the real world. In the real world, when push comes to shove, they will abandon all principles if needed in defense of the plutocratic class. That's why the plutocrats hired them in the first place.
This is the lesson history teaches.
You may find a few examples where someone chose principle over plutocracy, but that means they have left the conservative side and abandoned whatever hope they once had of influence and power.
I am afraid this is what conservatism has always been: Defend and enlarge the privileges of the privileged. In the 19th century the privileged were the aristocrats who lost power after the French revolution. Nowadays the privileged are those who got lucky and own billions. Religion, anti-abortion, patriotism and other similar shiny objects are tools to get votes from the non-privileged.
There seems to be universal agreement that whether or not Hunter Biden or his father are guilty of any crime, Hunter Biden was "not qualified" to sit on the board of Burisma.
Here are some facts about Hunter Biden:
- He has a JD from Yale
- He worked at the Commerce Dept under Clinton
- He was appointed to the Amtrak board for a 5-year term by George W. Bush (you know, that REPUBLICAN president)
- He served on several other boards including the UN World Food Programme
How in the hell is he NOT qualified to serve on the board of a Ukrainian energy company? You may question his ethics or the propriety of some of his connections, but questioning his professional qualifications seems like typical media trolling of reporters who can't be bothered to read a short Wikipedia bio before parroting GOP talking points.
It's fairly clear that before joining Burisma Hunter knew little about the oil business. On the other hand, oil companies, especially the smaller ones, tend to be in need of capital and Hunter was most certainly knowledgeable and experienced in the field of finance. I can fully understand why a junior oil company would find someone with those credentials valuable, whether he's related to a prominent politician or not.
"...I can fully understand why a junior oil company would find someone with those credentials valuable, whether he's related to a prominent politician or not."
How about some examples of comparable hires who are not connected (politically or otherwise)?
"How about some examples of comparable hires who are not connected (politically or otherwise)?" Obviously, Devon Archer's hire to the same position. This occurred before Hunter ever entered the picture. And then Devon had Hunter brought in solely as a lawyer for the firm. And it is very common for companies to appoint their lawyers to the board of directors.
"...Obviously, Devon Archer's hire to the same position. This occurred before Hunter ever entered the picture. ..."
Devon Archer was Biden's partner and Biden joined the board shortly thereafter. So more or less a package deal.
Burisma's board was chaired by an American investment manager. It also included an ex-President of Poland and a W's CIA Director of Counter-terrorism. The goal was more to appoint directors who knew their way around the US and EU than to exploit direct political connections.
How much did Hunter know about Amtrak before joining their board? Or about UN World Food Programme before joining their board? I agree Hunter knew little to nothing about oil business, but lots of our nation's greatest failsons and faildaughters know nothing about whatever business they end up on the board or CEO of.
Burisma has never been in the oil business.
Burisma didn't need outside experts in the natural gas business to sit on their board. They needed outside experts in western (And US) corporate business practices. As a former vice chairman of the board of a multi-billion dollar US corporation, as a member of the bar of Delaware, where most US corporate goverence practice cases are heard, as an expert in investment banking and US hedge funds, Hunter was eminently qualified. They also employed him to hire and supervise US lobbyists, another area of expertise of Hunter Biden.
None of that qualifies him to be on the board of an oil company; and if it does, then the qualifications are wrong.
You don't know too much about boards. Many successful boards are composed of diverse viewpoints. In the case at hand, hiring only oil men might have been wrong in a company that did many things.
Bollocks
Boards of companies desire to have a range of persons - they are not operating management. Boards are constructred to bring insights and expertise that is different than Management, who will tend to be industry gear-heads
Having a US law degree with business law orientation in his career and experience with US in terms of both government (Commerce) as well as financial sector.
A foreign firm with interest in developing US market or US fund raising for investment in whatever form - equity, project finance - would very rationally view Biden the Younger's quals as of potential value for a Board seat, presuming they had a serious interest in that market development.
People blithering on about unqualified simply do not know very much about corporate boards construction and clearly confuse it with operating management.
None of this is to defend anything specific in Hunter Biden's actions (or the opposite), rather it is an objective fact in the specific about a theoretical qualification of his type of profile for a Board seat.
You must not work for a large corporation or government entity. Because the boards and the heads of lots of big corporations and government entities are chock full of people who knew next to nothing about their industry or field before they led it. Didn't several of Trump's secretaries famously not know what it was their department did before being named to run it? (Perry and Energy, DeVos and Education, etc.)
DeVos had actually owned and run a disastrously bad charter school corporation before Trump appointed het to be secretary of education Perry had been governor of the largest oil producing state in the country. They both had a wealth of experience (mostly incompetent experience, but experience nevertheless) in the departments Trump put them in charge of.
DeVos knew almost nothing about the Dept. of Education and had no experience whatever with public schools. She was a huge advocate for privatizing schools (so the rich can skim money - of course).
Perry thought the Dept. of Energy promoted oil interests worldwide. Nope - its main function is oversight of nuclear power and he had not one second of experience with that.
I don't think anyone has to be "qualified" to be on a BoD. And I'm pretty sure Republicans don't want to start a movement to study this fact.
If you sincerely don't believe Hunter was qualified to sit on the board of a natural gas firm (You're too mind boggling stupid to even get the industry right) it is because you are a certifiable imbecile.
Burisma is commonly referred to in the news media as a Ukrainian oil company; it's not "stupid" to fail to question that description. In any case, the financial requirements of oil companies and natural gas companies are very similar, so my remarks re Hunter's qualifications continue to apply.
The Republican party has been the “keep rich people rich” party for a long time, and Trump didn't really change that. His major legislative achievement was passing corporate tax cuts.
"Keep rich people rich". A better formulation was stated by a local Republican some years back : "Treat money well."
Cooke is another one of those Brits with a glib style and facile debate skills from Eton or Harrods, who get off the plane and immediately feign a knowledge that most of us acquire after decades of life here.
Of course that's true of many of the native-born Review authors as well.
It's so wonderful to see that David Ignatius has now, at long last, fully and ably filled the void left by the late David Broder. I know he's been working really hard toward that goal for quite some time.
Without bad faith…
.. Republicans would have no arguments at all
I can almost hear President Biden describing the Impeachment "inquiry" as "What a load of Malarkey!"
There's no real "thinking" involved here. Republicans simply want Biden to be impeached, and so they are doing just that.
Exactly. To paraphrase a great strategist: If you can't impeach with the case you have you must impeach with the case you wish you had.
Republicans wanted to impeach Clinton for crimes that might have been committed in Whitewater years before he became President. So yea, Republicans certainly think Biden should be impeached for crimes before he became President.
And these are apparently the crimes of not being a Helicopter Parent throughout the entire life of his adult son.
Their brains don't work like our brains. Yes, they seriously think that.
The insanity of the "crimes" is also kind of the point, or rather they're irrelevant to the point. The point is that anyone who isn't one of them who is in power is illegitimate, in their view, and they will grasp for any tool that may possibly get them closer to eliminating the power of rivals.
Don Jr. and Eric Trump never traded on their dad's name, that's for sure!
Ivanka totally earned those patents she got from China, as did her husband in getting $2B from the Saudis.
Let me fix that for you:
as did her husband in getting $2B from the Saudis without having even ONE SECOND experience in the world of investing.
Depending on how you define “investing” as a skill, Kushner did have some experience. He invested his family’s money in the building at 666 Fifth Ave and nearly bankrupted his entire family. He was rescued by essentially selling American foreign policy in return for a bailout.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/02/qatar-666-5th-ave-jared-kushner
The $2 billion is either a reward for past services rendered (conspicuously paying former office holders for what they did while in office probably makes it easier to reach an understanding with the incumbent) or it’s MBS betting on the come that Trump wins the next election.
I whole heartedly support the House investigating nepotism/favoritism in the lobbying field. I'm sure no Republicans will be implicated. What's that Paul Ryan?
Charles Cooke is a hack, and has been for awhile, enough said.
You know the answer....
BENGHAZI!!!!
NR is not more sane than the MAGA loons. They just use more erudite language.
This is kind of ridiculous. Trump still actively owned and operated a real estate/resort business and foreign officials were renting rooms, and obviously Republicans had no problems with it. And famously Jared Kushner was doing business with the Saudis while we were negotiating foreign policy.
More broadly, there seem to be important officials with family members who have all sorts of business (or lobbying) interests that are affected by policy. Obviously, there's a certain amount of influence buying going on. I'm fine if we want to crack down on it, but it's something we should crack down on across the board and not focus on a single member of a single President's family. That's just ridiculous. And the idea that he should be impeached for letting family members do things that are legal and fairly common is, well, stupid.
This whole thing is the biggest instance of "every accusation a confession" I've ever seen. You think the Bidens were running some sketchy, influence peddling scam? Holy shit! Have you even *seen* the Trump Org? For four years that's *all* it was.
The Bush Boys were major influence peddlers too. Neil and the crash of Silverado Savings and Loan, Dubya’s insider trading at Harken Energy and Jeb’s business dealings with Miami mobsters/criminals and his lobbying his dad’s administration on their behalf should have shocked people but the mainstream “liberal” media couldn’t be bothered.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1992/09/family-value/
The dumbest thing about this whole debate is the assumption that parents can force their adult kids to quit jobs that pose conflicts. I can imagine what my kids would say if I told them they had to quit their jobs.
When money is your God, when you actually worship it, a lot of things you or I might call 'corruption' or 'white collar crime' turns out to be protected by the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment.
Yeah, it is mind-boggling. Mexico's Secretary of State publicly bragged that they got everything they asked for on NAFTA 2.0 (and to the detriment of US interests) once he and his team told Kushner how much money they had spent at Trump's hotel and how amazing it was.
There is a reason the hotel occupancy suddenly exploded when Trump was in office and that was because it was public knowledge that putting money in Trump's pocket was a guaranteed way for foreign leaders and nations to get what they wanted from Trump.
I remember that. NAFTA 2.0 was a *huge* win for Mexico and, yes, the Mexican delegation told reporters afterwards that they had gotten most of what they wanted by realizing all they had to do was just stroke Trump's (and Kushner's) ever so-fragile egos for a few hours, tell them how strong and handsome and smart they were, etc.
"...and not knowing that Hunter sometimes had his pals in the room when they talked on the phone."
You sure that Biden didn't know? Does it matter?
if your son or daughter calls you, do you normally know who else is there on the call besides family?
"if your son or daughter calls you, do you normally know who else is there on the call besides family?"
If a relative of mine was trading on my name and calling me in the presence of clients to give themselves credibility I think there is a pretty good chance I would figure out what they were doing. But perhaps Joe Biden isn't very bright.
How would you know your son (or whichever relative) was in the presence of anyone when he called you? Does he have a special number listed as "son and his pals" which he'd use when he is peddling the family name, as opposed to one just listed as "son" when calling for unrelated reasons?
According to superstar, Biden destroyer, witness from the heavens Devon Archer, Biden and Hunter in a period of 10 years, there were only 20 calls where Hunter called his father in the presence of others (that's once every six months in case you are mathematically challenged), and that in not one of them did they discuss anything business related.
The level of idiocy you fools need to dig into to try to smear Biden is truly appalling.
Yes he did know - Archer testified Hunter introduced them and Joe chatted to them casually - "How's the weather? How's the fishing?" Naturally Republicans seized on the first part as truth and mocked the second as lies.
And no, it doesn't matter, because in all the excitement nobody has been able to point to anything Joe did as vice president to benefit his son.
I wouldn’t take conservatives literally but I would take them seriously. I doubt very seriously whether anyone genuinely believes that what the Republicans are saying is “evidence” should actually count as such.
What Republicans are actually saying, however, is that América is essentially a herrenvolk democracy (a white Christian ethnostate) and they are the only true representatives of the herrenvolk. Therefore Democrats are never and can never be legitimate representatives of the herrenvolk and can be kept from power by any means necessary.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:
https://www.mediamatters.org/jesse-kelly/right-wing-radio-host-jesse-kelly-we-are-going-have-impeach-every-democrat-president
No lie told.
The Dems should impeach Trump for spawning greedy and stupid grifters. The fact that he's no longer President is irrelevant at this point.
Embrace the chaos. Republicans don’t care. Heck, I’m not sure I do. At this stage, politics and governance are broken beyond repair. Bring it on.
Thanks for taking time out of your busy What About The Sex Traffickers? concern trolling schedule to pipe up with apathy and nihilism on this post.
❗️
What "conservatives" seriously think is that drowning the Biden name in mud and shit ceaselessly, any and every chance they get, will reduce the number of people who end up voting for Joe. Kevin McCarthy let slip exactly this about Hillary and the endless Benghazi investigation, you might recall.
Whether any of their crap here is true isn't just irrelevant, it's mostly _exactly the point_ that the bulk of it is not merely untrue, it's unverifiable. That makes it unfalsifiable. It is a near-pure example of "bullshit" in the Harry Frankfurt sense. Bullshit is what they *want* to produce and what they want out there flooding the zone.
What did trump tell Zelensky, after all? He didn't say "investigate him." He said "announce an investigation." He could have cared less whether there would actually be one, he just wanted the announcement.
What was the plan at DOJ to cover the false elector scheme, the one Clark wrote up his letter about? Was it to say DOJ _was_ investigating, or _had_ investigated? No. It was to say there are reports of irregularities, therefore act as if the whole election thing didn't happen. In other words, pretend-- make a knowingly BS allegation and go on from there.
These people inhabit a completely post-modern world. Any overlap between claims or statements and actuality is pure coincidence. It's all performative, intended to sow confusion and elicit predictable reactions from particular quarters. There is no actual good faith in anything they say, unless and until proven otherwise.
This is one very good reason why they love, love, love the floor of Congress but courts of law are like kryptonite to them. Everything they say in Congress is protected. But until they get enough of their judges in, it isn't that way in the courts. Yet.
This is not a new strategy. Newt’s Clinton impeachment fantasy was bonkers. And why does no one seem to remember that Republicans even investigated the vicious claim that the Clintons had murdered their close friend Vince Foster.
https://www.salon.com/1998/04/29/news_30/
+1
+1
"He should have stopped his son Hunter from joining the board of a Ukrainian gas company and representing companies in China " this ignores there is no way to do this short of committing multiple felonies. "and he certainly should have resisted Hunter’s attempts to impress clients by getting Dad on the phone." No one has ever alleged that happened. Contrary to conservative lies about Archer's Testimony, Archer actually testified that Joe Called Hunter on a daily basis over a decade, ie. three to five thousand phone calls. Business was never, ever discussed on these calls from Biden to Hunter. Aproximately 20 of these thousand calls from Joe to Hinter, Joe happened to catch Hunter while he was socializing with business associates. Archer never claims that any of these calls occurred during business meetings contrary to the deliberate and intentional lies by Comer and other republicans.
Around the time of Biden’s inauguration I watched a story that featured his granddaughters. I was amazed that they said he called them all the time.
+1
He should have stopped his son Hunter from joining the board of a Ukrainian gas company and representing companies in China " this ignores there is no way to do this short of committing multiple felonies
Even more fundamentally, this ignores the inconvenient truth that the employment arrangements of members of a president's family don't remotely constitute high crimes and misdemeanors by the president himself. This would be true even if Hunter's gigs were illegal, which does not appear to be the case.
The repulsives are beginning to wrap them selves into knots, yet again.
Funny isn't it that not one feckless soul made a sound when Jared made money or the princess got her way with China. Sure is a one way street if you ask me. It seems as though what their orange genius and his mob did is aOkay and yet they totally about face and call almost the same thing on Biden. Talk about projection!!!
As we all know too well, there aren't the votes to convict if Biden is impeached.
But, their false narrative against Biden and the failed false equivalence in their attempted impeachment will stand in contrast to Trump's multiple convictions.
That will result in far greater consequences than the GOP's impeachment of Clinton.
There aren't even the votes to even begin an inquiry in the House.
True. And to get around that problem, McCarthy basically decides he doesn't need a vote to begin an inquiry.
See how that works? Norms are for pansies!
And in failing to get a floor vote to authorize the inquiry, McCarthy created an inquiry with little power to investigate because his lord and master's DOJ issued a binding legal opinion that impeachment inquiries without a floor vote are not valid.
I wouldn’t count my chickens yet. Trump’s probably already beaten the rap on the documents case. He’s got the judge in his pocket. The government will have an uphill battle against the judge to get a conviction.
The NYC case seems to be on the back burner and the Georgia case doesn’t seem to be proceeding in a particularly orderly fashion, even though it’s the only one that presents him with the threat of going to prison. I think it will be very difficult to keep hardcore MAGA-nutters off of his juries and it only takes one to hang the jury.
Cannon just ruled that Trump and his lawyers can only view classified documents in a SCIF.
I think being kicked in the rear multiple times by the court above her has caused her to recognize that all of her actions are going to be heavily scrutinized.
It's seems quite likely that he's going to be on trial sometime next year. If lucky, he'll be on trial later this year. DC court is moving very fast, as is Georgia.
I wouldn't put money on him beating all four cases, but if you want to, go ahead.
I’m not sure where Judge Cannon is coming from but if she’s in the tank for Trump, there’s a million and one things she can do to untrack the case. The good news in that regard is that she might not be experienced enough as a trial judge to undetectably fix the case. But there’s certainly nothing stopping her from putting MAGA-nutters on the jury or simply entering a directed verdict of acquittal.
I have to say that I’m not exactly sanguine about any of the other cases. There’s too much that can go wrong. Also, only the Georgia case has the potential to send Trump to prison which means that only that case might make a difference in Trump’s quality of life.
How this gets covered is critical. Most people are unlikely to know the details, only that Joe and Hunter is mentioned and a lot of money was involved*. What they did or didn't do is too complex to process because it involve business activities and the law, which takes time to explicate.
So, what will folks do? Read or hear conclusions from legal experts. Unfortunately, in this age of no gatekeepers and Establishment loss of control, many agenda-driven legal pros will be (uh) platformed and say Joe has to go.
Enough to get to some normies. There will be a lingering suspicion for years.
Remember, when you're explaining, you're losing.
* There *was* a lot of money involved. Hunter's greed and wild activities make it harder to crisply detach Joe from the debate.
Kevin,
I have a suggestion for you. When you want to know what is happening in the Conservative Coalition, please do not use National Review. In my opinion, those guys became irrelevant after 2017. They are even more irrelevant in 2023.
Try the Powerline Blog: https://www.powerlineblog.com/.
I would love to see what you think about their posts.
Maybe I'm unusual, but if my father had tried to tell me how to live my life after I reached adulthood, I would have told him to mind his own business.
To this day I'm at a loss to understand why Democrats didn't investigate Trump's pay-for-access grifts at his clubs. Remember he doubled the joining fee at Mar-a-Lago within weeks of being elected? And boasted about the number of new member inquiries? He might just as well taken out ads offering private unfiltered access to the President of the United States for a mere $200,000 down and $14,000 a year. Why weren't Dems demanding membership registers, visitors' logs, and seeding stories in the media week in and week out about the blatant conflicts of interest Trump faced by virtue of the money he raked in at Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster? Why didn't "investigative journalists" do it regardless?
Democrats didn’t do it because it would have been criticized as being partisan.
Democrats didn't have control of either the House or the Senate when that stuff was initially reported, so they didn't have the power to investigate it. Once they got control of the House, that grift was old news and there were more important things to look into.
You are correct but so is Mr. Guthman. The media would have accused them of being partisan — and not just the rightwing media, the mainstream “liberal” media would have accused them of tha. Just yesterday I heard Jonathan Lamier dismissed Democrats’ complaints that no one wants to look at Jared and Ivanka getting millions from foreign countries while they were working for the government and at least a couple of billion since. Lamiere flippantly dismissed legitimate complaints about the blatant double standard as “whataboutism”, No one pushed back. Apparently he sees people pointing out serious violations of the emoluments clause by the Kushners and unfounded accusations of corruption and illegal actions by the Bidens as equivalent.