Joe Biden Defends His Son’s Ukraine Dealings: ‘He Did Not Do a Single Thing Wrong’

In an interview which aired Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden defended his son’s dealings in Ukraine that led to him being appointed to the board of directors of Burisma Holdings despite having not having any experience in the energy sector nor knowing the language.

According to the former vice president, Hunter Biden “did not do a single thing wrong,” adding investigations back that up.

“[Hunter] was already on the board, and he’s a grown man,” Biden outlined. “And it turns out he did not do a single thing wrong as everybody’s investigated.”

Biden went on to say if he is elected, his children will not have jobs in his administration. He then took a shot at the Trump family and Jared Kushner, saying they “know nothing about” working in the White House.

Biden’s such a damned frickin’ liar.....he “forgot” to mention this:

Revealed: Joe Biden twice used his position as senator to intervene to boost son Hunter’s lobbying
Joe Biden lobbied Department of Justice Congress and Homeland Security for Hunter’s lobbying clients
BY Alana Goodman, Washington Examiner| October 24, 2019 07:37 PM

Joe Biden privately contacted the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice when he was a senior and influential U.S. senator to discuss issues that his son Hunter’s firm was being paid to lobby on, according to government records.

On at least two occasions, Biden contacted federal departments to discuss issues related to Hunter’s firm’s lobbying clients, according to records reviewed by the Washington Examiner.

Biden’s behind-the-scenes outreach illustrates how his Senate work overlapped with his son’s business interests. Biden has faced scrutiny for taking actions that were perceived to benefit his son’s work, including calling for the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor and backing policies that helped the Delaware-based credit card industry while Hunter was working for MBNA, which is headquartered in the state.

Government records show that Biden, who has always insisted he knows nothing about his son’s business activities, helped Hunter’s work with strategic and highly specific interventions that could have benefited his son to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

On Feb. 28, 2007, Biden contacted DHS to express that he was “concerned about the Department’s proposed chemical security regulations authorized by Section 550 of DHS Appropriations Act of 2007,” according to the department’s log of its contacts with members of Congress.

Section 550, which was passed in 2006 as part of the DHS appropriations bill, requires high-risk chemical plants to submit site safety plans to DHS for approval, including security credentialing and training for employees.

Eight weeks earlier, the Industrial Safety Training Council had hired Hunter Biden’s firm to lobby DHS on the issue. The trade group, which represents companies that provide safety training for chemical facility employees, was mounting a heavy lobbying campaign over section 550, submitting congressional testimony about the need to expand background checks for chemical plant employees.

The Industrial Safety Training Council was seeking to expand the “language in DHS legislation regarding security clearance and credentialing for chemical facility employees and employers” in January 2007, according to lobbying disclosure records.

While Hunter Biden did not register as an individual lobbyist for the trade association, he was one of three senior partners in his firm at the time. The Industrial Safety Training Council paid Oldaker, Biden & Belair a total of $200,000 between early 2007 and the end of 2008.

The Biden campaign did not respond to request for comment. The National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group, said Biden should have avoided involvement with issues that his son’s firm was also lobbying on because of the appearance of conflict.

“It’s implausible Sen. Biden did not know his son’s firm was lobbying on this arcane issue,” said Tom Anderson, the director of NLPC’s Government Integrity Project.
“Sometimes appearances are exactly what they are,” he said. “This is a recurring problem we’ve seen on the Hill, where family members are enriched because of their relationship with a member.”

Biden also sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Jan. 31, 2007 requesting a meeting with the Department of Justice to discuss expanding the federal fingerprint background check system.

“I write to request your assistance in implementing an expanded background check system for our nation’s volunteer organizations,” wrote Biden. “If we can work together to expand the number of volunteer organizations that have access to fast, accurate, and inexpensive fingerprint background checks, we will make significant and important strides in our ongoing effort to protect kids across our country.”

Biden added, “I would like to convene a small meeting with key representatives” from DOJ, the FBI, members of Congress and volunteer groups.

One of Hunter’s firm’s lobbying clients at the time, a coalition of state-level criminal justice advocates called SEARCH, was also lobbying the federal government for a broader fingerprint screening system at the time.

The same day as Biden’s letter, SEARCH adopted a resolution calling on Congress to consider “any effort to improve the quality, completeness and accessibility of criminal history records” and expand the current system to “allow the return of all criminal history record information maintained by the States on the search subject through a single fingerprint check.”

The group initially hired Oldaker, Biden & Belair in 2006 to lobby for federal funding for state-level criminal justice programs, paying the firm $114,000 over the next year. In early 2008, SEARCH was seeking funding “to assist states in development and use of information to accelerate automation of fingerprint authentication processes and criminal justice data which are compatible with the FBI’s” system, according to lobbying records.

Biden introduced a bill called the “Child Protection Improvements Act” on March 13, 2008, which created a national fingerprint background check system for volunteer groups that worked with children. Oldaker, Biden & Belair promptly began lobbying for the bill on behalf of their client, SEARCH, according to lobbying records. SEARCH paid the firm $93,000 in 2008, records show.

Hunter Biden founded Oldaker, Biden & Belair with William Oldaker, a former adviser to his father. During his time at the firm, he was registered to lobby for clients on issues ranging from online gambling to higher education. After Biden became a vice presidential candidate in 2008, Hunter stepped away from lobbying, and the firm was renamed Oldaker, Belair & Wittie.

ABC News reported last week that Biden was concerned conflicts with his son’s lobbying work could negatively affect his presidential run in 2008.
Biden was “concerned with the impact that Hunter’s lobbying activities might have on his expected campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination,” according to court documents filed by a former business partner of Hunter Biden’s in 2007, ABC News reported.
“Because my dad was vice president of the United States, there’s literally nothing, as a young man or as a full-grown adult, that my father in some way hasn’t had influence over,” Hunter told the outlet in an interview.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/biden-outreach-to-dhs-and-doj-overlapped-with-work-by-son-hunters-lobbying-firm

Joe Biden’s never-ending Ukrainian Nightmare: Two years after leaving office, braggart Biden couldn’t resist
the temptation to congratulate himself to an audience of foreign policy specialists, caught on tape,
bragging how he, as Obama's VP, strong-armed Ukraine into firing its top prosecutor.

Now the glib 2020 candidate Biden finds he's locked into a damaging story; Burisma Holdings hired Biden’s son,
Hunter, for big money, that's looking more and more like a shakedown......the Bidens exploiting the VP office for personal gain.

REFERENCE--- Vice President Joe Biden's son joins Ukraine gas company
SOURCE: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27403003
14 May 2014

(Excerpt BBC report) In Burisma's press release announcing his hiring, Hunter Biden says: "I believe that my
assistance in consulting the company on matters of transparency, corporate governance and responsibility,
international expansion and other priorities will contribute to the economy and benefit the people of Ukraine."

The Obama White House emphasized that vice president Biden's son's new job will have no influence on US foreign policy.
"Hunter Biden is a private citizen and a lawyer," a spokeswoman for VP Biden told the Wall Street Journal.
"VP Biden does not endorse any particular company and has no involvement with this company."

=================================================

Burisma's new company logo.

GOVERNMENT PARASITES----THY NAME IS BIDEN

Brother James Biden and wife at Obama White House event

Looks like Obama liked his cut of the Biden deals.
Getting to attend a WH state dinner ---mean you paid BIGTIME.

Biden’s Corruption Problem
Powerline ^ | Aug. 2, 2019 | John Hinderaker
FR Posted on 8/3/2019, 9:54:14 AM by libstripper

Joe Biden is being portrayed as the Democrats’ safest potential presidential nominee, despite his obvious flaws as a candidate. But one wonders how Biden’s history of swamp corruption will play if he actually faces the scrutiny of a national run. Biden’s family has gotten wealthy, like those of so many low-paid “public servants”–Tom Daschle and Harry Reid are obvious examples. How does that happen? Politico headlines: “Biden Inc. Over his decades in office, ‘Middle-Class Joe’s’ family fortunes have closely tracked his political career.”

It begins: (Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...

=================================

<><> Joe Biden’s younger brother James received a series of “unusually generous” bank loans during the 1970s, while the former vice president served on the Senate Banking Committee. Politico reported that James Biden, who has a history of murky financial dealings, was able to parlay his role as the chief fundraiser for his brother’s 1972 Senate run into the startup capital required to open a nightclub. The loans were considered “unusually generous” given that the younger Biden was a salesman without any business experience and purportedly had a net worth of less than $10,000 at the outset of the venture in 1973. Another key component of the story, which was widely covered by local media in Delaware and Pennsylvania at the time, is that the loans appeared to draw concerns over influence peddling, as Joe Biden had just been appointed to the Senate Banking Committee. (Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com …

<><> Here's the real James Biden windfall ----- billions awarded for Iraq reconstruction.

CIRCA 2012 Crony capitalism & Joe Biden’s brother
SOURCE https://nypost.com/2012/10/23/crony-capitalism-joe-bidens-brother/
By Charles Gasparino, NY POST, October 23, 2012

James Biden isn’t a big name in the business of residential housing development, so what exactly qualifies him to work at a construction company and share in the winnings of a $1.5 billion project to build affordable homes in Iraq? If you said it has something to do with his last name, the one shared by his older brother Vice President Joe Biden, you wouldn’t be far off. At least that’s the guess of some Wall Street analysts who cover the Marlton, NJ-based company Hill International and think they’ve seen yet another sordid tale of crony capitalism.

Hill has been around for decades; its main business is managing construction projects in the Middle East and here in America. It’s built a good reputation over the years, as has the father-son team who run it, Irv and David Richter. But the bursting of the real-estate bubble took its toll; Hill shares are down 80 percent since 2008. Since 2011, the company has reported losses. Its Middle East business has also been stymied by the Arab Spring uprisings; in Libya alone, Hill is out $60 million in payments that it’s still trying to recover.

But it got some good news not long after its housing subsidiary hired James Biden as an executive vice president in late 2010. Just six months later, Hill won one of its biggest contracts ever, a $1.5 billion deal to build at least 100,000 affordable homes in Iraq. A good deal for Hill, a relative newcomer to building homes — and for James Biden, who as one partner will get a good share of that $1.5 billion.

The deal is contingent on the Iraqi government providing financing, which it has yet to do, but Hill execs tell analysts the money could start flowing by the end of the year. That’s when everyone involved, James Biden included, will start collecting on tens of millions of dollars in profits.

One friend of James Biden’s estimates his net worth at around $7 million, yet he seems to have a remarkable lack of concrete business experience. An attorney who’s done work for him called him a “serial entrepreneur,” but didn’t name the startups he was responsible for. Hill chief Irv Richter called Biden a “good salesman” and the firm’s Web site describes “40 years of experience dealing with principals in business, political, legal and financial circles across the nation and internationally.”

(James Biden also had a relatively short and somewhat controversial run as a co-owner of a hedge-fund company with Joe’s son Hunter. The company, as it turns out, was marketed by companies controlled by now convicted Ponzi schemer Allen Stanford. Neither Biden was charged, but the fund company is now winding down its operations.)

No, James Biden’s obvious value comes from his connection to the Obama administration. Richter assures me that James’ ties to Joe played no part in landing the plum assignment in Iraq or any of the other government-related jobs Hill has received recently.

Really? Connect these dots: Both the Iraqi government and the Obama State Department played roles in helping Hill win the assignment, Richter concedes. And Joe Biden is President Obama’s point man on Iraq — a country where people expect politicians’ families to be “taken care of.”

Also key is TRAC Development, a South Korean firm that won the master contract for the Iraq work. And — huh! — James Biden and his wife were guests of President Obama and Michelle for last October’s state dinner honoring the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak. All one big coincidence?

Well, Richter insists that, while Biden’s name and connections might open doors when government business is on the line, that doesn’t guarantee success. “If he had the name Obama, he would get in the door easier,” Richter joked. During this month’s vice-presidential debate, Joe Biden told Americans to just ignore all that stimulus money that went to administration-connected failures like Solyndra. Crony capitalism, he insisted, hardly exists with Joe Biden and Barack Obama watching the store.

Maybe that’s why the veep, after making that dopey statement, was laughing so much that night.

Charles Gasparino is a Fox Business Network senior correspondent.

One of the all-time bodacious federal scams was Obama’s “stimulus program.” All the Democrats got filthy rich.
Obama appointed Biden to “oversee “stimulus money distribution.” To date, still no full accounting as to
where it all went (not to worry, Hunter knows where it is).

Missing in Action: Stimulus Sheriff Joe Biden
By Michelle Malkin - Oct 10, 2012
Copyright 2012, Creators Syndicate Inc.

Remember when President Obama bragged about Joe Biden’s fiscal discipline creds in 2009? “To you, he’s Mr. Vice President, but around the White House, we call him the Sheriff,” Obama warned government employees. “Because if you’re misusing taxpayer money, you’ll have to answer to him.” Fast-forward to 2012. Call in the search teams. Since being appointed the nation’s stimulus spending cop, Sheriff Joe has taken a permanent donut break.

He’s AWOL on oversight. In fact, he’s been bubble-wrapped, boxed and kept completely out of sight. The garrulous gaffe machine hasn’t sat down for a national media interview in five months.

The Democrats’ trillion-dollar “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” however, keeps piling up waste, failure, fraud and debt. Who benefited most? Big government cronies. According to Investor’s Business Daily, a new analysis by Ohio State economics professor Bill Dupor reported that “(m)ore than three-quarters of the jobs created or saved by Pres Obama’s economic stimulus in the first year were in government.”

Dupor and another colleague had earlier concluded that the porkulus was a predictable jobs-killer that crowded out non-government jobs with make-work public jobs and programs. Indeed, the massive wealth redistribution scheme “destroyed/forestalled roughly one million private sector jobs” by siphoning tax dollars “to offset state revenue shortfalls and Medicaid increases rather than boost private sector employment.”

Will this Keynesian wreckage come up during Biden's debates? It should be a centerpiece of domestic policy discussion. Nowhere is the gulf between Obama/Biden rhetoric and reality on jobs wider. Remember: Obama’s Ivy League eggheads behind the stimulus promised that “(m)ore than 90 percent of the jobs created are likely to be in the private sector.” These are the same feckless economic advisers who infamously vowed that the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent — and that unemployment would drop below 6 percent sometime this year. Sheriff Joe rebuked the “naysayers” who decried the behemoth stimulus program’s waste, fraud and abuse. “You know what? They were wrong,” he crowed.

Sheriff Biden was radio silent about the nearly 4,000 stimulus recipients who received $24 billion in Recovery Act funds — while owing more than $750 million in unpaid corporate, payroll and other taxes. (Cash for Tax Cheats, anyone?)

He had nothing to say about:
<><> $6B in Homeowners' stimulus energy credits showered on nearly 1/3 of credit-claimers who had no record of homeownership, including minors and prisoners.
<><> $530 million dumped into profligate Detroit public schools for laptops and other electronics that had little, if any, measurable academic benefits.
<><> the whopping $6.7 million cost per job under the $50 billion stimulus-funded green energy loan program
<><> politically connected Green companies are now bankrupt---they took the money then went belly-up
<><> remember? Solyndra ($535M), Abound Solar ($400M), Beacon Power ($43M), A123 ($250M) and Ener1 ($119M).
<><> $1 million stimulus went to Big Bird and Sesame Street “to promote healthy eating,” for a theoretical 1.47 jobs ($726,000 per job created.)
<><> hundreds of stimulus millions to govt GSA junkets in Las Vegas and Hawaii,
<><> hundreds of millions to ghost congressional districts, dead people,
<><> hundreds of millions for infrastructures to nowhere and ubiquitous stimulus propaganda road signs stamped with the shovel-ready logo.

Of course, there’s no example of unfettered stimulus squandering more fitting than the one named after Keystone Fiscal Kop Joe Biden himself. Government-funded Amtrak’s Wilmington, Del., station raked in $20 million in “recovery” money after heavy personal lobbying by the state’s most prominent customer and cheerleader. In return, the station (which came in $6 million over budget, according to The Washington Times) renamed its facility after Biden. Bloated costs.

Crony political narcissism. Glaring conflicts of interest. Monumental waste.

This is the Obama/Biden stimulus legacy bequeathed to our children and their grandchildren. Sheriff Joe and his plundering boss need to be run out of town on a rail.

SOURCE http://dyn.realclearpolitics.com/topic/v/Vice_President_/

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