Democrats are stuck with a failing President Joe Biden because he will stay in office as long as it takes to protect and pardon his son, Hunter, and any other relatives found to be involved in his foreign influence-peddling scheme.
The New York Times and other mainstream outlets tried to dismiss the revelations by the House Oversight Committee this week that the Biden family took $10 million from abroad through a series of shell companies.
The Times claimed that Republicans found no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden himself — even though it had to admit Biden had “at times made misleading statements” (i.e. he lied) about his family’s business dealings.
Had the Trump family attempted anything like that, the Times would have devoted years of coverage to the story.
But never mind the bias: this is a problem the Times cannot wish away, and nor can the Democrats.
Spin aside, this is what appears to have happened. Biden, who for years prided himself on being the “poorest” man in Washington, decided to cash in when it seemed his political career was finally coming to a close.
Normally, a sitting vice president might think about running for the top job as the boss hit the two-term limit. But Biden knew he could not oppose Hillary Clinton’s historic campaign to become the first female president.
So Biden — perhaps under some pressure from profligate relatives like Hunter — decided, finally, to cash out. He set up what D.C. insiders call a “government relations” business, profiting from his name and contacts.
In “government relations,” there does not need to be a specific quid pro quo. The clients are paying for the relationship, in the hope that it leads to other introductions and opportunities. It is not necessarily illegal.
Biden operated quietly, and through “legitimate” channels like the University of Pennsylvania, lest he draw too much attention to himself or tarnish President Barack Obama’s legacy. He used friends and intermediaries.
The calculus changed once Trump actually defeated Clinton. Suddenly, there was a path back to politics for Biden. That presented a huge windfall for the Biden family’s clients, though it contained new risks of exposure.
The Hunter Biden laptop threatened to blow the scheme wide open — revealing Biden’s lies, and his clients, as well as the fact that Biden depended on his family to pay his bills, using money they made from his network.
Hence the laptop had to be censored as Russian “[dis]information” — by the FBI, by Silicon Valley, and the mainstream media — at least until Biden won. Then he could dismiss the scheme as private, family business.
And it may have been legal. But the complex transactions the Bidens used contain any number of potential criminal pitfalls — from unregistered foreign lobbying, or unreported income, to major crimes like bribery.
Hunter Biden is already said to be dealing with Department of Justice prosecutors, and there is speculation that an indictment could be imminent. President Biden can, and will, pardon him — but there may be more to come.
So despite terrible poll numbers, and weak fundraising, and growing public concern that the president is simply too old for the job, Biden has to stay in office — and he also has to run for reelection — to protect his family.
It would make more sense, for the Democratic Party’s interests, for Biden to announce his retirement, at least after January 2025. But Biden is, as he reminds us, a family man first — before party, and before country.
The Democratic Party has largely gone along with his effort, telling itself — as it did in 2020 — that it does not really matter if Biden is incapable of governing, because the big federal government is capable of running itself.
Perhaps — but it does not run very well. Every one of the claimed “successes” of the Biden administration has been a case of the Democrat-run government “fixing” a problem that it was responsible for creating itself.
Inflation is coming down, slowly — but it began when Biden and the Democrats spent trillions of dollars on new coronavirus “relief” that the country did not need, and began a war on fossil fuels that drove energy costs up.
The war in Ukraine has not yet led to disaster — but it began when Biden removed some Trump-era sanctions on Russia, flattered Vladimir Putin with a summit in Geneva, and pulled out disastrously from Afghanistan.
The economy is recovering — but the recovery actually began under Trump, and the pandemic recession was exacerbated by Democrats insisting on keeping their state economies closed, partly in an effort to hurt Trump.
The Democratic Party needs new leadership. But it has few alternatives to Biden — or to Vice President Kamala Harris, who could argue, plausibly, that having a black woman as his running mate was a reason that he won.
Barring a successful internal challenge by Robert F. Kennedy or another candidate, the Democrats are stuck with Biden. They defend him now, but in so doing they are ensuring that when he falls, they will fall with him.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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