By An Old Friend
Mon, Oct 26, 2020 12:39 a.m.
Derek Hunter -- "Biden Family's Corruption is Nothing New and Largely Legal"
For me, this article is clarifying. I find it hard to follow the details of the various Bidens' vileness, and this explains indirectly why one doesn't need to:
Biden Family's Corruption Is Nothing New And Largely Legal
Derek Hunter
10/25/2020 12:01:00 AM
When you get to make the rules, they always favor you. Parents can do things they forbid their kids from doing, bosses can take long lunches while insisting you not return late, and politicians can take pay-offs while…actually, there isn't much of a private sector equivalent for that one.
The word "bribe" has an obvious, legal meaning that, through a few tricks built into the system by the politicians who wrote the laws, helps them avoid breaking them while taking what amounts to bribes.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a bribe as "1: money or favor given or promised in order to influence the judgement or conduct of a person in a position of trust; 2: something that serves to induce or influence."
Hiring the otherwise unemployable, crack smoking son of the vice president of the United States in the hope of gaining favorable opinion or treatment from the government of the United States, for example, would seem to go a long way toward fitting that definition. Actually getting that favorable treatment would complete that definition.
That's the short version of what Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma did with Hunter Biden. The firing of the prosecutor pursuing a corruption investigation of the company's business practices and owner at the insistence of Hunter's dad, the then vice president, is the unambiguous second part of that hypothetical transaction.
But it's not a bribe, not legally. Not even a pay-off. It's a perfectly legal coincidence.
Hunter was making a fortune with no skills, knowledge, or abilities, but it was a drop in the bucket compared to the net worth of the company. From their perspective, it was a smart and cheap investment.
It was also legal. As was all the other sweetheart deals Hunter got out of Russia, China, and who knows where else.
How? Because, unless there is a paper trail of Joe Biden saying he'd do something in exchange for cash, any favorable treatment Hunter's sugar daddies got can be chalked up to coincidence.
[N.S.: That is completely lacking in credibility.]
Any illegal activity on behalf of Joe would come from him getting a piece of the action and hiding the money. While there are strong indications and insinuations that Joe was wetting his beak, he knows the law and it would be unlikely to be found out. This is compounded by the fact that no one is looking. Journalists aren't interested, neither, it seems, is the FBI. If he wins next week, the story will disappear faster than Tara Reade's name from newspapers.
What the Bidens appear to have done is not new. Direct payments of bribes is a thing of the past. Today's politicians now engage in corruption by proxy.
[N.S.: There's supposed to be a smoking email, in which Hunter brags to one of his kids about how he doesn't force them to kick back 50% to him, unlike "the big guy."]
Pioneers in this new bribery were none other than the Clintons. Bill and Hillary raked in a fortune through their "charities," and lived quite well off that money.
[N.S.: And that, too, was illegal. They wouldn't meet with someone who hadn't paid.]
When you think of bribes you think of very specific asks - do this and I'll give you that. In international politics, bribes are ways to curry favor to get better treatment in the future. Saudi Arabia didn't give $20 million to the Clintons' charities because they wanted to provide mosquito nets to Africa. To do that, Saudi Arabia could have simply purchased $20 million worth of mosquito nets and sent them there directly. They wanted to be in the good graces of who they, and the world, thought would be the next president of the United States. The same is true for most of Hunter's business deals.
The only difference between the shady dealings of the Clintons and the Bidens is the Clintons had the good sense to give it the cover of charity. The Bidens, just as corrupt as Bill and Hillary but not nearly as sophisticated, went right for profit; for cash payments.
Proving a bribe when filtered through others is nearly impossible; someone would have to roll. People in power know the rules, they wrote them. The public would be shocked if they knew exactly what is legal.
A member of Congress facing virtually no challenge in a safe district can't take campaign cash and put it in their pockets because that would be illegal. They can, however, hire their spouse and pay them almost $3 million for "consulting," or 70 percent of their campaign spending, and it's perfectly legal. Ilhan Omar did just that. She couldn't take the money herself, but she could pay her husband's consulting firm $2.7 million and he could put his chunk of that money in their joint bank account and *poof* it's legal.
There likely isn't a cashed check or findable bank account with Joe Biden's name on it. Even Joe is too smart to have signed anything. But Switzerland and many Caribbean countries don't have strict banking laws and pride themselves on secrecy.
Joe has made millions since leaving office in 2017, so it's not like he needs the money, especially at his age. Still, you make hay while the sun is shining. He likely wants to take care of his family after he's gone. The motive is clear, the details are foggy, and the truth is most of what we're likely to ever learn about it is quite possibly "legal."
[N.S.: I think the writer is simply assuming the legality of these bribes.]
5 comments:
Hands off Biden--just as it was hands off Clinton and Comey and...
--GRA
Anyone looking for clues as to the likelihood of Trump winning re-election,the S&P 500 is an over 85% indicator of such things.Measured from August 1st to November 1st,if the index is above the August starting point of 3272 on November 1st,the incumbent is likely to win.Currently at 3385.A drop of 150 S&P points can happen in a hurry if Wall Street thinks Trump's goose is cooked.The financial media has spread the story,the last two weeks,that stocks would love Biden in--that's why we've seen rising prices--based on more stimulus.I disagree.Corporate taxes would explode--as would individual tax rates.Stocks would suffer.
But first we must see how stock prices act this week,to get a better handle on Trump's chance
--GRA
Dan Bongino made an excellent point. He asks, "What were the Chinese buying by paying the Bidens?" The answer is they were investing in something to blackmail Biden with. He says the Chinese are very smart and very devious--they don't throw away money. Makes sense, they wanted something to hold over his head.
Probably not a bribe in the legal sense of the word.
And these people had the nerve to complain that Don's hotels might benefit from his Presidency.
What is it that the Clinton Foundation has billions of dollars. Surely they could give half to needy colored kids that want to go to college. Bill and Hillary I bet have a lot of administrative expenses. Sure.
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