
Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain
Joe Biden reminds me of Jack Evans, a disgraced former DC councilman I’ve written about more than anyone over the years. Both grew up in working-class families in Pennsylvania. At the outset of their careers, both had a touch of progressive in them, as well as a touch of scandal. And for both, the scandal overtook the progressivism as they sought to join the ranks of their rich donors.
Evans’ corruption caught up with him in his last years in office. But only because, instead of shielding his conflicted dealmaking behind the veil of lobbying firms (where he earned a second salary for nearly all of his three decades in office), Evans set up a personal firm registered to his Georgetown home. Once that was exposed, the veil lifted. As we discovered who was paying Evans, we could see the official acts he’d taken on their behalf.
If Evans hadn’t gotten greedy and created a personal firm, he could’ve continued his racket indefinitely. He just needed to maintain a buffer – like Biden always has.
In Biden’s case, his buffer doesn’t come from lobbying firms, but his family. From nearly the moment he was sworn in as Delaware’s Senator over fifty years ago, Biden’s public office has doubled as a private profit center for his family.
There are slick ways of pulling this off, then there’s the Biden way. Pick any decade and either brother, James or Frank, and you’re likely to find suspect dealings, often ending in messy lawsuits. I’ll touch on James’ wheelings and dealings here, but Frank’s had his share, too. (Their sister, Valerie, has kept her nose surprisingly clean.)
James
Shortly after Joe’s 1972 Senate election, James’ net worth was only $10,000, yet he “was approved for a string of loans from the local Farmers Bank that were sixteen times that sum, money James used to open a club,” Branko Marcetic wrote in his 2020 book, Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden. (James’ club failed.)
A federal investigation of the bank revealed Joe’s ties to it, and also that “James inexplicably held $600,000 worth of loans from First Pennsylvania,” which issued the loans on the recommendation of the state’s governor, who Joe had endorsed for president, wrote Marcetic. “To top it off, Biden at the time held a seat on the Senate Banking Committee, then notorious for being a hotbed of graft.”
Fast-forward 35 years and the brothers’ M.O. remained the same, but Joe was now vice president, providing James with greater opportunity for enrichment.
In 2010, a Philly-based construction firm, Hill International, gave James an equity stake in a subsidiary, HillStone International, which saw its stock price soar after receiving an estimated $1.5 billion in contracts to build 100,000 houses in Iraq. The contract was with a Korean firm, which in turn was paid by the Iraqi government. “At the time,” Ben Shreckinger noted in his 2021 book, The Bidens: Inside the First Family’s Fifty-Year Rise to Power, “Joe had oversight of the American occupation of Iraq.”
This deal also got messy. “[T]he big Iraq payday did not materialize,” wrote Shreckinger. “As delays dragged on, Jim and his partners descended into fighting, and HillStone’s role in the contract was ultimately canceled.”
The failure didn’t prevent James (who goes by Jim and Jimmy) and his wife Sara from purchasing a $2.5 million vacation home in Florida in 2013, which pushed them further into debt, and then further still when the house required extensive repairs. Amid their money crunch, the couple took out a $400,000 mortgage loan on their Pennsylvania home, followed the next month by a $500,000 mortgage on their Florida home. Both mortgages came from a nondescript entity registered in Delaware, 1018 PL LLC.
The man behind the LLC, John Hynansky, “had contracts with the administration,” wrote Shreckinger. Meanwhile back in 2009, in a speech in Kyiv, Ukraine, then-vice president Joe said, “My very good friend, John Hynanksy, a very prominent businessman from Delaware is here… I had breakfast with him the other day.” (A spokesman for James and Sara told Shreckinger that Hynanksy was a “longtime friend of the Bidens” and they’d paid him 6 percent on the loans, above market rate.)
Despite the Biden brothers’ decades of suspect dealings, nothing had ever come back on Joe in any meaningful way. Then Hunter, the wayward son, joined the family grift.
Hunter
Thanks to his exorbitant lifestyle, Hunter was desperate for money, burning through as much as $200,000 a month at the end of 2017. And thanks to his drug addiction, Hunter’s judgment was impaired. But maybe Hunter’s biggest problem was that his spectacular unraveling was taking place in the age of email, which isn’t ideal for someone jacked up on coke.
In various states of insobriety, Hunter pecked away on email, putting in writing his back and forth with foreign companies paying him millions because of his last name. It was only a matter of time before the veil lifted on the Biden family grift machine.
After analyzing the contents of Hunter’s infamous misplaced laptop, NBC News reported, “From 2013 through 2018 Hunter Biden and his company brought in about $11 million.” Among those paying Hunter millions was the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, and a Chinese oil company, CEFC China Energy.
While these payments aren’t tied to Joe, they still reek of influence peddling – much like foreign dignitaries spending lavishly at Trump’s hotels and golf courses or buying his condos.
(Amid Republican investigations, Hunter lawyered up, tapping Abbe Lowell, who also represented Jack Evans, the corrupt DC councilman.)
Jill
As the Biden bros carry on, the first lady is doing her part to keep the gravy train rolling, as she pushes her decrepit husband to stay in a race he’s not equipped to handle.
I’ve studied presidential debates, and even did my college thesis on the topic, and I can’t think of a debate as significant as last month’s. Thanks in no small part to Jill’s efforts to shield her husband’s deteriorated condition from the American people, we were led to believe the emperor was clothed. Then, on national TV, he stood before us stark naked. Biden’s public disrobing makes Richard Nixon’s five-o-clock shadow and George Bush Sr.’s watch-checking look trivial.
Now Jill insists we put the genie back in the bottle. We should forget what we saw last month, or chalk it up to a bad night, a cold, bad aides, etc. But despite the first lady’s efforts, with each passing day the facade crumbles away.
Obama
What comes next will be interesting. Regardless of who’s at the top of the ticket, I think Barack Obama should be the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. He’s eligible (and can even ascend to the presidency for two years), people love him, and he got us into this mess.
It was Obama who engineered the corporate candidate coup of 2020, when Democrats in quick succession dropped their presidential bids and supported a faltering Biden to stop Bernie Sanders from securing the nomination. But for Obama’s behind-the-scenes handiwork, a perfectly agile Sanders would likely be president right now. I’d say VP is the least Obama can do.
As far as the top of the ticket, I realize any name other than Joe Biden is wishful thinking so long as the president maintains his death grip on the nomination, which all but ensures Trump’s return.
Watching Democrats plead with Biden to step aside by appealing to his sense of civic duty is darkly humorous. What’s motivated the Bidens for the past half-century is the family’s enrichment, and they’re going to keep the gravy train rolling until the wheels come off.