If we’re going to create transparently idiotic, partisan standards on the fly, they should be applied to everyone in government.
If Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has an ethical obligation to recuse himself from all cases related to the Jan. 6 riots because his wife Ginni has opinions on the matter, as most Democrats now contend, it’s clear that the president has a moral responsibility to step back from any more decisions concerning Ukraine and China.
Now that the New York Times and Washington Post have both authenticated the Hunter Biden emails — a story that was suppressed by the media and tech conglomerates on the flimsiest of pretexts to help Joe Biden win the 2020 election — it’s also what’s right for democracy. That’s how this works, right?
The Biden case is potentially worse because Hunter Biden, under criminal investigation, implicates his father as fiscal beneficiary in his dealings with corrupt Eastern European energy interests and the Communist Chinese. It’s plausible, of course, that Hunter Biden, and Tony Bobulinski, might have been lying about the “Big Guy.” It’s also true that if this story were about any Republican president, the media would be deploying squadrons of reporters to find out. After all, Joe Biden has previously said not only that he did not benefit from Hunter Biden’s work but that he knew absolutely nothing about his son’s influence peddling.
And yet there is much circumstantial evidence available that leads us to believe Joe Biden might be lying.
For instance:
—Hunter Biden accompanied his dad on an Air Force Two flight to China in 2013. What did the vice president believe his son was doing in China, if not going there on business? Hunter Biden’s associates also reportedly facilitated a meeting between Chinese officials and favored billionaires in Beijing and the vice president. Did the president attend? If so, what did they talk about?
—According to the New York Times, Obama administration officials openly worried about Hunter Biden’s corrupt relationships. Did they never mention these concerns to the vice president, who claims he knew nothing about his son’s corrupt business dealings?
—In 2018, Joe Biden bragged that as vice president he threatened Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko with the withdrawal of U.S. aid if he didn’t fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. Did Joe Biden know at the time that Shokin was investigating Burisma, the oil company that was paying his son more than $50,000 a month? Did he ever talk to his son about Shokin? Seems kind of important.
—The verified Hunter Biden emails, first reported by the New York Post, contain a correspondence from an executive with the Ukrainian oil company thanking Hunter for brokering a meeting between himself and Joe Biden, who was vice president at the time. Did Joe Biden take that meeting? If so, did they talk about Hunter Biden’s work? If not, what did he talk about with the executive?
And the biggest question the press should be asking the president is: Did Joe Biden ever benefit financially from any of Hunter Biden’s dealings? The answer might very well still be “no.” There is, after all, no hard evidence to say otherwise. (And, considering the urgency of the institutional press to look into these matters, we’re probably never going to find out.) However, on a number of occasions during the past five years, I can recall reading deeply reported profiles about the business dealings of the previous president’s children. Journalists and pundits quite understandably wondered if the president himself had been aware of their dealings. They wondered if such relationships should be considered unethical.
Then again, even if Joe Biden was completely unaware of his son’s machinations, The Clarence Thomas Standard now states that it doesn’t matter. Joe Biden must recuse from making any foreign policy decisions for the sake of democracy. Otherwise, he should, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez maintains, be impeached.
David Harsanyi is a senior writer at National Review and author of “Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent.” To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
I like “resign” much better than “recuse”.
This democrat run media couldn’t smell a fart in a Phonebooth, let alone a crime in a laptop. Their political lap dances about the truth are more in line with their unreal versions of the Hunter Biden saga. They show just enough of the goods to get you to stuff taxpayer dollars in the G-strings of their political campaigns, but when it comes to the real love making of the Country of their birth, they just don’t have a clue how to make it happen to the satisfaction of both parties,,,, just themselves.
I really do believe before the election when the real powers of the communist Democrat party met to plan how to steal the election, Blatherskite Joe Biden in a confused fit, admitted to Bernie all his Chinese and Ukrainian sins, where upon the Bernie Communists,,,never letting a crisis opportunity go to waste, cut Joe the Deal of the Century, namely we will conspire to unite with you to get you elected for your 15 minutes of American fame since Communist Bernie is unelectable, but when your sins are finally revealed and they throw you out of office we will have the Communist Kamala Putin type Puppet in place to step in and give us the real Power that could not be honestly earned in a straight election. Slip of the lip Joe already before the election mumbled about how he might not compete his term, just like he mumbled about Putin taking parts of the Ukraine.
If he were to resign, we would get “giggles” and she may be worse. This great nation is in a very bad situation due to so many people not knowing what they were voting for. Even if he only won by fraud, people still voted for this lunacy and they will not accept the reality that they were wrong to do so.
Maybe worse?? SHE WOULD BE worse, and that’s a definite…
If I used company aircraft to fly one of my kids or wife on a business trip, my employer would can me in a heartbeat!
AHH bit YOU ARE NOT a commucrat politician.. ERGO YOU can’t do what THEY CAN..
Joe knew exactly what Hunter was doing,,,Hunting up girls for Joe to share more than 10% of.