Normal rich person shit.
However, if there are webs of LLCs, how do they know where the $$ started?
The one that trump started?
No. Its made up shit just to make sure people vote in herr trump.
Who violated the law. And there are only two. And MAGAs will lie.
Thats not a law. That is a general guideline. And since people who fess up and pay up are never given prison terms, the point is moot.
and again this is all about HUNTER. Not Joe.
What bodies?
What we basically have here is the equivalent of your next door neighbors (who are angry at you for telling the police about their stealing packages from your front porch), seeing your son digging in the back yard and telling everyone that you are being investigated for murder under the assumption that the only possible reason was that you were hiding bodies.
Of course that would be innuendo.
Memo
From: Buck Godot
To: Buck GodotSam_Stone has been seen burying bodies in the back yard to cover up his murder spree
Now its evidence.
I read from a credible source that Sam_Stone has been seen burying bodies in his backyard.
Moderating:
Enough with the attempt at humor at @Sam_Stone expense. Not really on topic once the point was made.
I thought you might say that, but it was set up to the point that repetition of a false narrative by a wide range of people with ulterior motives does not make that narrative any less false or any more worthy of investigation.
Hey Sam!
Do you really think there is something improper about then family of a President or former President or a President or former President himself using their family name as a brand? 
As someone that’s set up a few “shell companies” myself, I can assure you that its not only perfectly normal but it’s an indication of good business practices.
I own company A. I’m chatting with the owner of company B and he has a client that wants a complete set of services. His company can provide some of those services but he needs my company to provide other services.
We talk together and work out an equitable split on profits. The cleanest way for us to handle this is to set up an LLC, company C.
All business in our mutual venture goes through company C. The client pays their invoices to company C and company C buys the products and services. Then the profits are split as per our arrangement and distributed to companies A and B.
The LLC is a wehicle for accountability, it keeps all the money made from one particular joint venture separate for the income companies A and B make through other ventures, and if trust breaks down between the agents of company A and company B, company C is entity that has all the relevant transactions recorded in one place so they can be examined and audited if necessary.
When I was in business, I did this a couple of times, and my partner in some of those ventures usually has several other LLC’s going at the same time. There nothing improper about it, in fact doing certain types of business without an LLC in place can be a red flag for impropriety.
It strikes me that one of two things are possible:
Those in favor of an impeachment inquiry have no clue whatsoever about how business works, how LLC’s are structured, what consulting firms do, and how the very wealthy all use their names and contacts to get business done. And they are buying into the lies and fabrications of Republicans and their media who are using their ignorance to whip up “concerns”.
Those in favor of an impeachment inquiry are fully aware of the above and simply don’t give a shit, as they are wanting to promote “both sides” bullshit in order to give cover for Trump’s obvious crimes.
Pick one.
Yeah, I was working as a consultant for a large well known brokerage firm. One client would move $1M of funds in, then wire them out. Often. They thought that was suspicious. After some investigation, it was because our firm offered free wires. He was doing it to save $25 or so. He was a billionaire.
A very general statement, but I think it applies here:
Since early in the Trump Presidency, the media has been rife with stories that – to understand them – require even a cursory familiarity with science (eg, COVID) and/or law (eg, who did and who did NOT commit crimes) and/or international finance (LLCs, “Shell Companies,” “SARs”).
And Trump supporters are just utterly falling flat. While they have no end of passion, what they don’t have is knowledge – like any knowledge – to come to reasonably informed conclusions.
Which makes it tragically easy for the GOP demagogues to lie to them and manipulate them, day after day after day.
Dunning and Kruger … for the WIN!
I think that’s an element of it, but more significant is how irrelevant facts are to their beliefs. Seriously, it’s amazing what details go unquestioned. I remember when a talking point making the rounds was that BLM and Antifa were burning our cities to the ground. You’d think a few of them would have raised an eyebrow and asked, “Um, which cities? Where is that happening?”
But, nope, the assertion was enough.
I often ask that question whenever the “cities burned to the ground” narrative is brought forth. Strangely, they don’t seem bothered by the fact that all the cities they mention remain largely intact and unburnt.
The whole maze of LLC’s and such sound very corrupt and dubious, if it was fictional and I was listening to them as part of a movie or crime procedural. It might be convincing if I didn’t have more information. You can’t entirely blame people for not having the time or expertise to look up complicated subjects if all you know are right-wing sources that are distorting the evidence.
The NYT’s Bret Stephens had this comment, which sums things up: “If this impeachment inquiry were any more premature, it would be a teenage boy.”
I can certainly blame them here at the SDMB if they come with crappy cites, or they misinterpret their own cites, or they just blather on with evidence-free assertions.
Or even if they insist we find the evidence for them because they are busy going for dinner.
Totally agree.
This risks getting pretty far afield, but I’m hoping we’re in-bounds:
There’s a strong element of Microbe vs. Terrain at work here, and I think we’re explaining the terrain.
I like Al Franken’s quote:
“We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America like a 4-year-old loves his mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a 4-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad and helping your loved one grow.”
Tribalism. The right is generally far more tribal than the left. The right has a mortal lock on “very religious” people and “strongly nationalistic” people. Those are NOT people given to question the dogma of their tribes. Not by a long shot.
So, in terms of the news, if it comports with their beliefs, it’s true. If it does NOT comport with their beliefs, it’s false. That’s pretty much it. That’s their research. That’s their analysis.
I think the demagoguery comes in on the supply, or microbe, side where the politicians endlessly and cynically manipulate their flock (ie, gulling the rubes).
Whether or not one reasonably thinks that Joe Biden may have been involved in improprieties involving his son’s business, there simply Is No Inculpatory Evidence, at this point, to support that belief.
For now, it’s surmise, conjecture, hypothesis. A gut feeling. Nothing more.
And I firmly believe that everybody involved in the manufacture and distribution of this narrative is acutely aware of that fact – no compelling evidence of a Joe Biden crime.
They’re just selling it to an extremely credulous bunch that is profoundly inclined to believe what they’re being told and can’t be arsed to fact-check any of it.
Couple that with what I said above about the specialized technical nature of many of these issues, and … it’s taking candy from a baby.
So they’re lazy, too. I won’t argue against that 
Seriously, I think that’s part and parcel of what I describe above. It’s not worth any really tribal person’s time and effort to critically examine their tribe. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
This post reminded me (belatedly) about the previous owners of my mother-in-law’s house.
They were invested in local real estate, and owned three different houses that they rented out. The property tax statements were still going to MiL’s house for a few years after she moved in (they checked on the county assessors & treasurers websites to find out their tax liability, they weren’t ignoring the tax).
Each of the houses had a different LLC set up for it. So that was one couple, four LLCs (counting their holding company).
Given that, I’m not shocked that a fairly large family in business could have 20 LLCs associated with it.
Why would they ask that? Seriously, they are being told that liberal cities everywhere are burning. They don’t ever go out and see it themselves, so what they have is one group telling them that the cities are burning, and another group telling them that they aren’t. The first group also says other things they like, so they’re going to believe that group.
As far as “evidence” goes, many of the people making those crazy claims will recycle footage of unrest in other parts of the world, like Europe, and claim that this is happening in Portland or San Francisco or whatever. And so now they are even more secure in their beliefs because they’ve “seen it”.
I think I said before on this board that last year my oldest daughter came to visit me up here in the Seattle area, and brought her boyfriend. They live in North Carolina, and her boyfriend was a nice guy, but unfortunately raised in a bit of a bubble. He said that he’d been told the Pacific Northwest had become a hellhole destroyed by liberals. I asked him to look around and tell me how bad it looked, and he said it actually looked pretty nice.
This happens with a lot of these cases, including these unfounded allegations against Biden. People just don’t see things outside their neighborhoods, and just believe whatever comes from those who say things they like. That probably has been the case for all of humanity to be honest.
(My emphasis)
We’ve already seen upthread that Joe Biden doesn’t have a granddaughter named Hallie, and that there the use of LLCs is a common way to organize business ventures. I just want to focus on the bolded part for a second.
Who is this “Romanian oligarch”? It sure sounds ominous when you describe somebody that way.
So who is this Gabriel Popoviciu, anyway?
Of course, if we really want to claim that lobbying on behalf of Popoviciu is criminal, we have others who’ve entered the chat.
Then again, it’s possible that Popoviciu was a businessman doing business when his companies paid money to other companies.
I think we’re in agreement. This particular example isn’t particularly subtle or nuanced though.
If someone asserts that multiple American cities have been burned to the ground, that seems reasonably easy to research from the comfort of your den. I can easily confirm the score of yesterday’s Phillies game, but it’s somehow beyond their capability to confirm if Detroit is still standing? Seems like there’d be a ton of reporting on that.
The lack of curiosity, critical thinking skills, and skepticism is no longer surprising, just depressing.