# Hunter Biden artwork attracts ethics scrutiny
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [July 8, 2021, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031 "2021-07-08T21:55:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/21 "2021-07-09T02:30:37Z")
Clearly, the way to avoid this entire problem is for the President to appoint Hunter as an unpaid senior adviser, and then allow Hunter to mention his artwork on a regular basis when giving interviews about the work he’s doing for the President. That is apparently completely aboveboard.
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### Author:  [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/22 "2021-07-09T02:35:11Z")
Asking $75k to $500k is not getting that. All this fuss about an asking price is so much BS when the former POTUS and his family inflates the worth of everything little thing the do or sell. How about some Trump steaks or a Trump University degree?
You know, some real shit that actually happened already.
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### Author:  [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/23 "2021-07-09T08:50:02Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> FYI, [this article](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/arts/design/hunter-biden-art.html) (paywall warning) from The New York Times of February 2020 shows some examples of the art.
So Hunter Biden is slightly more qualified as an artist than he was as a Ukrainian corporate governance consultant?
I think he’s once again trying to make money based on his last name, but there’s nothing illegal about that. There’s certainly a whiff of Billy Carter about the situation, but Billy Beer wasn’t illegal either. And his proposed market is art buyers, rather than a corrupt company in a corrupt country where his father has huge influence in the country’s fledgling anti-corruption efforts. If it turns out that Hunter’s art is bought by someone he knows who has an interest in lobbying the government, then that will be a scandal. But I don’t think the public should be condemning him because there’s potential for a scandal. Secrets are hard to keep, and if there’s impropriety involved, it will get out. Condemn Hunter Biden after that happens, not beforehand when it’s just a possibility, rather than a blatant conflict of interest.
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### Author:  [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/24 "2021-07-09T11:38:12Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#):
>
> So Hunter Biden is slightly more qualified as an artist than he was as a Ukrainian corporate governance consultant?
Glad you approve of his art so much, because the Yale-educated lawyer with a long history of previous corporate board experience was eminently qualified for his role at Burisma. He was even Vice Chairman of Amtrak, to whose board he was appointed by GW Bush.
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/25 "2021-07-09T11:49:44Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#):
>
> I think this is a pretty good point. The posters above assume that there is no way that either Biden will ever know who the purchasers are. How about if I take a photo of myself with the painting I bought, and send the photo to the President? Who is this art dealer who is “setting the values” of the paintings? What are the expectations of the purchasers? No, I think the motive for this scheme may have been innocent, but it was not well thought out.
I agree with the others that Hunter should be allowed to sell his paintings. If they want to handle it this way, so be it. If he wants to sell them like any other artist, that seems fine. Granted they’re going to get a price bump due to the Biden name attached to them, but it is what it is. I suppose they could set some sort of an upper limit on the price. For example, sell them all at $1000. Still a good chunk of change for some watercolors, but hardly enough to bribe someone with.
What about this. Sell everything blindly for whatever price it can get (ie 75-500k), but then the money and the artwork go into escrow until after Biden leaves office.
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### Author:  [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/26 "2021-07-09T12:40:51Z")
> [@Gyrate](#):
>
> Glad you approve of his art so much, because the Yale-educated lawyer with a long history of previous corporate board experience was eminently qualified for his role at Burisma. He was even Vice Chairman of Amtrak, to whose board he was appointed by GW Bush
Are we seriously doing this again? Hunter Biden:
- Had no experience in the energy sector
- Had no expertise in corporate governance
- Didn’t speak Ukrainian or Russian
- Had acquired many of his earlier jobs due to his father’s political connections
- Main source of experience was as a lobbyist
- Had issues of conflict of interest raised against him by one of his firm’s partners
- Had issues of conflict of interest raised against him by Joe Biden’s aides
- Had issues of conflict of interest raised against him by others in the Obama administration
- Produced no meaningful work product while he was working for Burisma
- Never actually visited the company he supposedly worked for
- Despite his lack of both effort and expertise was paid $50,000/month
- Admitted that the reason he was hired was his last name.
In other words, he was mildly qualified, except for one big qualification - his last name; he was an utter waste of money except for one thing he provided to Burisma - his last name; and his best defence that he didn’t do anything corrupt is that he didn’t do much of anything but sit in on a few meetings - most of them by phone and none at the company headquarters.
For his artwork to equal his tenure at Burisma, all he has to put on the canvas is a child’s crayon sketch - and his last name.
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### Author:  [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/27 "2021-07-09T12:45:03Z")
My initial thoughts were, basically:
- You can’t run a country by prioritizing _avoiding_ giving the other side ammunition to unseat you
- But you should do The Right Thing for the nation without undue emphasis on optics. Was this The Right Thing for the nation ? Hunter – whoever/whatever he is – is directly tied to the White House
- The last thing I want is for Progressives to accept “better than Trump” as the standard. It will, IMHO, give credence to the notion that the guy moved the needle in an execrable direction
- If I’m tied to power at the scale of POTUS, and somebody buys my car for roughly what it’s worth, then we’re good. If, OTOH, somebody buys my car for orders of magnitude more than it’s worth, it should set off warning lights and buzzers. Art is far too squishy in terms of pricing to establish if, and by how much, people are overpaying. That’s inherently problematic
- Yes, the art dealer is a problematic ‘solution’
- Yes, a buyer with other-than-pure intent could easily reach out and say, “I’m the guy that bought this POS Holiday Inn Express finger painting for half a million bucks. I’d like a meeting.”
It might have been better if Hunter … y’know … got a damned job – one for which he’s qualified and one that he got _not_ by consciously, overtly, solely, and transparently trading on his last name, and maybe sold his wildly overpriced bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild _after_ his dad leaves office.
Remember the Obama years ? Remember all the real/manufactured ethics scandals that plagued that administration ?
Me either.
Biden should take great pains to get back to that model.
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### Author:  [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/28 "2021-07-09T12:50:32Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#):
>
> What about this. Sell everything blindly for whatever price it can get (ie 75-500k), but then the money and the artwork go into escrow until after Biden leaves office.
Again, as pointed out over and over and over again in this thread, Hunter Biden is a private citizen. He holds no office. If he, on his own, decides to put the money into an escrow account, more power to him. But there’s no reason for a private citizen to put their own money into an escrow account until a particular president leaves office. He’s already going above and beyond with the blind sales arrangements. There is not, and never has been, any legal or ethical requirement for adult relatives of a sitting president to put their earnings into escrow.
The idea that Hunter Biden should somehow be bound by non-existent ethical rules that have never been applied to anyone in the entire history of the country seems rather odd to me.
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### Author:  [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/29 "2021-07-09T13:22:05Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#):
>
> Remember the Obama years ? Remember all the real/manufactured ethics scandals that plagued that administration ?
>
> Me either.
>
> Biden should take great pains to get back to that model.
The Biden Administration isn’t doing anything. It would be an actual ethics scandal if it did. Hunter Biden is a private citizen. The Biden Administration _can’t_ intervene.
> [@DavidNRockies](#):
>
> It might have been better if Hunter … y’know … got a damned job – one for which he’s qualified and one that he got _not_ by consciously, overtly, solely, and transparently trading on his last name, and maybe sold his wildly overpriced bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild _after_ his dad leaves office.
It might have been better…for whom? Hunter Biden is _51 years old_. He can make his own financial and business decisions. If they reflect poorly on his father, well, sometimes kids do that. There aren’t any actual legal or ethical requirements for adult children of the sitting President. There _can’t_ be. Hunter Biden doesn’t somehow lose his rights as a private citizen because his _father_ is a public official.
> [@DavidNRockies](#):
>
> Remember the Obama years ? Remember all the real/manufactured ethics scandals that plagued that administration ?
>
> Me either.
I don’t remember any real ethics scandals plaguing the Biden Administration, either. Because this isn’t one. And I have no idea how the Biden Administration can possibly avoid _manufactured_ ethics scandals. How the does _that_ work? And, again, there’s not actually anything the Biden Administration can do about _this_ “scandal”. Hunter Biden is an adult and a private citizen. He gets to make his own decisions.
(And just by the way, that’s another reason you don’t remember similar “scandals” from the Obama Administration - Sasha and Melia were legally minors for most of Obama’s time in office. If they _had_ been earning 5-6 figures while still minors, that would have been a _huge_ scandal. Hunter is an adult. He gets to live his life and make money).
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### Author:  [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/30 "2021-07-09T13:33:54Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#):
>
> Biden should take great pains to get back to that model.
What should President Biden do? Ground Hunter? Maybe a timeout?
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/31 "2021-07-09T13:37:03Z")
> [@gdave](#):
>
> Again, as pointed out over and over and over again in this thread, Hunter Biden is a private citizen
I understand that. But it’s very, very clearly problematic for people that are looking to turn it into a giant scandal. My point, that you maybe missed, was that if selling them anonymously was meaningless because the buyer could come forward with proof of their purchase (and expect political favors), this would make it even more anonymous. Hunter doesn’t get the money (maybe doesn’t even know how much it was sold for), the buyer has no proof they made the purchase (and could likely back out at some point) until after Joe is out of office.
As I stated, he should be able to sell his artwork. The right are going to manufacture scandals regardless. If it’s not this it’ll be something else, so not much point in letting them get to you. The tan suit wasn’t a problem when Regen wore it, but they were calling for Obama to resign. Obama was torn to shreds for not saluting the guards when he got off the helicopter, but when pointed out that Bush did the same thing, well, ‘that was different’. Trump tweeted that Obama needs to take personal responsibility for the Ebola issue and that if a single American dies, he needs to resign. Trump stated, in no uncertain terms, he takes no responsibility for anything to do with Covid. Biden got ripped by Fox for not standing up to Putin even though Trump was best friends with him.
And even if we ignore all that and we ignore Ivanka’s business(es?), there was still the whole Goya thing.
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### Author:  [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/32 "2021-07-09T13:41:01Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#):
>
> I understand that. But it’s very, very clearly problematic for people that are looking to turn it into a giant scandal. My point, that you maybe missed, was that if selling them anonymously was meaningless because the buyer could come forward with proof of their purchase (and expect political favors), this would make it even more anonymous. Hunter doesn’t get the money (maybe doesn’t even know how much it was sold for), the buyer has no proof they made the purchase (and could likely back out at some point) until after Joe is out of office.
Maybe you missed my point. Hunter Biden is a private citizen. Maybe it would be better for the optics of his father’s administration if he did that, but there is nothing that even looks like an ethical requirement that he do so. The idea that an adult relative of a sitting president who holds no office themselves should put their earnings into escrow for the duration of their relative’s presidency is completely unprecedented.
Well, I think it’s unprecedented, anyway. I could be wrong. Has _any_ other adult child of a sitting president (who was not themselves a public official) put their earnings into escrow during their father’s administration?
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/33 "2021-07-09T13:45:15Z")
It isn’t a scandal and the Biden administration should not attempt to alter their behaviour in a ridiculous (and ultimately futile) effort to placate detractors. Ask a battered spouse about the wisdom of appeasing a delusional abuser.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/34 "2021-07-09T13:52:41Z")
Look, no one who stood by while Donald Trump and his family shredded any sense of ethical behavior has no right to suggest now what should be done. Remember how Trump divested his investments and put his money in a blind trust? No? Well, that’s because he did nothing like that. Instead he directly profited from being in the White House.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/35 "2021-07-09T13:53:05Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#):
>
> > [@DavidNRockies](#):
> >
> > Biden should take great pains to get back to that model.
>
> What should President Biden do? Ground Hunter? Maybe a timeout?
Ideally, Hunter should be put in a bottle and sent out with the Japanese current.
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/36 "2021-07-09T13:54:57Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#):
>
> It might have been better if Hunter … y’know … got a damned job – one for which he’s qualified and one that he got _not_ by consciously, overtly, solely, and transparently trading on his last name, and maybe sold his wildly overpriced bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild _after_ his dad leaves office.
I would agree with this.
A blind transaction is a perfectly cromulent method of making sure nobody’s getting any favors for buying Hunter’s artwork. But it’s not the only ethical problem, and it’s not the biggest optical problem.
The other big half of this issue, equally bad IMO, is that a serial fuckup keeps luckily stumbling into jobs and incomes that most people can only dream about, and for no reason except his dad is a well-connected politician.
When Biden was a mere senator, I could hand-wave this away as politicians taking care of their failsons with bullshit jobs as they’ve done since time immemorial. The Trumpers’ criticism of this is an absolute joke since they’re guilty of 100x worse crimes. But the Bidens got popped with a headline scandal because of it (Burisma)… and Biden is now President _in spite of it_. And they’re pulling this shit again? Dumb, dumb dumb.
Remember how Stacey Abrams refused to concede the Georgia election, and Republicans gleefully seized on this as an excuse for them to do the same (but with material consequences)? That was a plum gift from the Left to the Right, and we can’t seem to stop doing it.
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### Author:  [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/37 "2021-07-09T14:12:10Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#):
>
> But the Bidens got popped with a headline scandal because of it (Burisma)… and Biden is now President _in spite of it_ . And they’re pulling this shit again? Dumb, dumb dumb.
“They” aren’t pulling anything. Hunter Biden is an adult. He’s _51 years old_. If Hunter wants to sell his artwork, and if someone else wants to buy it, and if he goes the extra step of having blind sales - which is entirely voluntary and not any sort of legal or ethical requirement of a _private citizen_ - there’s not a damn thing his father can do about it. There’s nothing that even looks like an indication that _Joe_ Biden has done _anything_ wrong.
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/38 "2021-07-09T14:14:25Z")
“They” isn’t the Bidens; it’s the GOP, in **HMS** ’s quote.
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### Author:  [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/39 "2021-07-09T14:16:33Z")
Open question to those who think this is an ethical issue:
What should the Biden Administration do? Not what should “they” do. What should Joe Biden, President of the United States, and his administration do?
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunter-biden-artwork-attracts-ethics-scrutiny/946031/40 "2021-07-09T14:17:07Z")
> [@gdave](#):
>
> “They” aren’t pulling anything. Hunter Biden is an adult. He’s _51 years old_ . If Hunter wants to sell his artwork, and if someone else wants to buy it, and if he goes the extra step of having blind sales - which is entirely voluntary and not any sort of legal or ethical requirement of a _private citizen_ - there’s not a damn thing his father can do about it.
You don’t think they could sit down and have a father-son chat where Joe says “look kid, I want to help you, but you’re screwing me (and possibly the future of the country) by trading on my name. Can you maybe stop doing that until I’m not President anymore?”
Can _nobody_ on earth have that conversation? I personally would _love_ to do that, but Joe Biden is in a much better position to be effective as a longsuffering father figure to Hunter.
And I mean, it’s not like we’re asking Renoir to stop being Renoir here. I’ve seen images of Hunter’s art, it’s not half bad to my eye, but we all know what’s really happening is someone paying a half million for something with the Biden name on it (and not the best Biden either).
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