That doesn’t mean it’s influence peddling. It could just as easily mean they wanted a feather in their cap, and a famous name on their letterhead.
Are you aware that you’re pointing to a nonsense conspiracy theory here? This is embarrassing. Up your game, dude.
Not only is the jury out. The cops are still looking for the first bit of evidence.
How gracious. Both sides. I mean there is no real evidence about one side, but hey they must be bad, because the side you support is hot garbage, so they must be the same…
Are the lizard-people involved? Isn’t the cold weather gonna slow their plot until spring?
Rather was forced to respond, giving newspaper interviews defending the report and eventually addressing the controversy directly on the evening news, offering up new interviews and evidence meant to buttress his initial claims (most famously, he interviewed Killian’s former secretary, who said the content of the memos was accurate but the memos themselves were fake).
The first bullet point has been debunked over and over here and elsewhere. It was not Biden’s call, it was the recommendation of our state department, as well as several other nations that the prosecutor be pushed out. This is less than nothingburger.
The second is that a family member rode on the plane with his Father.
Right… I thought about redacting that but didn’t want to mess with the quoted text and because it’s my understanding from multiple Biden advocates that he did lobby to have that prosecutor fired because of corruption. It’s also my understanding that the prosecutor wasn’t going to seriously pursue Burisma in any serious way (hence the suspicions of corruption).
“I’ve repaired lots of cars, and every time I heard one make that kind of noise it was a problem with the fan belt, but I have no actual evidence that it’s the fan belt this time…”
“I’ve fixed lots of toilets, and every time I saw one leaking around the base like that it was a problem with the wax ring, but I have no actual evidence that its the wax ring this time…”
“I’ve done lots of real estate sales, and every time somebody tried to change the subject when I asked about the home inspection report there were undisclosed problems with the property, but I have no actual evidence that there are undisclosed problems with the property this time…”
And it’s helpful to have folks like @Sam_Stone who is apparently willing to believe this sketchy story… Even after he was recently burned when he believed the latest Trump lie.
"Oh, sure it looks very much like shit hitting the fan. But with that much shit, I’m POSITIVE there must eventually be a pony. "
Influence peddling requires the other half. If I purchase a painting from you because I want you to approve my home permits, that’s not influence peddling unless you know that’s what’s happening.
I may just want a painting that is from the famous QuickSilver because of all the Straight Dope cred it will garner me.
Biden went his whole life without cashing in. You expect me to believe that as Veep he chose to help his son peddle foreign influence? How about some evidence?
You mean the bit that was not in the part that you asked for your gaps in your knowledge to be filled in? That was not what you just asked for.
Okay…
Most of the implication in that is false as well, and has be debunked and explained on several occasions. He was a lawyer, he did have experience in running businesses, and he was wanted by Burisma for the specific purpose of elevating them above the idea of corruption. If they have a Biden on their board, then the past corrupt practices that they had fired the CEO over would not be held against them.
No one has indicated anything about a mulit-million dollar payout from the Chinese, that claim seems to be more or less a complete lie.
Here, I don’t really have time to explain things that have been explained multiple times right now, I’m about to sign off for the evening.
However, a very quick and easy Google (how sad if Trump’s DOJ manages to take that away) search turns up this.
“I completed searching all of Tony Bobulinski’s emails,” she wrote on Twitter. “They establish: the “Chairman” is China; NO ROLE for Joe Biden in emails/docs; Tony Bobulinski states himself there are NO OTHER MEMBERS besides Hunter Biden, Jim Biden, Rob Walker, James Gillar, and Bobulinski.”
yes. I think that is exactly what happened. It strains credulity to assume otherwise. Even if we are meant to believe this was all above board, being a 47year veteran of public service, Biden knew this looked sketchy as fucking hell. So while no laws were explicitly broken, and I’m sure Biden made sure none were, I do think he agreed to take the chance to help out his son. And he did it without the prospect of being a Presidential nominee on the horizon. So there would be nothing to have to explain or answer for.
Right, because we should believe that people who steal or knowingly receive stolen laptops - your suggestion, not mine - should be taken at their word. We should assume they’re above tinkering with a stolen laptop and putting incriminating ‘evidence’ on it. The “crimes” were politically motivated for the start, and motivated to produce one thing: manufactured ‘evidence’.
I don’t pretend to be up on all the details of the case, but FWIW, I wholeheartedly agree that there are some mighty bad optics - no question about it. And I say this as someone who has absolutely no regrets about voting for Biden and generally has a favorable view of his public service.
But one of the reasons people are fed up with DC insider politics is because of shit like this, where someone can just know the right people and get hooked up with cushy lobbying or ‘consulting’ gigs. There’s probably nothing illegal at or, or anything that runs afoul of ethics rules, but it does damage public trust and confidence in the system. And at the risk of ‘both sides-ism’…yes, both Dems and Repubs cash in on this political ecosystem.
That political ecosystem is something I’ve referenced in other discussions on other threads. Wanna know why Senators like Jeff Flake and Bob Corker had a chance to really take a strong stand against Trump but ultimately pussed out? It’s this ecosystem, a world of post-congressional careers in lobbying, consulting, and the like. Millions at stake. It’s too risky to take on your party’s leader and get shut out of that economy.
But, does that mean that the family of a politician are not allowed to have any business dealings whatsoever, as those could potentially create “bad optics”?