In its Soviet era, the elite areas of Ukraine leadership including government, industry, and the military were all heavily influenced by patronage. In the post-Soviet era, which is still ongoing, the patronage shifted, but still remained a fundamental part of government and society. Here’s a discussion of it from two years ago that refers to Ukraine as a patron-network state.
My belief is that Hunter Biden was hired by Burisma to be part of this patron-network state because of his connections to his father. I don’t think that implies criminal guilt. I do believe it provides justification for an investigation of corruption, and that it’s with the remit of the US pinnacle executive to request that investigation. It’s a contested issue since it’s glaringly obvious that Trump wanted the investigation done against a political opponent rather than for reasons of international statesmanship. The question being discussed is if that request for an investigation, based on its motives, was a crime. The act of requesting a foreign government to investigate corruption is clearly not a crime. The Obama administration and Joe Biden as an actor within that administration were requesting anti-corruption actions in Ukraine. Does such a request turn into a crime if 1) it’s politically motivated, and 2) it involves the withholding of Congressionally appropriated funds under a contested context of bribery? I’m doubtful that Trump would be found guilty in a criminal court of such a crime.
The first few dozen posts in this thread had an assumption of Trump’s criminality, with no actual factual backing. I’m asking for factual backing of assertions of crimes committed in office, and the best response I’m receiving is a disputable charge of bribery involving the direction of appropriations that may have been within Trump’s executive power, and which has already failed in the legislative court. Is that really the best that Trump opponents can come up with?
Hunter Biden is as relevant to this election as 54-40 or fight. Why the interest in such a non-story, one so full of holes even the Trump Administration has stopped pushing it?
I am curious as to whether your theory of unitary executive authority goes both ways.
There are those on the right who feel that Trump was unfairly targeted during his campaign.
For the sake of a hypothetical, lets say that Obama directly ordered the investigation into the Trump campaign on the “probable cause” that something fishy was probably going on because of an appearance of impropriety on Trump’s part.
I don’t disagree that Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine was an example of bad optics, but there’s never been any serious evidence that there were any serious crimes or serious influence peddling.
No. Any lawyer that has worked for Boies Schiller probably has lots of relevant legal experience and would be a welcome addition to many boards . Not necessarily corporate governance but there are other facets of legal experience that would be valuable to a corporation. Maybe they needed a mergers and acquisitions expert.
But even if they hired him because he was a smooth talker that knew the right people, so what? I got every job I had for the past thirty years because I was smooth-talker that knew the right people. That’s the nature of both commissioned sales and high level executive jobs.
Does this association with a foreign company disqualify him for public office? I don’t have to make this determination since he’s not running for public office, but since we currently have a mobbed up gangster in the highest office in our country, I’d say the bar is pretty damn low.
In any case, when the oligarch that owned Burisma (not Burisma itself) was under investigation for stealing millions from the Ukrainian people, the US Department of State (not Obama, not Biden) was trying to assist Ukraine in the prosecution and return of the ill-gotten gains. The money, several million dollars worth, had been seized by the British government and was being held by them. However, a corrupt prosecutor deliberately botched the investigation and Britain was forced to give the money back. The State Department then recommended that Ukraine rid themselves of that meddlesome prosecutor, and they did all this IN SPITE OF Hunter’s association with Burisma.
I have not heard any real allegations of improper behavior by Hunter Biden with regards to Burisma. Even if he was completely and utterly unqualified for the job, that’s not a crime and its certainly no worse than hiring a handbag designer as a high level political consultant.
The thread is about whether a hypothetical future Joe Biden presidential administration should pursue criminal charges against Donald Trump. Do you believe that that hypothetical administration should pursue charges as asked in the OP? If so, what charges should be be pursued and what is the evidentiary basis for those charges? The best answer so far in this thread is that hypothetical President Biden should pursue the impeachment article elements related to bribery in a criminal court. That’s a poor answer as there was justification for President Trump to request investigation against the corrupt status of both Hunter Biden and Joe Biden. The Hunter Biden sub-thread is a debate on that justification, although it should be blatantly obvious to everyone reading that a justification did exist because Hunter Biden was hired by Burisma purely for his connection to his father. He admitted it.
Do you want to provide a better answer to the OP?
Or would you like a mic-drop answer to that question? NO.
Then answer the question and stop it with the Hunter Biden hijack. It’s irrelevant. Nobody believes your argument and your side doesn’t even care to fake it to make it anymore.
I think that if President Obama had ordered an investigation into Trump’s business practices in 2016, it would have been morally wrong. I don’t believe it would have been criminally wrong. I certainly don’t know which law in this hypothetical scenario Obama would have been violating. I totally reject the idea that if Obama had requested this hypothetical investigation that it would have been an impeachable offence. I’m glad that he didn’t pursue such a tactic, and would think less of him if he had, but there’s a difference between disrespecting someone’s actions and concluding they’re in violation of a criminal law.
Congratulations. You’ve made the point that Hunter Biden was employed by a prestigious law firm, which at least provides a point of defence that his hiring by Burisma had some legitimacy. I’ll gladly concede that his hiring by Burisma was
Of course that’s offset by Hunter Biden’s own admission that he was hired based on his last name. It’s also offset by the fact that he never actually visited the company that employed him. And still doesn’t show that he had any particular expertise in corporate governance that would justify a $50,000 per month contract. But kudos to you for offering the best defence of Hunter Biden so far.
In relation to this thread, the question is about President Trump’s criminality. The current sub-thread seems to be focused on Trump’s request for an investigation into whether Joe and Hunter Biden’s activities were corrupt, and whether that request was illegal. What weight do you think that Hunter Biden was employed by a prestigious law firm rather than a boutique law firm should apply to whether he was in a corrupt situation, and employed solely for his connection to his father?
I did. Trump should not be prosecuted for any actions he’s done while President. Do you disagree? Then explain why he should and back up your answer with the legal statute that he’s violated and an evidence-based argument that proves that violation. Otherwise, it’s just the typical left wing hysteria of throwing out unfounded accusations presuming that something that disagrees with their ideas must be illegal. YAWN.
So, I assume that you are as hard on those who want investigations into the Obama administration. You think that these accusations are just typical right wing hysteria of throwing out unfounded accusations presuming that something that disagrees with their ideas must be illegal?
Look, you’ve made your point, you don’t think that presidents can ever break the law under any circumstances. You don’t need to keep repeating your opinion on that matter over and over to those of us that think that our elected leaders should face some level of accountability. We understand, we just don’t agree.
Wrenching_Spanners, you may be reading your cites, but you aren’t understanding them.
Your cites show that a handful of people in 2015 believed Hunter Biden appointment to the board of Ukrainian company could lead to the appearance of a conflict of interest for Joe Biden.
You somehow morph this into the idea that Hunter Biden was, “engaging in conflict of interest,” which is nonsense.
A possible future appearance of conflict of interest for Joe is not an active conflict for Hunter. It doesn’t matter how hard you close you eyes and wish this to be true.
But here’s the thing about this argument, it requires us to forget that we live in the future. In 2015 some folks though that Hunter’s appointment could lead to the appearance of conflict of interest for Joe, but in 2020 we can look back and see that that conflict never arose. This is why your argument is difficult to take seriously.
Try to fill in the blank in the following sentence…
When Joe Biden did _______ in Ukraine, it appeared that he was acting in the interest of his family rather than in the interesest of the USA.
You can’t fill in that blank because there is absolutely nothing to fill it with, and until you at least try to fill in that blank you are not even trying to present and argument that Joe Biden did anything wrong.
Even Trump didn’t believe he had probable cause to request an investigation into the Bidens. This is another thing you keep getting wrong even though it has been pointed out to you.
Trump didn’t believe that Biden did anything wrong, he wanted an announcement of an investigation so that it would look like Biden did something wrong.
“He had to announce the investigations, he didn’t actually have to do them as I understood it.” - Gordon Sondland
Wrenching Spanners simply wont stop the hijack, no matter what.
He is clearly a trump supporter that wants to turn this thread into a attack on Biden, which is not what the thread is supposedly about. This thread is about what President Biden will do after he gets elected. Wrenching Spammers work to get trump elected is just the opposite of the thread.
