# The Hunter Biden Investigation {thread started in 2019}, Hunter Pardoned on December 1, 2024 **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 28, 2019, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964 "2019-09-28T19:54:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/21 "2019-09-29T01:49:26Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Often synonymous with board membership. Henry Kissinger was on the board of the fraudulent company Theranos, was paid a lot, and was definitely not qualified. Which was one of the reasons he got picked, no doubt. Yet he doesn’t seem to have committed any crime. > Anyone know how many boards Hunter Biden was on? If you have a name, it is a way of getting money for almost nothing. This particular dude on the other board seems to be convinced that if a Democrat makes money, they are guilty of something. It’s OK If A Republican Does It. He’ll say this with no sense of irony whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/22 "2019-09-29T03:19:48Z")
I’m still taking the position that it doesn’t matter at all what Hunter Biden did or didn’t do. If Trump suspected that an American citizen was committing financial crimes abroad, the appropriate action would’ve been to go to the FBI. They operate all over the world and jointly investigate crimes involving both countries. > **[Federal Bureau of Investigation](https://www.justice.gov/vta/fbivta)** The FBI has a legat in Ukraine. So, please don’t get sidetracked. Even if Biden was the next Bernie Madoff what Trump did was still completely and totally wrong. We HAVE a system, via these joint investigations, where a citizen can be prosecuted for overseas crimes while still receiving at least some of the protections accorded to him by American law. So don’t kid yourself that Trump was only delivering justice. Unfortunately, what the American public doesn’t understand is that the Ukraine and Russia are completely and totally corrupt. It can never be “cleaned up” because if you stripped away the corruption there would be nothing left. It’s baked into the oligarch system, where a few lucky and loyal cronies were rewarded with formerly state run assets like gas and electric companies, shipping fleets, mining and industrial production , making them rich beyond their wildest dreams. Then, whether via election or coup, there is regime change. Now, all those oligarchs will be deemed corrupt and papers and documents will show up proving that the didn’t really own those companies at all. Some will flee the country, maybe with assets. The unlucky ones get to stick around as they are tried and convicted. This is done in the name of “cleaning up corruption”. Then their stuff will be given back to “the people”, in actuality the people that the new government picked to be oligarchs. Sometimes foreign businesspeople are caught up in it, especially if the ruling oligarchs smell money. That’s what happened to American investor Bill Browder. The Russian companies he managed for private investors were stolen out from under him in a far reaching plot involving all levels of government and judicial corruption. One of his local employees, Serge Magnitsky, was murdered in prison. The individuals sanctioned in the Magnitsky Act were the participants in this crime. I became interested in corruption in the former USSR after reading Browder’s book Red Notice, which I highly recommend. Now I know Hunter Biden is in Ukraine but it’s just as bad as Russia. Maybe worse, because they have lots of regime flips while Putin has held power for a long time, even if by proxy. But when you’re talking about Ukraine, they’re really no corrupt guys and good guys, they’re all corrupt. Now one thing in Hunter’s defense is that both the guy that owned the gas company and the prosecutor that got fired were on the same side of the chessboard, as it were. So that firing would’ve hurt Biden’s guy, not helped him. But I’m sure I’m like the millionth person to point this out. But if Trump felt he had a case, he should’ve taken it through the FBI. I wonder if it will come out that he tried. But there is absolutely no non-nefarious reason for Trump to do what he did. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/23 "2019-09-29T03:29:34Z")
By the way, does anyone have a good source for the origin of the claim that Hunter made “ **up to** $50,000 per month”? If so I would really like to see it. All of the right wing pols are using the exact same phrasing which reeks of weaselly, technically correct, deception. I’m guessing that either there was one month that Hunter made $50,000 while most months he made much less, or else its one of those disclosure questions of the form “Made between $200,000 and $600,000 a year” and they fixated on the high end. ---
**Author:** ![LAZombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b38774/32.png) [@LAZombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LAZombie)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/24 "2019-09-29T03:32:57Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > It’s even possible that he didn’t know that his son was a member of a Ukranian company and didn’t know that the company was under investigation. And, likewise, it’s possible that Hunter didn’t know the company was under investigation and was pissed off to discover that this hadn’t been communicated to him at any point previous to joining the board nor during his father’s period of interacting with Ukraine. > > My suspicion is that if you could track down every email and message ever sent to or from Joe and Hunter Biden, it would show that one or both of them was completely unaware of the bias potential of the situation. :smack: "In December, 2015, as Joe Biden prepared to return to Ukraine, his aides braced for renewed scrutiny of Hunter’s relationship with Burisma. Amos Hochstein, the Obama Administration’s special envoy for energy policy, raised the matter with Biden, but did not go so far as to recommend that Hunter leave the board. As Hunter recalled, his father discussed Burisma with him just once: “Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ and I said, ‘I do.’ ” > **[Analysis | Fact-checking Trump’s latest claims on Biden and Ukraine](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/23/fact-checking-trumps-latest-claims-biden-ukraine/)** > > The president levels new charges against former vice president Joe Biden. We dissect his claims and find them wanting. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/25 "2019-09-29T06:15:53Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Often synonymous with board membership. Henry Kissinger was on the board of the fraudulent company Theranos, was paid a lot, and was definitely not qualified. Which was one of the reasons he got picked, no doubt. Yet he doesn’t seem to have committed any crime. > Anyone know how many boards Hunter Biden was on? If you have a name, it is a way of getting money for almost nothing. It’s really kind of gross no matter how many people do it. In fact it’s worse if “everybody does it”. ---
**Author:** ![Boycott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boycott/32/6741_2.png) [@Boycott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boycott)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/26 "2019-09-29T11:57:37Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > By the way, does anyone have a good source for the origin of the claim that Hunter made “ **up to** $50,000 per month”? If so I would really like to see it. All of the right wing pols are using the exact same phrasing which reeks of weaselly, technically correct, deception. I’m guessing that either there was one month that Hunter made $50,000 while most months he made much less, or else its one of those disclosure questions of the form “Made between $200,000 and $600,000 a year” and they fixated on the high end. The person behind that claim appears to be the same person who wrote [Clinton Cash](Peter Schweizer) > [@](#): > > Schweizer has been criticized for “incorrect reporting” and “conclusions not supported by facts”, including in his second book Friendly Spies. Two Sunday Times reporters trying to follow-up on his reporting discovered that meetings described by Schweizer did not check out, that named sources did not exist or could not be found, and that there was no Paris Sheraton Hotel during the time period when the meetings allegedly took place.[37][38][39] Schweizer admitted he overreached in attacking Hillary Clinton’s purported role in approving a Russian uranium deal and falsely claimed that then-Secretary of State Clinton “had veto power” to stop the Russian State Atomic Nuclear Agency (Rosatom) from purchasing Uranium One. During a May 5, 2015, Politico podcast interview, Schweizer admitted that “veto is probably not the best word” and “what I meant by veto power was as we explain the process, you know, if somebody objects it kicks in the special investigation.”[40] In a 2015 NBC interview Schweizer said that Hillary Clinton did not support a nuclear deal with India in 2006 and that she voted for it in 2008, after donations to the Clinton Foundation. PolitiFact rated Schweizer’s claim "False. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/27 "2019-09-29T12:10:24Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It’s really kind of gross no matter how many people do it. In fact it’s worse if “everybody does it”. Welcome to capitalism. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/28 "2019-09-29T12:18:58Z")
But there are different kinds of capitalism. This is rent seeking, crony capitalism of the worst kind. Just because it’s a legal, if seamy, characteristic of late capitalism doesn’t mean any individual has to participate in it. Especially not a scion of such a prominent Democratic family. How does this fit in with the blue-collar Biden brand? Does Hunter not care about that at all? And please, I don’t want to hear about Eric or Don Jr. Yes, stipulated. They are sleazy douchebags of the highest order. We are supposed to be way better than that. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/29 "2019-09-29T12:28:36Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > How does this fit in with the blue-collar Biden brand? Does Hunter not care about that at all? The general trajectory of his life over the last few years does not indicate that he places a high value on the needs of his family. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/30 "2019-09-30T00:18:44Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > Great, a gender-flipped Ilhan Omar thread. :rolleyes: > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > If you’re aware of any way in which the gender matters, in terms of guilt, evidence, or importance, go for it. [It’s a Trope.](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/genderflip) > [@](#): > > Otherwise, Tomndebb wanted people to go elsewhere to discuss the topic. (I was not discussing it.) I created this as a location for such discussion to occur, so that people wouldn’t be interrupting the other thread. You weren’t discussing it so why not let it die? Why let people perpetuate the smear, as you’ve been doing with Ilhan Omar? ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/31 "2019-09-30T00:37:26Z")
_The L.A. Times_ has [an interview with Ukrainian prosecutor Yuri Lutsenko](https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-09-29/former-ukraine-prosecutor-says-no-wrongdoing-biden), who says he saw no signs of wrong doing by Biden. > [@L.A. Times](#): > > In an interview, Yuri Lutsenko said while he was Ukraine’s prosecutor general he told Rudolph W. Giuliani that he would be happy to cooperate if the FBI or other U.S. authorities began their own investigation of the former vice president and his son Hunter but insisted they had not broken any Ukrainian laws to his knowledge. Maybe he was fired because he wouldn’t “play ball” with the Trump administration on this. > [@L.A. Times](#): > > Lutsenko, who was fired as prosecutor general last month, said he had urged Giuliani to launch a U.S. inquiry and go to court if he had any evidence but not to use Ukraine to conduct a political vendetta that could affect the U.S. election. > > “I said, ‘Let’s put this through prosecutors, not through presidents,’ ” Lutsenko told The Times. . . . > > Lutsenko’s account is controversial since he is believed to have been one of the original promoters behind the unsubstantiated allegations against Biden. He also complained about Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Kyiv who was recalled in May, weeks before her tenure was up. > > Yovanovitch had pushed Ukraine’s government to more aggressively crack down on corruption. But the White House considered her insufficiently loyal to Trump, apparently because she resisted pressuring Ukraine on his priorities, and she became a target of conservative critics, including Giuliani. Only the now desperate Trump apologists are falling for this thing. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/32 "2019-09-30T01:00:03Z")
> [@Boycott](#): > > The person behind that claim appears to be the same person who wrote [Clinton Cash](Peter Schweizer) The media is really dropping the ball by not fact checking this claim. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/33 "2019-09-30T01:07:49Z")
As I understand it, we have two categories of questions here: 1. What, if anything, has any member of the Biden family ever done wrong? 2. What, if anything, has President Trump done wrong in the matter of asking foreign governments to work with his personal lawyer AND with the US Attorney General to investigate US citizens, as a favor, in the context of the foreign government seeking both the release of congressionally-mandated aid and also a meeting with the president? The answer to question 1 may be that Joe Biden shot JFK, and Hunter Biden personally started ISIS and also talks loudly on his cell phone at the opera. That doesn’t have anything to do with question 2. As long as there’s no disagreement on this subject, question 2 can be some idle fun. But given the president’s attempt to muddy the waters, we almost need to repeat this “no linkage” thing every ten posts to make sure folks haven’t forgotten. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/34 "2019-09-30T01:53:09Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > As I understand it, we have two categories of questions here: > > 1. What, if anything, has any member of the Biden family ever done wrong? > 2. What, if anything, has President Trump done wrong in the matter of asking foreign governments to work with his personal lawyer AND with the US Attorney General to investigate US citizens, as a favor, in the context of the foreign government seeking both the release of congressionally-mandated aid and also a meeting with the president? > > The answer to question 1 may be that Joe Biden shot JFK, and Hunter Biden personally started ISIS and also talks loudly on his cell phone at the opera. > > That doesn’t have anything to do with question 2. > > As long as there’s no disagreement on this subject, question 2 can be some idle fun. But given the president’s attempt to muddy the waters, we almost need to repeat this “no linkage” thing every ten posts to make sure folks haven’t forgotten. I assume you mean question _ **1** _ can be some idle fun. I don’t think questions about the conduct of the sitting President of the United States are quite so much fun! I’m not personally thrilled that the son of a front-runner candidate for President of the United States was serving on the board of directors of a Ukrainian natural gas company. (I mean, given that AFAIK Hunter Biden didn’t major in hydrocarbon chemistry or petroleum geology in college, doesn’t seem to have anything in his background that would give him any particular expertise in either the business of oil and natural gas production or in Ukrainian corporate law, and so forth.) Regardless of the “No laws were broken!” mantra, I really wish the Democrats would knock it off with this sort of thing. One party of corrupt plutocrats is enough (really, more than enough), thank you very much. But, again, I totally agree that this pales into insignificance compared to the shocking incompetence, cruelty, demagoguery, and very likely _massive_ corruption of the sitting President of the United States. We should certainly oppose crony-capitalism as practiced by Democrats simply because it’s wrong. But _another_ reason to do so is that it fosters the corrosive cynicism that now pervades American politics (“Well, he’s a politician, what do you expect? They’re all looking out for Number One; ain’t none of them looking out for you and me”) which has greatly empowered Trump (for all that it’s deeply paradoxical and kind of stupid for people disgusted by political corruption to have so empowered the worst grifter and con-man to have ever held the office of President of the United States). ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/35 "2019-09-30T02:10:05Z")
Uh, yeah, question 1 is the idle fun one. Thanks! It is such a playground conversation, one I have weekly: > [@](#): > > Hey, Billy, c’mere. Did you just tell Rob to punch Jim? > BUT YESTERDAY JIM SAID A BAD WORD AT LUNCH! > That has nothing to do with you punching him. I might have a separate conversation with him about that, but that doesn’t mean you can punch him. > WHO TOLD YOU? THEY’RE A TATTLE-TALE! > Billy, this isn’t about who told me. This is about you punching someone. That’s against the rules. > JIM SAID YOUR MOM WAS BALD-HEADED THOUGH > Billy, c’mon. You can’t do things like this. You’re the principal! ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/36 "2019-09-30T02:21:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Billy, c’mon. You can’t do things like this. You’re the principal! LOL! (As in literal out-loud laughter.) ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/37 "2019-09-30T02:28:56Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > One party of corrupt plutocrats is enough (really, more than enough), thank you very much. Well, obviously. But that’s not really the issue. The only reason to point out that it wasn’t illegal is because the fig leaf they’re hold up for Trump’s defense was that he wanted something illegal investigated. They had already told him it wasn’t illegal, but he was insisting as a way of saying, “Make something up if you have to.” Trump’s defense isn’t saying that he’s on some kind of quest to rid the world of cronyism. This is purely an issue of making a solid case against his actions. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/38 "2019-09-30T03:37:31Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Trump’s defense isn’t saying that he’s on some kind of quest to rid the world of cronyism. That would be like the Pope being on some kind of quest to rid the world of Catholicism. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/39 "2019-09-30T05:04:21Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > By the way, does anyone have a good source for the origin of the claim that Hunter made “ **up to** $50,000 per month”? If so I would really like to see it. All of the right wing pols are using the exact same phrasing which reeks of weaselly, technically correct, deception. I’m guessing that either there was one month that Hunter made $50,000 while most months he made much less, or else its one of those disclosure questions of the form “Made between $200,000 and $600,000 a year” and they fixated on the high end. I have "made up to 50k per month", too. OK, that was MX not US$, and the dollar-peso exchange rate slipped from 1:12 to 1:20, but that still qualifies. Another month I made “up to” a million US bucks. But my printer smeared the ink :smack: so I sacrificed the blurry BenFranks for garden mulch. Such a loss. “Up to X amount” leaves much leeway. Tramp received “up to” an overwhelming popular vote majority. That means he didn’t. Hunter Biden may have “made up to” whatever number a skuzball wants to claim. That, too, means he did not. > [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > The media is really dropping the ball by not fact checking this claim. Commercial US media made Tramp, continue to enable him, and he’s been their gold mine for years - still is. Should we expect change? > [@MEBuckner](#): > > That would be like the Pope being on some kind of quest to rid the world of Catholicism. RC conservatives think so. [SCHISM Pope Could Soon Say ‘I Do’ to Married Priests–and Open a Schism](https://www.thedailybeast.com/vatican-may-approve-married-priests-but-conservative-catholics-arent-celebrating) > [@](#): > > A group of hand-picked clerics meeting in Rome next week about the ecumenical needs of the Amazon could change the entire Catholic Church forever. Is the Pope Catholic? Is Hunter Biden? (Both say yes.) Now several Bidens are targeted in the overall power-culture wars. They’re worse than Billy Carter! ---
**Author:** ![nate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nate/32/13085_2.png) [@nate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nate)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964/40 "2019-09-30T05:16:36Z")
Does it really matter? All that matters is the water is muddy enough where Trump supporters and Republicans have some answer for why Trump asked a political favor of a foreign leader. The truth actually does affect these people, but if you obfuscate the situation enough, people will give up and stick to a simple explanation. The conservatives, at this point, don’t have coherence on a simple explanation/mantra, but they will. “Lock her up!”, “No obstruction!”, “Perfect conversation!”… they give supporters a backstop. I don’t know what the hell “Perfect conversation!” means, but it really doesn’t matter. They are really pushing the envelope on these kinds of things. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hunter-biden-investigation-thread-started-in-2019-hunter-pardoned-on-december-1-2024/840964.md?page=3)