By John F. Di Leo -
Many politicians have an embarrassment or two in their families.
In my lifetime, Jimmy Carter’s brother Billy was the most famous example. Billy Carter ran a dingy, dreadful gas station (Amoco was constantly trying to find a way to force him to clean it up) and upon his brother’s election, he marketed a cheap beer – Billy Beer! – to capitalize on his proximity to fame and fortune.
But it wasn't illegal. It was pretty embarrassing for Jimmy, sure, but it didn’t reflect badly on the president in the eyes of the law. There’s no law against being the brother of a slob with an unkempt gas station.
Similarly, there have been other presidents with a son or daughter whose misbehavior embarrassed them in the press – being notorious for drunk driving, drug abuse, wild partying, or other such problems.
But even if their behavior was illegal, it only reflected upon the politician as an impropriety, a black mark. It wasn't like the politician himself was the one breaking the law.
If George W Bush’s or Barack Obama’s daughters were caught partying while away at college, it’s not like the president was caught along with them, puffing away.
In such cases, the politician's only guilt in the eyes of the public is of having been an unsuccessful parent…
…which brings us to the strange case of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
It has long been known that Hunter Biden was an embarrassment to the family. While brother Beau got elected to public office and appeared to be on track for success before being brought down by cancer, Hunter was long known as the wild child, with a record-setting drug-and-stripper addiction. If rehab centers offered frequent lockup points, he’d have a platinum card.
Until recently, Biden supporters assumed that this was as far as it went – that Hunter was an embarrassment, nothing more. If anything, it was a case for the sympathy vote: poor dad lost his successful son, and still has to care for this drug-addled addict. Isn’t that sad?
Well, so much for that. The big reveals of the campaign’s final weeks have put an end to that notion.
What has been known for years – by the think tank crowd and the politically astute – was that Joe Biden’s family and friends had been getting rich for years off their proximity to, first, Senator Joe, and then Vice President Joe.
Enter the Computer Repairman.
A few great investigative journalists, particularly Peter Schweizer, revealed circumstantial evidence and more, well over a year ago… but it didn’t really catch the interest of the public until the New York Post broke the news of an abandoned laptop in a Wilmington computer repair shop, less than a month before the general election, after early voting had already begun.
And overnight, everything changed.
Suddenly, the campaign’s hope for sympathy collapsed like a house of cards, as it became impossible to deny – finally – that in this case, Joe Biden son's crimes are NOT just his son's crimes. They’re his too.
We now know – and it can no longer be denied – that Hunter Biden got jobs – director posts, board member appointments, consultant gigs, etc. – in exchange for access to his father, the Vice President of the United States.
Hunter Biden was paid – salaries, consulting fees, gifts, milestone payments etc, in both foreign currency and US currency, by both foreign companies and domestic ones – after or while his father did favors for foreign oligarchs or the foreign businesses to which the son was attached… in Ukraine, China, Kazakhstan, and more. There is now even written evidence of how the money would be shared with the old man – “the big guy” – referred to as a 10% commission in some places, a 50/50 split in at least one.
This made those payments CRIMES – because they constitute the sale of American government policy. This isn’t just something that “has the appearance of impropriety.” It’s way beyond that.
No, this is bribery through an intermediary, an extremely common practice in the third world.
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is written to set the rest of the world on the USA's high standards. The FCPA warns every business, big and small, to take care in its foreign sales efforts and government bids, to ensure that they don’t enrich foreign government ministers either directly OR indirectly as a ticket to access or a condition of contracting.
The FCPA, through its enforcement and prosecution guidelines, declares that such common indirect bribery methods as hiring a government official's son, brother, or neighbor are all illegal in world commerce; they must not be tolerated. They give the cronies of a politician an unfair advantage over competing firms that don’t have such connections; they give corrupt companies a way to buy into government contracts rather than winning them fair and square on an open bid.
The FCPA enforcers hunt down companies that get fat taxpayer contracts by giving a Mercedes to some little country’s minister of transportation, or by hiring the prime minister’s cousin as branch manager, or by hiring the secretary of war’s brother as a sales consultant.
The FCPA levels the playing field, and enables small businesses to compete with the big multinationals that can afford to toss around Mercedes and BMWs like candy to the decision makers in sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, and southeast Asia… Numerous other countries have joined the effort, passing anti-corruption laws of their own that sometimes go even further.
I believe in the FCPA. For the most part, it's a good law. Yes, it’s tricky to follow sometimes… complex and expensive in specificity… and yes, it increases the cost of a company’s legal budget.
But the FCPA sets a wonderful, honorable goal before the world: a level playing field for international commerce. And that’s worth a few hoops.
Over the past twenty years, the USA has fined many companies many billions of dollars for FCPA violations. Do an internet search of "Siemens and FCPA,” sometime, if you want a few examples for reference. They’re the poster child for this one.
And this is why, for the people of the United States to elect Joe Biden to the White House now – knowing what we know today – would be to make any prosecution of ANYONE under the FCPA nothing less than an act of sheer hypocrisy.
If Joe Biden somehow pulls out a win in this election… Heaven forbid…. I sure hope the many lawyers of Siemens AG (and all its little subsidiaries) sue the United States of America for a refund of all the billions it’s paid in FCPA fines over the past 20 years.
Hypocrisy in politics is nothing new, but there have to be limits. The United States cannot be the city on a hill, the moral standard in international trade, if we elect a slimy crook to the presidency.
Joe Biden has been revealed to be nothing more than the big-time version of a small-time thug, shaking down local storefronts for protection money. Never forget his words to the government of Ukraine when their prosecutor was investigating a connected company’s shady dealings, and he held a billion-dollar aid package as ransom to get what he wanted for his son’s crooked client.
Statesmen usually dream of being remembered for some great political statement, like “There is nothing to fear but fear itself,” or “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
With his incredibly careless personal corruption, Joe Biden has sealed his fate. He will be best remembered for his casual threat to the government of Ukraine, back when he was Vice President:
“If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.”
Joe Biden may wear crisp suits and put a neat Windsor knot in his neckties, but these revelations show him to be no more than the local machine’s bag man, a common machine pol on an uncommonly high level.
Copyright 2020 John F Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based trade compliance trainer, writer and actor. His columns have been run in Illinois Review since 2009.
Don’t miss an article! Use the free tool in the margin to sign up for Illinois Review’s free email notification service, so you always know when Illinois Review publishes new content!
