Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Jul 24, 2025

Trump's attacks on Hunter Biden and Ukraine aren't surprising. Joe Biden's defense is.

Trump's attacks on Hunter Biden and Ukraine aren't surprising. Joe Biden's defense is.

The Biden campaign and Democratic pundits are still foolishly engaging in their own brand of disinformation instead of admitting past mistakes and moving on. Joe Biden's defense of Hunter and Burisma sets a dangerous precedent
Every time it looks like the Hunter Biden saga is over, it returns like a bad Halloween monster. As expected, it factored heavily in Thursday’s debate, with President Donald Trump trying to paint Vice President Joe Biden as corrupt.

But even before the debate, the last few days have seen a flurry of Hunter Biden news, much of it pushed by Trump ally Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani claims to have obtained a trove of incriminating documents from a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden. Trump and Fox News have been obsessively pushing this all-too-convenient October surprise ever since.

Giuliani is not the most reliable narrator. In the past, he’s peddled anti-Semitic theories about George Soros and debunked theories about the vice president’s role in the firing of a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor. But there’s another reason why this story still festers: mishandling by the Democrats.

“Nothing was unethical,” Biden said the moment the debate moderator Kristen Welker mentioned his son’s past. It’s part of a pattern in which Biden’s campaign and many in the media refuse to accept the basic impropriety of Hunter’s business dealings. Instead, they have resorted to implausible denials, media blaming and “alternative facts” — in other words, the same sordid tactics used by Trump. That’s not just ineffective — George Bernard Shaw’s quote about wrestling with pigs comes to mind. It’s outright dangerous.

We’re allowing this scandal to sully the narrative at a time when we cannot afford to lose focus on preventing another disastrous Trump term, all because we fail to acknowledge a few basic truths.

The foreign intricacies of Hunter Biden getting paid to consult the corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma and other shadowy clients make the overall story appear complicated. It’s not.

Exotic details aside, these are accusations of garden-variety corruption: the son of a powerful man allegedly uses his last name to get into places he has no business being in order to make money. If you think that’s anything out of the ordinary for Washington, D.C., power circles, I have a proverbial bridge to sell you. Washington is teeming with lobbyists who leverage careers in government, stints in the military and social connections in the services of sketchy foreign entities.

This goes beyond individuals; in 2014, a stunning exposé revealed how the Brookings Institution — a premier Washington think tank — engaged in a campaign to whitewash the brutal government of Qatar. Needless to say, Qatar sank $14.8 million into Brookings — influence peddling pays well.

In fact, as journalists who cover this point out, the strangest thing about Trump allies Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn running afoul of lobbying laws is that the laws are almost never enforced. It’s just business as usual for Washington.

The simplest way to lance the Hunter Biden boil would have been for the Biden campaign and supporters to admit reality, pledge to have Hunter cease all lobbying, as well as provide reporters full access to his businesses and finances for the duration of his father’s presidency, and move on. This should’ve happened months ago.

Instead, the Biden campaign and Democratic pundits are still engaging in their own ridiculous brand of disinformation. They still claim that Hunter Biden did nothing wrong by joining the Burisma’s board; that Biden didn’t know about the bad optics of it; that because Biden’s Ukraine policy was in line with American objectives, it negates the inherent conflict of interest posed by his son’s Ukraine entanglements; and that pointing out the impropriety of Hunter’s lobbying makes one a Kremlin asset. All four points are easily disprovable nonsense.

First, Hunter Biden got his business opportunities the same as numerous other scions with big last names: old-fashioned nepotism. It’s no different than pretending Ivanka Trump became senior adviser to the president of the United States because of her stellar geopolitical acumen, not because she’s Trump’s daughter, or that decidedly un-stellar student Jared Kushner got into Harvard because the admissions office believed in his untapped academic potential, not because of the $2.5 million his father gave the school. Mistyped emails from Nigerian princes have more credibility.

There’s no evidence Hunter Biden’s actions were illegal, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t wrong, as Biden senior claims. Insisting that all was kosher only potentially alienates the millions of Americans who clamor for a restoration of justice to their land; it also bolsters Trump’s cynical strategy of portraying everyone as corrupt, with no difference between him and the Democrats.


Hunter Biden shouldn’t have joined the board of Burisma; his decision to do so hampered his father’s ability to work with Ukraine. Those aren't my words — those are the words of the editorial board of The New York Times in 2015. The fact that its board felt necessary to issue their warning demonstrates the seriousness of the situation.

The editorial also undercuts the assertion that Biden knew nothing about the issue. Last month, CNN asked the former vice president whether he realized the negative optics of his son sitting on the board of Burisma while he ran America’s Ukraine policy. “Optically, had I known earlier, I wish – we both wish it hadn’t happened that way,” Biden told CNN.

That’s very hard to believe. In 2014, Biden’s own spokesperson was forced to field ethics questions about Hunter Bidem and Burisma. Even the Obama White House itself had expressed concerns, with several officials raising the issue.

The third claim — that Biden’s Ukraine policy was not inappropriate and therefore no conflict of interest took place — is also false. Yes, Biden was cleared of any wrongdoing in pressuring Ukraine to fire a corrupt prosecutor, even by GOP investigations. But a conflict of interest doesn’t require actual impropriety: its existence is, in itself, improper.

Any traffic judge in America will recuse him or herself from ruling on so much as a $10 parking ticket, if the ticket is issued to the judge’s son. Whether the judge is able to make a fair ruling on the ticket is quite immaterial; what matters is the appearance of a conflict of interest.

The reason for such recusals is self-evident; one doesn’t need a Gallup poll to determine whether voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and elsewhere understand this elementary procedure of ensuring fairness. Once again, insisting there was no conflict of interest for the Bidens insults the very voters they’re trying to court.

Lastly, we come to the Biden campaign, prominent Democrats and even pundits accusing individuals who mention Hunter and Burisma of carrying water for the Kremlin. The latest fiasco over Hunter Biden’s laptop could be instigated by Russia — we don’t know yet, and that’s why the FBI is investigating. But in the interim, jumping to automatically painting Americans as foreign agents merits a conversation of its own. (It also echoes the way those who opposed the Iraq War were smeared as unpatriotic supporters of dictators.) For now, it’s enough to say that this argument, like the others, is wrong to the point of absurdity.

The Russia factor, even if there, doesn’t diminish the impropriety of Hunter Biden’s lobbying and the question of how it may impact a Biden presidency. Russian propaganda routinely (and gleefully) uses real events to further its goals, including stories of police shootings of Black Americans. That doesn't make the topic any less valid.

By that logic, the Times’ editorial board, the Obama White House, and everyone else who has previously called out the ethics of Hunter Biden and Burisma is either working for Moscow or, at the very least, furthering its nefarious agenda.

America already has the GOP and Fox News which routinely claim that black is white, that anything they don’t agree with is fake news, and that the other side is manipulated by shadowy forces like George Soros. If Democrats and mainstream media organizations engage in this, as well, we’re headed for a truly dark chapter, one whose ramifications will last far longer than Trump.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
Trump Announces $550 Billion Japanese Investment and New Trade Agreements with Indonesia and the Philippines
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
Hong Kong Advances Digital Asset Strategy to Address Economic Challenges
Australia Rules Out Pre‑commitment of Troops, Reinforces Defence Posture Amid US‑China Tensions
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
×