Did Obama Apply His Clinton Rules to the Bidens? Representatives of a Ukrainian company used the family connection to lobby the State Department. By James Freeman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/did-obama-apply-his-clinton-rules-to-the-bidens-11573069621
It’s not clear whether the Ukrainian company Burisma got its money’s worth when it paid handsomely to add Hunter Biden to its board. But the company’s representatives used the family name in attempting to influence the U.S. Government while Joe Biden was Vice President.
If an American business made a similar effort with the son of a government official overseas, it would likely attract a U.S. Department of Justice investigation under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. So why shouldn’t the United States urge that other countries also examine such arrangements?
The Journal’s Jessica Donati reports that a consulting firm hired by Burisma mentioned that “Joe Biden’s son served on the Ukrainian gas company’s board so the firm could leverage a meeting with the State Department, according to documents and a former U.S. official.”
The documents were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Southeastern Legal Foundation on behalf of its client John Solomon. Ms. Donati adds:
The documents—email exchanges between State Department staff members made public this week—show that the consulting firm, Washington-based Blue Star Strategies, used Hunter Biden’s name in a request for a State Department meeting and then mentioned him again during the meeting as part of an effort to improve Burisma’s image in Washington.
Mr. Biden was appointed to the Burisma board in 2014, when the company and its owner faced allegations of corruption, and he remained there until April of this year… Hunter Biden served on Burisma’s board when his father, then the vice president, was overseeing U.S. efforts to get Ukraine to reduce corruption.
Ms. Donati reports that the 2016 Burisma meeting included a State Department undersecretary named Catherine Novelli.
What are the odds that, having learned that she was being lobbied by a foreign company which was under a corruption investigation and which happened to employ the son of the sitting Vice President of the United States, Ms. Novelli never mentioned this fact to anyone else?
Taxpayers being forced to fund an investigation focused on what President Donald Trump said about this Biden deal ought to know what other government officials said about it, too. Adam Entous of the New Yorker reported in July:
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.
He should have. Last month John Hudson, Rachael Bade and Matt Viser reported in the Washington Post:
A career State Department official overseeing Ukraine policy told congressional investigators this week that he had raised concerns in early 2015 about then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company but was turned away by a Biden staffer, according to three people familiar with the testimony.
George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state, testified Tuesday that he worried that Hunter Biden’s position at the firm Burisma Holdings would complicate efforts by U.S. diplomats to convey to Ukrainian officials the importance of avoiding conflicts of interest, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality rules surrounding the deposition.
According to the Post, Mr. Kent did not name the Biden aide who scotched the discussion of improper family business. A complete record of Obama Administration discussions about Hunter Biden’s monetizing of his father’s position would add important context to evaluate Mr. Trump’s comments on the issue.
It would also be useful to know if any U.S. officials ever fielded phone calls from foreign counterparts asking how to respond to Hunter Biden’s sudden interest in their countries. During the last five years, if any U.S. officials not named Trump also advocated scrutiny of the Biden family business, should they have been removed from office?
President Barack Obama was certainly aware of the dangers of such familial enterprises. That’s why his administration demanded promises of compliance with specific rules on Clinton Foundation fundraising and disclosure of donations when he appointed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Not that the Clintons kept their promises, but at least Mr. Obama tried. Did he demand similar promises from his vice president? If not, Mrs. Clinton may have grounds for a discrimination claim.
As for the Bidens, the news of the week is that the Ukrainian company that paid so much to rent their name used it to lobby the U.S. Government. Also in 2016, Joe Biden successfully pressured the Ukrainian government to fire the prosecutor investigating the company. And then the investigation was dropped.
The Bidens say that Joe Biden’s official actions had nothing to do with his son’s business.
Perhaps Hunter Biden can now explain why a company engaged in natural gas production in Ukraine needed to spend money to improve its image among officials of the U.S. Government.
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