RUTHFULLY YOURS

The residents of Maui must be so thrilled to hear that Joe Biden will interrupt his regularly scheduled weeklong vacation to make a one-day side trip to their fire-ravaged island.

No wonder a lot of them are telling the press they’d rather he didn’t.

The New York Post notes that this is one of many such trips he’s made during his presidency:

WASHINGTON — President Biden and his extended family arrived late Friday for a weeklong Lake Tahoe vacation at the $18 million waterfront mansion of billionaire climate investor Tom Steyer.

Biden, 80, and his scandal-plagued son Hunter, 53, showed up separately to the six-bedroom Nevada retreat, which is touted on Redfin as “one of Lake Tahoe’s finest lakefront properties and the pinnacle waterfront estate within the gated Glenbrook community.”

The home features a “spectacular lakeside gazebo [that] rests between the park-like grounds and the calming shores of Glenbrook Bay,” the real estate website says.

The president has enjoyed free vacations at the homes of other prominent Democrats, but the White House said that he will pay for the stay at Steyer’s three-acre property.

“The First Family is renting a private home for their stay in Lake Tahoe,” a statement read. “The home belongs to Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor. The First Family is renting the home for fair market value.”

Fair market value? If that was the case, why did he choose the home of a political crony? Fair market value means he could have chosen anyone. The Post points out that there’s no way of verifying “fair market value” which could be anything, actually, let alone whether he paid it. He has taken many such vacations at the homes of billionaires before, during his presidency, and reportedly never paid a dime, nor did he claim these to-dos as “gifts” on disclosure forms.

Last August, Biden and his family spent seven days at the nine-bedroom Kiawah Island, SC, mansion of donor Maria Allwin, whose family runs a hedge fund, after asking her to use the home, a source told The Post at the time.

“They’re not paying. They’ve never paid,” the source said.

First lady Jill Biden extended her stay on Kiawah another five days after testing positive for COVID-19.

For Thanksgiving, the extended Biden family stayed for six days at the Nantucket Island compound of billionaire investor David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group.

The White House and a spokesperson for Rubenstein didn’t respond to inquiries about whether the Bidens paid.

In late December and early January, the first couple, their daughter Ashley and grandkids Natalie and Hunter stayed seven days for free as “guests” at the beachfront St. Croix home of businesspeople Bill and Connie Neville.

What’s new here is that Biden is taking these luxe vacays during his sitting presidency, not his post-presidency, as presidents such as Obama have done. Of course they have the appearance of bribery. If so, in Obama’s case, the reward would have been delayed. In the Bidens’ case, the goody was paid upfront to the Big Guy.

Isn’t this the same stuff the lefties are yelling about Supreme Court justices taking, calling it a threat to democracy? Somehow when Democrats do it, nobody at ProPublica says a thing.