Like a family with dark secrets, the Democratic National Convention was radiant with fake smiles on Monday night as President Joe Biden and his family were praised, celebrated, marched into a dumpster and towed off the premises.
Some dysfunctional families become expert at keeping up appearances. They always seem to know the right thing to say to impress the neighbors, never letting on that anything is less than enviable.
So nobody laughed when Jill Biden claimed to have watched her husband make the decision not to run for re-election. Everyone pretended not to see the pieces of Joe Biden’s carotid artery still stuck under Nancy Pelosi’s fingernails as she joined in the chant of “We Love Joe.” Chicago’s United Center was a sea of pre-printed signs expressing unanimous adoration for the not-yet-former president, even as the convention’s organizers pushed his swan-song political speech out of prime time network TV coverage.
“My dad used to say, ‘Joey, family is the beginning, the middle and the end,’” Biden told the Democratic delegates.
Probably not by coincidence, the Biden family was the beginning, middle and end of a report released by the Oversight, Judiciary and Ways and Means committees of the U.S. House of Representatives that very morning. The report on the committees’ impeachment inquiry details “evidence to establish President Biden abused his office and violated his oaths of office as Vice President by engaging in a conspiracy to peddle influence to enrich his family.”
The report is 291 pages documenting that “Biden family members and their associates received over $27 million from foreign individuals or entities.” As VP during the Obama administration, Biden “met or spoke with nearly every one of the Biden family’s foreign business associates, including those from Ukraine, China, Russia and Kazakhstan. As a result, the Biden family has received millions of dollars from these foreign entities.”
No one speaking at the Democratic National Convention mentioned the impeachment report or defended Biden against the charges, which are backed up by bank records, wire transfers, “suspicious activity” reports to the U.S. Treasury, witness accounts and IRS whistleblower testimony.
But Biden’s legal problems don’t stop with his term as vice president. The House committees’ report documents that while he was president, the Biden Justice Department and the FBI “afforded special treatment to President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.” The report cites evidence that a “delicate approach” was used as officials “slow-walked the investigation, informed defense counsel of future investigative steps, and allowed the statute of limitations to expire on the most serious felony charges.”
The Justice Department very nearly pulled off a plea deal with Hunter that would have protected him from any future charges, but a judge blew up that deal by asking prosecutors if they’d ever seen a deal like that before. They had not.
So now the Democratic family is smiling through another scandal that they’d rather the neighbors didn’t see, the upcoming trial of Hunter Biden on charges of failing to pay more than $1.4 million in taxes.
To be clear, that’s not taxes on $1.4 million of income. It’s $1.4 million in taxes. On millions more of income.
How did he earn all that money?
The Democratic family would rather not talk about it, but the 56-page indictment filed in Los Angeles federal court describes Hunter as a “lobbyist” as well as a lawyer, consultant and businessperson, who served on the board of a Ukrainian industrial conglomerate and a Chinese private equity fund.
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During the period between 2016 and October 2020, according to the indictment, “the defendant spent this money on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes.”
Back in October 2020, when the New York Post broke the story that Hunter Biden’s laptop contained emails pointing to Biden family influence-peddling, the Democratic family rushed to insist, inaccurately, that the laptop bore signs of “Russian disinformation” and the allegations were lies. Biden himself said it during a debate.
This year, the dysfunctional Democratic family ignored all of it as Hunter joined the rest of the Biden clan onstage at the convention as if nothing was wrong.
That’s their story, and they’re sticking to it.
Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on Twitter @Susan_Shelley
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