Are the walls closing in on ol’ Joe?

Confronted with devastating evidence of Biden family grifting, the president’s advocates are abandoning their old defenses and trying some new ones. 

Some are attempting to change the subject. Nancy Pelosi offers a sterling example. Asked about the latest evidence connecting Joe Biden with Hunter’s corrupt schemes, she replied that she was too busy defending women’s reproductive rights. Not exactly a full-throated defense of the president. Still others are repeating the familiar refrain, “But Trump is worse.” (More on that in a minute.) 

Finally, a shrinking band of Biden supporters are sticking with their old line: you may have caught everyone who shares Joe’s DNA, but you haven’t caught ol’ Joe himself. That’s true, but the evidence of the president’s involvement is mounting and the allegations are detailed. The charges are so obvious and the evidence so serious that even mainstream reporters are asking about them. The president’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, stands mute. So does her more competent stand-in, John Kirby. KJP not only told the press she knows nothing, she told them she would not privately ask the president about the charges so she could respond to press inquiries. 

What Joe’s defenders are increasingly reluctant to say is, “He had absolutely nothing to do with the vast sums raked in by his son, brother, daughter-in-law and minor grandchildren. He knew nothing. He had no knowledge of the intricate web of shell companies his family used to move money around and hide its sources and recipients. He doesn’t know any honest business people who have used these covert methods. He did nothing to help his son, Hunter, his brother, James, or other family members. The president is completely ignorant of anything they did and did nothing to help them.” That’s his story. 

Many of Joe’s defenders have backed away from a straightforward declaration that “he’s innocent,” and instead render the Scottish verdict, “Not proven.” So far, they are right — the case isn’t proven yet. But the walls are closing in, both on Joe himself and on his defenders at the Department of Justice, IRS and FBI. 

As the evidence builds, so does the stench surrounding Hunter’s sweetheart deal with the US Attorney for Delaware, David Weiss. The charges Weiss filed could have been made after a month’s investigation, not the five years it took as the statutes of limitation ran out on various, more serious charges. The proposed deal looks less like justice and more like insider favoritism. The deal comes before a federal judge on July 26, and she may have the same questions. She has the authority to reject the deal. 

The Biden family’s problems go beyond this deal and beyond the latest revelation: Hunter’s threatening WhatsApp message to his Chinese business partner, which states that Joe was in the room with Hunter and joined in the threat. We now know that the message itself was real, but we don’t know if Joe was really sitting beside Hunter or participating in the transaction, as Hunter claimed. We do know the threat worked. The business partner, who is closely tied to senior members of the Chinese Communist Party, quickly sent another Hunter another $5.1 million. 

The larger problem for Joe Biden is that two whistleblowers from the IRS have made extremely detailed charges that political influence was used to delay and suppress the investigation of Hunter Biden and to prohibit any investigation that would touch Joe Biden himself. The whistleblower allegations are not vague suspicions; they are specific charges that can be investigated by House Republicans, using their subpoena power. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland has denied all those allegations, both in press conferences and in sworn testimony before Congress. US Attorney Weiss also denied the allegations in a letter to Congress. Garland has said Weiss can speak publicly about this and testify, if needed. Some testimony and congressional inquiry are needed because the charges are serious and the responses by Garland and Weiss flatly contract the whistleblowers’ statements. 

If the DoJ, FBI and IRS stonewall the investigation, the House could launch an impeachment inquiry against Garland. The immediate goal would not be to remove Garland but to breach the stone wall. Courts have ruled that, when Congress launches an impeachment inquiry, it has a right to all the Executive Branch’s relevant information for that inquiry. The disadvantage for Republicans is that voters want Congress to deal with issues that affect them directly — the economy, immigration, crime, inflation, and more — not launch more partisan investigations. 

Joe Biden’s vulnerability here goes beyond the evidence turned up by the House Ways and Means and Oversight Committees, and by Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson. It’s that the lower Joe Biden sinks in the polls and the weaker he looks for reelection, the less other Democrats will want to support him in the corruption inquiries.

Still, Joe’s defenders do have one last line of defense, and it’s a familiar one. “What about Trump? Isn’t he worse?” As evidence of corruption, they point to Jared Kushner’s extremely lucrative deals in the Middle East, made after Trump left office. They have support from at least one articulate Republican, with a lot of prosecutorial experience, Chris Christie. He jailed Jared’s father years ago and has said the son’s deals are another sign of corrupt, insider politics. 

Whether Christie is right or not, the allegations that both Biden and Trump are corrupt makes false comparisons and misses the larger point. 

Take the Kushner deals. Jared wasn’t simply a nameplate, as Hunter was. Jared was a senior White House advisor and played a central role in facilitating the Abraham Accords (a term the Biden administration will not even utter). Second, after the Trump administration ended and Kushner got his deal, it was clear Jared was no longer inside Trump’s political circle and was out of favor with the former president. Third, Trump himself made his money not by monetizing his public position, but by inheritance, real estate projects, and television fame. In fact, holding public office probably cost Trump money, which was only partially offset by people staying at his Washington hotel. By contrast, public office was the real source of Biden family wealth. 

There is a larger point here. The most damning allegations against Donald Trump are very different from those against Joe Biden. They are that Trump sought to undermine our constitutional democracy by refusing to accept the outcome of a legitimate presidential election. 

Those charges are true; what’s still unproven is whether he did anything illegal in the process. Trump did refuse to accept the 2020 outcome and still refuses, as he made clear in a recent interview with Bret Baier on Fox News. Whether that refusal involved illegal acts is the heart of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s inquiries about “fake electors” and encouraging January 6 rioters. (Those are separate from the charges about holding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and lying about returning them.) 

The allegations against Joe Biden are that he was the centerpiece of a family enrichment operation, monetized his public position, that he was well aware of his son and brother’s activities, and that his allies in the DoJ and IRS blocked inquiries in this tangle of corruption. 

You don’t have to choose between the allegations against Biden and Trump. Sadly for our country, they could both be true.