Questions Nobody's Asked Joe

One issue that puzzles me is that the Comer committee, and probably any potential House committee that investigates impeaching Joe Biden, has been focusing almost entirely on things Joe, Hunter, and the rest of the Biden family did while Joe was vice president. So far, the most damaging set of circumstances looks to be Mykola Zlochevsky's claim to have tapes of Joe himself demanding a $5 million bribe to get Viktor Shokin removed as Ukraine's special prosecutor and end investigations into Burisma.

The potential defect in that or any similar case is simply that it all took place when Joe was vice president. But after that, Joe was out of office for four years, and now he's president. There's probably a good argument that the Burisma stuff is in the past, you need to impeach Joe for any treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors he's done as president, not back when he was vice president. At best, no matter how well you can prove that Zlochevsky or anyone else bribed Joe, it's just a political embarassment to him now, which may or may not lead him to resign, but it's not an impeachable offense -- and Joe, who thinks he's Caesar, isn't gonna just resign.

But this brings me to simple human nature. The picture we inevitably have of Joe right now, granting even the worst of the current allegations that have come to light, is that he was basically an average politician up to the time he became vice president -- sure, he put Hunter on the Amtrak board in 2006, or he got Hunter a cushy job with MBNA or got him into Yale Law, but all of these are perks that US senators from either party routinely collect. Remember that Joe used to claim he was the poorest man in Congress.

So the inescapable inference is that Joe had been an OK if mediocre guy all his life, but once he became vice president, it suddenly all went to his head, and he turned into this monstrous grafter that nobody foresaw. In 2009, at age 67, he went from the poorest man in Congress to a master influence peddler and money launderer, running a family franchise of brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and Hunter, all with their hands out to have their palms crossed with cash. By the same token, atfer Joe left the vice presidency, all the graft suddenly came to an end. Well, maybe there were little side deals at the Penn Biden center and so forth, but weren't they just more or less wrapping up the old vice presidential frammis? Joe could withdraw to a modest but comfortable retirement.

I don't believe that. In fact, I don't believe anyone is specifically pushing that argument. A person's character is well formed by age 67, and no matter how much older they get, they just keep on keepin' on. Joe has an expensive lifestyle, and several of the family progeny have expensive addictions. There's got to be more. In fact, I'm inclined to think Burisma is just the low-hanging fruit. And let's just add what we learn from criminology: crooks have habits. They work within a comfort zone. They keep doing the things that work for them, and with which they feel comfortable. And just as important, they mostly keep doing their thing until they're dead or in jail, because life is a series of habits.

Now and then, people turn up odd tidbits about Joe that suggest the mediocre-but-honest narrative doesn't hold up, like this recent thread on X, formerly Twitter:

My first assignment as a junior editor at the Harvard Journal on Legislation (1999-2000) was to cite check an article submitted by one Sen. Joseph R. Biden. I was shocked by the plagiarism I discovered. 🧵 https://t.co/0CSqJBZR7E

— Roger Severino (@RogerSeverino_) September 4, 2023

Allegations of plagiarism have surfaced and resubmerged throughout his career, most famously during his brief 1987 presidential campaign, but he initially failed a Syracuse University Law School course for plagiarism. He was allowed to repeat the course without a permanent penalty. He's repeated other personmality traits like fabricating stories about himself throughout his life. I suspect that a detailed investigation would also uncover one or another version of under-the-table baksheesh throughout his career.

So I've got to ask if we've really looked into what Joe might be up to now. I've noted here that he can no longer do a traditional news conference with a range of questions from a variety of reporters, because too many potential questions could still come up, not just about Hunter, but about things like his own e-mail aliases or the Biden family shell companies that receive payments from overseas. But even without the ability to pose those questions in that forum, there are questions a Peter Doocy could raise with Karine Jean-Pierre in the White House press room, or a Robert Kennedy Jr could ask in a TV interview.

For instance, "Can the president assure us that there are no longer any Biden family shell companies still receiving money from foreign sources?" Remember that as homicide detectives say, a lie is as good as a confession. All it wouid take would be for an investigator or whistleblower to uncover one such company still with an income from Ukraine, China, Romania, Kazakhstan, or wherever. But this leaves aside the whole other Biden network that extends to the University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Biden Center.

Another question would be, "We've learned that while he was vice president, the president, like others in the Obama administration, used alias e-mail addresses to disguise certain of his business arrangements. Can the president assure us that neither he, nor other high-level people in his administration, are using alias e-mail addresses to disguise business arrangements now?" Again, a lie is as good as a confession. And homicide detectives know those sorts of questions are best asked when they already have the answers.

Some of the Republicans in Congress do know this trick, especially Sen Grassley, and so far, the tactic has been effective as a way of prying documents like 1023 forms loose from the Justice Department when lawmakers have made the point that they've already seen them. I can only expect that things will heat up when the House comes back into session on Tuesday, but I continue to think the real revelations will have to come over e-mail aliases and foreign payments to the Biden family now, not six years ago.