A Reminder: The Problem Isn't Hunter, The Problem Is Joe

It's worth noting that the discovery of Hunter's laptop is important because of what it began to reveal about Joe, not what it said about Hunter, who in the scheme of things is just a more extreme version of the standard-issue presidential relative, Donald Nixon, Billy Carter, Roger Clinton, Tony and Hugh Rodham, and Neil Bush, all of whom led less than exemplary lives and in varying degrees tried to profit from their presidential connections. Except for the extravagance of Hunter's vices, he's nothing new.

In fact, looking at allegations against figures like Donald Nixon, the Rodham brothers, and Neil Bush, there's some similarity insofar as they relied on benefactors with presidential connections to bail them out of financial crises or collected fees for influence peddling -- again, it's a matter of degree. The problem with Hunter is that the specifics of his connection to Joe have been so well concealed that we're beginning to learn only slowly and belatedly how much Joe has been on the take, indeed throughout his career -- and compared to Nixon, Carter, and even the Clintons, this is also starting to look like a matter of degree.

Thus we have a relatively minor story from last week:

A potentially devastating video from 2005 has resurfaced showing Hunter Biden socializing with then-senator Joe Biden and potential clients, discussing “the weather.” I’m just kidding. They weren’t talking about the weather; they were talking business.

I'll get into what the video reveals about the Hunter-Joe tag team below, but let's look at where it stands in the overall timeline. The dates covered in Hunter's laptop run from roughly 2010 to 2019, when he dropped it off at the Delaware computer repair shop and never retrieved it. Up to now, the earliest entries on the Hunter timeline include Dubya's appointment of Hunter to the Amtrak board in 2006 as a favor to Joe as senator, as well as his 2006 purchase of Paradigm Global Advisers with his uncle James Biden. This tape from 2005 definitely widens the picture.

According to Wikipedia, after he graduated from law school in 1996, Hunter went to work for the MBNA bank, headquartered in Wilmington, and was there until 1998. It's worth noting that during the 1990s, MBNA

became one of the most profitable companies in the United States, the world's largest independent credit card issuer, and the largest private-sector employer in Delaware.

In 1995, MBNA moved its headquarters from a suburban location to Rodney Square in downtown Wilmington, Delaware. This investment was credited with helping to revive Wilmington's downtown real estate market.

Hunter's status as an executive there would have facilitated the relationship between MBNA and his dad Joe as senator from Delaware, and it's hard to avoid thinking Joe facilitated the growth and success of MBNA in a highly regulated banking and credit card environment. From there, Hunter went to the US Department of Commerce under Bill Clinton, which looks like a run-of-the-mill patronage job.

Biden then became a lobbyist, co-founding the firm of Oldaker, Biden & Belair. According to Adam Entous of The New Yorker, Biden and his father established a relationship in which "Biden wouldn't ask Hunter about his lobbying clients, and Hunter wouldn't tell his father about them."

But the 2005 video provides an insight into their actual working relationship during this same period. According to the first link above,

[I]t captures a moment where Hunter Biden stands on the sidelines while Joe Biden interacts with attendees, “working the room,” as Kelly describes it. After waiting patiently for the right moment, Hunter eventually joins the conversation to greet a couple with whom he had apparently discussed a potential business opportunity linked to his lobbying firm.

. . . “Maybe we can work something out,” Joe Biden says to the couple in the video.

“Yeah, yeah, that is what we will do,” the woman excitedly replies.

“Hunter was just telling me about his law firm in Washington, his law firm,” replies the man next to her.

“Yeah,” Joe Biden says, clearly not surprised.

. . . At this point, the woman starts engaging with Joe, while Hunter and the man go off to the side to have a separate conversation that the camera can’t pick up.

. . . This took place while Joe Biden was a senator. He wasn’t even vice president yet, and it appears that he and Hunter had been working political events for years to make business deals.

. . . While the new impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden involves influence-peddling during his time as vice president, it’s quite clear the shady Biden family business was going on well before that.

The meeting where this was recorded was in South Carolina, when at the time, Joe was a senator from Delaware. What was pretty clearly being pitched was Joe's overall influence in Washington, something that would only grow when he became vice president. This suggests the range of Joe's marketing efforts even as a senator, when Hunter's position as Joe's agent and intermediary was in only its early stages. In addition, this meeting, as well as Hunter's career phase with Oldaker, Biden & Belair, isn't covered on his laptop, and we know little about his activities then otherwise. Nevertheless,

“Back in 2002, he filed his Form 1040 late-filing and owing over $100,000 in taxes; 2003, owed more than $100,000 dollars in taxes; 2004, late-filed and owed more than $20,000 in taxes; and then 2005, late filed his personal return and owed over $100,000 in taxes,” [an unnamed IRS] whistleblower testified.

His ex-wife Kathleen Buhle wrote in her memoir

she first began noticing Hunter's drinking might be a problem around 2001 . . . when he took a job as a partner at a lobbying firm in Washington, D.C. which led to a lot of late nights and long periods away from their home in Delaware. . . . By the fall of 2003, Hunter entered rehab for the first time[.]

What this suggests is that the working relationship between Hunter and Joe was closely coordinated well before Joe became vice president, and it worked especially well for Joe throughout the latter part of his political career -- less well, it would seem, for Hunter, since as the working relationship developed, so did his addictions. But the big question is this: Joe had a modus operandi of taking money for influence that he emplyed throughout at least his later years in the Senate, extending into his time as vice president.

So when did he stop taking these payments? Much of what we've learned about Joe has come from Hunter's laptop, which covers only the time of Joe's vice presidency and his interregnum, up to his decision to run for president in 2019. But we're slowly starting to learn Joe was on the take at least before the time of the laptop. What about after? Habits don't change. Joe's been the same guy, as far as we can tell, all his life. What's he up to now?