People have been sympathetic and indulgent towards Hunter Biden all his life — and maybe that’s part of his problem.
Only a heart of stone could fail to ache for the little injured boy who lost his mother and baby sister in a car accident, who was used as a wan, bandaged prop by his power-hungry father for a campaign photograph at his hospital bedside that has underpinned Joe Biden’s political career ever since.
But at 53 it’s time to grow up.
Hunter’s self-pitying op-ed in USA Today was ridiculous.
It was a transparent attempt at misdirection as congressional investigators close in on his father’s financial involvement in the family’s corrupt influence peddling scheme.
“What troubles me is the demonization of addiction, of human frailty, using me as its avatar and the devastating consequences it has for the millions struggling with addiction, desperate for a way out and being bombarded by the denigrating and near-constant coverage of me and my addiction on Fox News . . . and in the New York Post,” he wrote.
But our coverage is of corruption, not addiction.
‘Moral blackmail’
Nobody is interested in Hunter’s problems, and if anyone is “weaponizing addiction,” it’s him and his father who keep trying to use it as a get-out-of-jail-free card.
It worked for Joe in the final debate of the 2020 election when he responded to pointed questions from Donald Trump about the millions Hunter had vacuumed up from China.
First Joe lied.
He claimed Hunter’s abandoned laptop, that he knew very well was Hunter’s, was a “Russian plant” and “a bunch of garbage” and cited the Dirty 51 letter penned by 51 former intelligence officials that he knew was cooked up by senior adviser, now hapless Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.
He feigned ignorance of the Chinese deals he helped Hunter secure, saying, “My son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are you talking about, China.”
Really? The Big Guy was slated to take 10% of just one Chinese deal Hunter had with CCP linked energy company CEFC, and Joe met Tony Bobulinski twice in LA to vet him as CEO of the joint venture between the Bidens and China.
Hunter’s first China deal came a few days after VP Joe flew with him on Air Force 2 to Beijing and shook hands with his partner. Please.
But the icing on the cake was the addiction defense. Joe looked directly at the camera and told the folks at home: “My son, like a lot of people at home, had a drug problem. He’s overtaking it. He’s fixed it. He’s worked on it. And I’m proud of him.”
The appeal looks even more cynical today as evidence of corruption keeps piling up.
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In his oped, Hunter presents himself as the advocate for “20 million Americans [who] suffer from substance abuse disorder,” suggesting that the coverage of Biden family corruption somehow is a “threat” to the recovery of those addicts.
“The avalanche of negativity and assault of my personal privacy may only make it harder for those considering it,” he wrote.
It’s textbook Democrat moral blackmail — keep investigating the Bidens and addicts across the country will fall off the wagon.
Come off it.
The timing of Hunter’s oped also could not be more cynical, as House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer tightens the noose around the president’s last remaining shreds of credibility.
‘Criminal enterprise’
The story of Hunter Biden’s laptop was always about Joe Biden.
The president has lied repeatedly to the American people about his involvement in what Comer now confidently describes as a “criminal enterprise.”
Comer last week released bank documents showing $40,000 “in laundered Chinese money landed in Joe Biden’s bank account in the form of a personal check” from his brother Jim Biden.
Uncanny how it worked, according to Comer’s records.
Hunter went to his father’s place in Delaware, and sent a WhatsApp message on July 30, 2017, shaking down a Chinese executive at CEFC, Raymond Zhao, for $10 million he believed his family was owed.
“I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” the message obtained by an FBI surveillance warrant says.
Hunter warns that if his demands are not fulfilled, “I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction.”
A few days later, on Aug. 8, 2017, the Chinese wired Hunter $5 million.
That same day Hunter transferred $400,000 of the Chinese money to his private company Owasco, and wired $150,000 from there to his uncle, Jim Biden.
Two weeks later, Jim’s wife Sara Biden withdrew $50,000 in cash and deposited it into her and Jim’s joint checking account.
A few days later, on Sept. 3, 2017, she cut a check to Joe Biden for $40,000. Ten percent for the Big Guy.
But it’s just a “loan repayment” don’t you know? Plausible deniability, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Like that other check for $200,000 that Uncle Jim wrote for his brother, as Comer revealed last month.
Democrats claim to have bank transactions showing Joe made payments of $40,000 and $200,000 to his brother a few weeks before each “loan repayment.”
Factcheck.org and selected media outlets reported that they have seen records of the wires from an “Attorney Trust Account” maintained by Joe Biden’s lawyers in Delaware.
But the White House has not released any records publicly and Comer’s committee said Friday that the White House “today made clear to us that President Biden is refusing to hand over loan documents for any ‘loans’ he provided to his brother.”
‘Going to be a big week’
Comer is skeptical, but in any case, as he told Fox News on Sunday: “It doesn’t matter whether or not they come up with some type of document that says it was a loan — which it wasn’t — the only way they could have paid Joe Biden is through the family influence peddling so either Joe Biden got a $240,000 kickback which he didn’t pay taxes on or Joe Biden actually did make a loan to the family and they paid him back through proceeds of influence peddling.”
Comer says that once he gets the latest tranche of bank records, he will issue two dozen subpoenas for Biden family members and associates: “It’s going to be a big week.”
Meanwhile the Bidens glide from lie to lie, counting on Americans to be distracted by bogus excuses.
Like his father, playing for sympathy is Hunter’s reflexive response to being caught doing something wrong.
But too bad for the first son, Joe has drained the well of American empathy dry.
Source link: https://nypost.com/2023/11/05/opinion/america-is-tired-of-joe-and-hunter-biden-weaponizing-addiction-as-a-get-out-of-jail-free-card/