By Tom Basile – The Washington Times
OPINION:
Mounting evidence demonstrates that then-Vice President Joe Biden illegally used his office to make millions for his family, and those financial interests affected U.S. policy. Investigators in Congress, legitimate journalists and ultimately prosecutors can’t form a complete picture of the wrongdoing without incorporating the actions of then-President Barack Obama and his staff.
It increasingly looks like the man who famously said “Never underestimate Joe’s ability to f—- things up” allowed the Biden family to operate with impunity right under his nose. It’s another blemish for the 44th president’s legacy, which is more and more in shambles.
“Obamacare” was a failure, raising health care costs by an average of 40% and eliminating health care choices for tens of millions of Americans.
Mr. Obama was in on the Russia collusion scheme and spying operation against then-candidate Donald Trump. Claims he made about his personal story have been brought into question. His acquiescence to Russia’s conquest of the Donbas in 2014 helped pave the way for the current war in Ukraine that has killed tens of thousands. His so-called red lines on foreign policy were a mirage, and they emboldened radical Islamists.
Perhaps worst of all, an additional 600,000 Black families were living below the poverty line when he left office to live an elitist, Martha’s Vineyard life.
Now the question is what Mr. Obama and his staff at the White House, State, Justice and Treasury departments knew and when they knew it about the Biden foreign business dealings.
Did Mr. Obama inquire as to the vice president’s activities surrounding Ukraine and Russia?
Did anyone scrutinize Mr. Biden’s curious, last-minute foreign trips to visit Ukraine and Chinese President Xi Jinping just days before Mr. Trump’s Inauguration?
Did anyone ask why Hunter Biden was accompanying his father to countries where he may have business interests? Why were Biden family business associates granted access to the Obama White House dozens of times?
Notorious for talking big but delivering only platitudes, Mr. Obama’s apparent acceptance of his vice president’s unethical or illicit activities makes him an even bigger fraud.
There is little doubt that Mr. Obama knew there was a revolving door of Hunter Biden business associates who visited more than 80 times during his administration.
When it comes to the Viktor Shokin affair, we now know that Victoria Nuland, Mr. Obama’s assistant secretary of state, wrote a letter to Mr. Shokin praising anti-corruption efforts and pledging to provide further American resources to support him.
Mr. Obama’s own task force on Ukraine concluded in 2015 that “Ukraine has made sufficient progress on its reform agenda” that would justify additional financial support.
We now know that White House staffer John Flynn was used to keep Hunter Biden informed about the vice president’s communication with Ukrainian officials.
Vice President Biden was left to make his threats about aid to Ukraine and do his son’s company a solid. Mr. Shokin got fired, and the Ukrainians got their money. In a very swampy sense, it all worked out for everyone who mattered.
But in order for the vice president to steer that kind of diplomatic maneuver, the National Security Council and therefore the West Wing had to have known.
Mr. Obama apparently didn’t care. He was likely so convinced that Hillary Clinton would be elected president in 2016 and Mr. Biden would ride into the political sunset that efforts by the vice president to profit from his office were inconsequential.
For those who have followed Mr. Biden for decades, it wasn’t a stretch to think it was finally time for the Big Guy to really cash in. There were ethics violations and possibly even crimes, but no one cared.
We also know that the Obama White House employed Hunter Biden’s friend Kathy Chung as an aide to the vice president. Ms. Chung was caught up in the Clinton “Chinagate” fundraising scandal in the 1990s. She was then allegedly tasked with illegally transporting top-secret documents to various locations when the vice president was leaving office.
All of this and more justify the implication of top Obama staffers, including the former president; Denis McDonough, White House chief of staff; Josh Pitcock and Steve Ricchetti, chiefs of staff to the vice president; Susan Rice, Mr. Obama‘s national security adviser; and Jake Sullivan, the current national security adviser and former national security adviser to the vice president.
White Houses are tightly controlled. Unless Mr. Obama and his team were incompetent, he knew about Mr. Biden’s activities.
Investigators must cast a wider net. Mr. Biden’s corruption is another sign that Mr. Obama, the vaunted, transformational figure who made liberal commentators’ legs quiver, gave us nothing more than a thin veneer of hope and another thick layer of hypocrisy and Beltway sleaze.