Of Course Trump's Family Is More Disgusting-- But, Sorry, That Doesn't Excuse Biden's Family Corruption

I was happy to see a George Washington University Politics Poll Tuesday morning showing Biden cratering. The two progressives in the race are tremendously outpacing the 3 corporate Dems still in contention:

• Elizabeth Warren- 28%
• Bernie- 21%
• Status Quo Joe- 18%
• Mayo Pete- 5%
• Kamala- 5%

I'd like to think it's all about the platforms the various candidates are running on. Bernie and Elizabeth are, for example, vigorously backing Medicare-for-All. Biden, Buttigieg and Kamala all oppose it with foolish pretend-plans that would cripple it in birth. But I think it's not just policy. It's also the hit Biden has taken, particularly among independent voters, because of the swampy nature of his disgusting Trump-like family. The repulsive Biden family-- and not just Hunter-- have traded on Joe Biden's elected positions to bring millions of dollars into the family coffers.

Neither Biden nor Trump have anything to offer the American people and would just as soon fight an election over which one lies more, which one is less incapacitated by the onset of senility and which one has a less disgusting and corrupt family. Hunter Biden attempted-- and failed, of course-- to paint a pretty picture of his own legalistic corruption in a disastrous interview with ABC News’ Amy Robach.

“In retrospect, look, I think that it was poor judgment on my part. Is that I think that it was poor judgment because I don't believe now, when I look back on it-- I know that there was-- did nothing wrong at all," said Biden. However, was it poor judgment to be in the middle of something that is...a swamp in-- in-- in many ways? Yeah.”

"I gave a hook to some very unethical people to act in illegal ways to try to do some harm to my father. That's where I made the mistake," Hunter Biden told ABC News in an exclusive interview. "So I take full responsibility for that. Did I do anything improper? No, not in any way. Not in any way whatsoever."

"Did I make a mistake? Well, maybe in the grand scheme of things, yeah," he said, again referring to fallout from his overseas business. "But did I make a mistake based upon some ethical lapse? Absolutely not."

Biden said, "I take-- full responsibility for that. Do I-- did I do anything improper? No, and not in any way. Not in any way whatsoever. I joined a board, I served honorably. I did-- I focused on corporate governance. I didn't have any discussions with my father before or after I joined the board as it related to it, other than that brief exchange that we had."

Even so, the 49-year-old has maintained a low profile in recent months as the president and his allies have targeted Hunter Biden for his professional endeavors in Ukraine and China.

...Hunter Biden reiterated that he never discussed his foreign business dealings with his father, and made it clear he has no interest in becoming a political football as congressional Democrats haul witnesses in for depositions as part of their impeachment proceedings.

"I'll let Congress handle that," he said. "And I'll let you guys in the media handle that. And I'll let my dad's campaign handle that. And the only thing that I'm looking to handle is to make certain that I get up every day and do the next right thing. And that really is the way that I've been trying to live my life."

Despite his desire to stay out of the spotlight, ethics experts told ABC News that Hunter Biden’s role on the board of a Ukrainian oil and gas company called Burisma, while his father fronted U.S. foreign policy toward Kyiv, could present an ethical conundrum-- an allegation Hunter fervently disputed.

Biden spoke with conviction when asked about how much information he shared with his father and even whether he was qualified.

“[My father] read the press reports that I'd joined the board of Burisma which was a Ukrainian natural gas company. And there's been a lot of misinformation about me, not about my dad. Nobody buys Dad. But-- by this idea that I was unqualified to be on the board,” said Biden.

“I was vice chairman of the board of Amtrak for five years,” he continued. “I was the chairman of the board of the U.N. World Food Program. I was a lawyer for Boies Schiller Flexner, one of the most prestigious law firms in-- in the world.”

“I think that I had as much knowledge as anybody else that was on the board-- if not more.”

Even so, on Sunday the Biden campaign released details of a proposed government ethics plan, which included a stipulation designed to "rein in executive branch financial conflicts of interest"-- an apparent response to allegations lodged against the Biden family. And while he cited being a lawyer at a prominent firm and his record serving on several boards as qualifications for the job, in his interview with ABC News, Hunter Biden acknowledged that his last name likely played a role in his Burisma board appointment.

"If your last name wasn't Biden," Robach asked, "do you think you would've been asked to be on the board of Burisma?"

"I don't know. I don't know. Probably not, in retrospect," he said. "But that's-- you know-- I don't think that there's a lot of things that would have happened in my life if my last name wasn't Biden."

“Because my dad was Vice President of the United States. There's literally nothing, as a young man or as a full grown adult that-- my father in some way hasn't had influence over. It does not serve either one of us,” Biden continued.

On the same day the Biden campaign rolled out their government ethics plan, a lawyer for Hunter Biden announced that his client would step down from the board of directors of a Chinese-backed private equity company by the end of this month-- and commit to halting all work with foreign entities if his father wins the White House in 2020.

"I'm taking it off the table, Amy," Hunter Biden said of his decision to step away from any foreign businesses. "I'm making that commitment. Let’s see if anybody else makes that commitment. But that's the commitment that I'm making." “Look, I'm a private citizen,” he said. "One thing that I don't have to do is sit here and open my kimono as it relates to how much money I make or make or did or didn't. But it's all been reported.”

In a press conference over the weekend, Joe Biden said the decision "represents the kind of man of integrity [Hunter] is."

Well, I'm afraid that Biden is right there... the whole thing shows exactly what kind of integrity Hunter and the Biden family have been brought up in. They're defending all this because they have no choice if Biden Sr. is going to claw his way into the nomination, which they see slipping from his grasp, a blow to a family that aspires to be billionaires, not just mere millionaires. Meanwhile, predictably, Señor Trumpanzee "took the opportunity to recast the decision as Hunter 'being forced to leave a Chinese Company.' ... 'The Biden family was PAID OFF, pure and simple!' Trump tweeted earlier this month, echoing an accusation raised by his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. The president and his allies have accused Hunter Biden of banking $1.5 billion from the joint investment firm, a figure Hunter Biden called 'crazy' and 'has no basis in fact in any way.' Reports at the time indicated Hunter Biden's firm sought to raise $1.5 billion from the deal-- not that either he or his firm pocketed $1.5 billion from the deal." This is exactly how Trump can win reelection-- fighting over the swamp, not policies that could help ordinary American family. It's why Biden is the candidate he talks about most-- and in so doing encourages Trump-hating Democrats to support him. Trump wouldn't stand a chance against Bernie or against Elizabeth Warren. He'd wipe the floor with Biden. This is his kind of battle:

"They feel like they have the license to go out and say whatever they want," Hunter Biden said. "It's insane to even -- it feels to me like living in some kind of, you know, "Alice in Wonderland," where you're up on the real world and then you fall down the rabbit hole, and, you know, the president's the Cheshire Cat asking you questions about crazy things that don't bear any resemblance to the reality of anything that has to do with me."

Despite Hunter Biden’s dismissal of the $1.5 billion figure attached to his investment in the firm, ethics experts have said his connection with the Chinese-based corporation again raises the potential for the appearance of a conflict of interest, particularly in light of the fact that Hunter Biden flew with his father to Beijing aboard Air Force Two in 2013-- around the time the deal was negotiated.

"I've traveled everywhere with my dad," Hunter said. "And I went [to China in 2013] because my daughter was on the trip too."

Hunter Biden’s lawyer said he has yet to receive a financial return on investment, adding that he only became a minority stakeholder in the company in October 2017-- after Joe Biden was no longer vice president. Prior to then, he served as an unpaid director.

Again, Hunter Biden insists he never spoke of his professional dealings with his father on the 13-hour flight. And while he insists he did not engage in any business during the visit, he told the New Yorker in July that he did meet with a business partner, Jonathan Li, and even organized Li to shake hands with his father.

Asked about that interaction, Hunter Biden said he could not remember it specifically, but said he "probably" introduced them, and in fact "hoped" he had-- adding that he had been friends with Li for 13 years.

"Whether I'm in New York, or whether I'm in Washington, D.C., or whether I'm on the campaign trail in Nevada, or whether I am in Iowa with him-- [and] a friend and a business associate is in the hotel, and my dad's staying there-- is it inappropriate for me to have coffee with him?" Biden asked rhetorically.

Robach pressed the matter, though, asking Hunter what he would say to those "who believe this is exactly why people hate Washington."

"I don't know what to tell you. I made a mistake in retrospect as it related to creating any perception that that was wrong," Hunter Biden said. "My dad has never made a decision about anything, I'm absolutely certain, taking into account anything other than what is best for the American people and what the people that elected him to do. I am 100% certain of that."

...The president is not the only Trump family member to target the Bidens. At a campaign rally, Eric Trump, the president’s son, led a chant of "lock him up," referring to Hunter Biden. In response, Hunter called the Trumps "irrelevant," adding that he does not spend time thinking about them.

“Unlike them, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about them. I really don't. It's all noise. And what they do is they create just an enormous amount of noise. I have to then answer questions-- about accusations made by probably the most unethical group of people that we've ever seen in this republic," Biden said.

"They'll never understand the level for how much I love my dad and how much he loves me," he said, adding later, "They're out of a B movie. I mean, they really are." “I've been through some sh-- stuff in my life. I've been through some real, real stuff. This isn't real stuff. It isn't. It truly isn't. That part of it, that Barnum and Bailey-- you know, say anything, do anything you want, you know, I mean, like, you know, Donald Prince Humperdinck-- Trump Jr. is not somebody that I really care about,” said Biden.

Hunter Biden likened the president to a bully, and said, "I don't feed bullies." In another jab at Trump, Hunter Biden told Robach he takes "no pleasure in this as watching this death spiral of this administration-- this president and the people that surround him."

Coincidentally, the other side of this hideous equation was painted at GQ this week by Jay Willis in an essay-- How Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric Trump Have Profited Off Their Dad's Presidency. Short version refers to the Godzilla vs Mother battle with the Bidens: "No one knows a “clear conflict of interest” when they see it better than the president's children."

Setting aside the alternative facts underlying the Trump kids’ criticisms, however, their decision to wade into this controversy is notable for a different reason: During their father’s tenure as president, Don Jr. and Eric have repeatedly managed to cash in on their newfound positions of political privilege in their business dealings. So, too, have their sister Ivanka and brother-in-law Jared Kushner, both of whom hold senior positions in the administration and whose companies and investment portfolios netted them anywhere between $29 million and $135 million last year, per their financial disclosure forms. Here are some of the highlights of when the family's business intertwining with government affairs constituted the “appearance of impropriety” and “conflict of interest.”

The real estate sales

Days before his inauguration in 2016, Donald Trump announced that he had given “complete and total” control of the Trump Organization to Don Jr. and Eric. In doing so, he dismissed critics who called on him to place his assets in a blind trust, arguing that transferring control to immediate family was sufficient to address any conflict-of-interest concerns. “No new deals will be done during my term(s) in office,” he promised.

Since then, Forbes says, the brothers have sold off more than $100 million worth of Trump Organization real estate. That figure includes a $33 million sale of the company’s stake in a federally subsidized housing complex-- a transaction Secretary of House & Urban Development Ben Carson had to approve-- and a $3.2 million sale of land in the Dominican Republic last year, which Forbes called “the clearest violation of their father’s pledge to do no new foreign deals while in office.” Taxpayers cover the security costs of each business trip the pair makes-- in the first two months of 2017 alone that included $97,830 for a trip to Uruguay, $53,155.25 for a trip to Vancouver, and $16,738.36 for a trip to Dubai, according to NBC News.

In February 2017, the Trump Organization unloaded a $15.8 million Trump Park Avenue penthouse-- a home formerly occupied by Jared and Ivanka-- to Angela Chen, who runs a consulting firm with ties to Chinese government officials and (allegedly) Chinese military intelligence, says Mother Jones. A Forbes analysis found that this price was 13 percent more than that paid for a comparable unit a year earlier, and that it sold at a time when the building’s other units, on average, were selling for 25 percent less.

The disappearing anti-nepotism laws

When news of Jared and Ivanka’s White House employment broke, observers noted the hirings appeared to be clear violations of federal anti-nepotism laws. Kushner, the heir to a mid-Atlantic real estate empire, had no experience that would qualify him for the many tasks to which his father-in-law would assign him: solving the opioid crisis, handling Middle East peace negotiations, modernizing the federal government, and reforming America’s criminal justice system.

On Inauguration Day, however, the Department of Justice released an opinion concluding that the statute does not apply to White House staff, allowing Kushner’s employment to go forward. When intelligence officials held up his application for a top-secret security clearance-- a delay due in part, the New York Times reported, to concerns about Kushner’s foreign business interests-- his place in the administration, theoretically, was in jeopardy. His father-in-law stepped in, though, overruling the officials and ordering then-chief of staff John Kelly to issue Kushner a clearance anyway. Ivanka's résumé was similarly thin for someone taking on a senior West Wing position—a fashion designer, Trump Organization executive, and sometimes-judge on The Apprentice. She also experienced delays in her attempts to obtain a security clearance, and she was also the beneficiary of some timely presidential intervention: According to CNN, Trump pressured both Kelly and then White House counsel Don McGahn to make decisions on Ivanka's clearance "so it did not appear as if he was tainting the process to favor his family." When Kelly and McGahn refused, Trump went ahead and approved his daughter's clearance himself.

Weeks before the CNN story broke, Ivanka told ABC News that she and her husband had "absolutely not" received special treatment from her father during the approval process. "The president had no involvement pertaining to my clearance or my husband's clearance. Zero," she said.

The intellectual property in China

Both Jared and Ivanka, who took a “formal leave of absence” from her eponymous fashion label to serve in her father’s White House, have taken full advantage of the benefits of their new jobs. In April, on the same day she and Kushner sat next to Chinese president Xi Jinping at a White House state dinner, the Chinese government gave its conditional approval for three trademarks granting Ivanka what the AP called “monopoly rights” to sell Ivanka-branded jewelry, bags, and spa services. China approved two more rounds of trademarks in May and June, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan government watchdog.

In mid-2018, Ivanka shuttered her clothing brand altogether, citing a desire to focus on her work in Washington. However, she has since continued to seek potentially lucrative trademarks in China, leaving open the possibility that she could return to the brand after her time in public service concludes. (“As the daughter of the U.S. President, Ivanka Trump has an initial advantage of publicity,” Chinese designer Yang Mei explained to TIME in 2017.) Last fall, in the midst of her father’s trade war with China and his efforts to strike a new trade agreement between the two global superpowers, she won initial approval for 16 trademarks, and added five more to her portfolio earlier this year.

The free advertising

While the company was still active, Ivanka wasn’t shy about using the spotlight that comes with being the president’s daughter to goose sales of Ivanka-branded apparel and accessories. Journalists received a press release promoting a gold bracelet—starting at $8,800 and up to $10,800-- that she wore during a 60 Minutes interview in November 2016. A few months later, Ivanka Trump’s entire line received an enthusiastic on-air endorsement from Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway, who called the clothing “wonderful” and urged Fox & Friends viewers to “go buy it today.” The White House said it “counseled” Conway in response.

After Ivanka wrapped a speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention where her father officially became the party’s presidential nominee, she tweeted a link inviting followers to “shop Ivanka’s look”: a pink Ivanka-branded dress that retailed for $138. It sold out within hours.

The miraculous Kushner bailout

For years, 666 Fifth Avenue was the most vexing line-item on the Kushner real estate ledger-- a Midtown skyscraper purchased for $1.8 billion, most of which the family borrowed, right before the 2008 recession. A mammoth mortgage of about $1.4 billion was due in February of this year, leading to speculation throughout Jared’s time in the West Wing about how, exactly, the Kushner family would come up with the cash. Multiple foreign governments seized on this uncertainty, privately discussing ways to take advantage of his business entanglements and financial difficulties when dealing with the United States, the Washington Post reported.

In April 2017, a real estate firm tied to the Kushner family made a direct appeal to the government of Qatar to invest in the troubled building, The Intercept reported. A month later, when a coalition of Persian Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates organized a blockade of Qatar, Kushner was among its most vocal U.S. supporters. According to NBC News, some Qatari officials believed the White House’s position was retaliation for their government’s decision not to make a deal with Kushner’s family. In the months that followed, Kushner developed a close working relationship with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman-- close enough that bin Salman allegedly told confidants that the president’s son-in-law was “in his pocket.”

Fortunately, help for the Kushner family’s financial woes subsequently arrived in the form of Brookfield Asset Management, which acquired a 99-year lease on 666 Fifth Avenue for about $1 billion in April 2018. This miraculous timing allowed the Kushners to pay off its existing mortgage and buy out its partner in the venture, Vornado Realty Trust. The buyer was a semi-familiar face in this drama: One of Brookfield Asset Management’s largest investors is the government of Qatar. Both Brookfield and Qatar claimed that Qatar had no advance warning that its money would be bailing out the president’s son-in-law.

The real estate investments

In June, The Guardian reported that Cadre, a real estate investment company owned in part by Kushner, has taken in some $90 million in offshore funding via an ominously-described “opaque offshore vehicle” in the Cayman Islands since he joined the White House. Some of the money, The Guardian says, came from other tax shelters; some of it came from unidentified sources in-- you guessed it-- Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, as my colleague Luke Darby noted at the time, although Kushner has purportedly recused himself from decisions affecting real estate policy, Ivanka has done no such thing. The president’s daughter was instrumental in the effort to include in the 2017 tax reform bill an “Opportunity Zones” program, which extends lucrative tax breaks to rich people who invest capital in designated less-developed areas. According to the AP, Cadre is raising funds from investors to build Opportunity Zone projects, and the Kushner family already owns at least 13 properties in opportunity zones that could qualify for special tax treatment.

The golf course deals

Last month, in the midst of Trump’s Ukraine scandal and mere hours after Fox News host Jesse Watters asserted that the president’s sons “stopped doing international business deals” when he became president, one of the president's sons hopped on Twitter to celebrate a new international business deal at a Trump golf course in Scotland.

The agreement will allow the Trumps to build 550 new homes in the area, along with a second 18-hole course in the same development. It is a fortunate break for the Trump-owned resort, which finished its seventh straight year in the red in 2018, according to The Independent.

The stakes in Trump hotels

Just down the road from the White House is the Trump International Hotel, located in D.C.’s Old Post Office building leased in 2013 to one of Donald Trump’s holding companies for development as a luxury hotel. It is a federally-owned building on the National Register of Historic Places, which means the president is, in a manner of speaking, now acting as his own landlord on the lease. The property has become notorious for attracting members of Congress, lobbyists, Cabinet officials, interest groups, foreign heads of state, and anyone else looking to curry the president’s favor. In July, the Washington Post reported that an Iraqi sheikh, a few months after writing to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-national security advisor John Bolton to suggest a tougher position on Iran, spent 26 nights on an eighth-floor suite.

Each of the three eldest Trump kids, Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka, owns a 7.425-percent interest in the holding company that leases the building. Because Ivanka Trump fills out an annual financial disclosure as a White House employee, we know a bit more about how the that stake is paying off these days: Her most recent filing listed almost $4 million in annual revenue from the hotel.

The hotels that almost were

In summer 2017, the Trump boys were working on developing two new hotel chains: Scion, a line of four-star properties, and American Idea, a line of patriotically-decorated, moderately-priced properties in heartland markets. The New York Times reported that they came up with the idea on the campaign trail with their father, where they relished the opportunity to attend each rally but “were less enamored of the budget-friendly hotels along the way.”

Along with a pair of former campaign donors-turned-business-partners, the Trump Organization struck a deal after the election to open the first Scion hotel in Cleveland, Mississippi. Earlier this year, though, it pulled out of the agreement and shelved its expansion plan indefinitely. “We live in a climate where everything will be used against us, whether by the fake news or by Democrats who are only interested in presidential harassment,” Eric explained at the time. “We already have the greatest properties in the world and if we have to slow down our growth for the time being, we are happy to do it.”

The billion-dollar sales pitch

In February 2018, Don Jr. traveled to India in an effort to sell more than $1 billion worth of luxury residential units built there by the Trump Organization and its partners. According to the New York Times, advertisements heralding Don Jr.’s visit read: “Trump has arrived. Have you?” Rajiv Bansa, a salesman at one of the properties, predicted that the younger Trump would have little trouble moving the inventory on his whirlwind tour of the region. “Everyone in India knows who the U.S. president is,” he told The Times. “It’s a status symbol. This is a big brand, the president of the United States’ name will be on it.”

When The Times asked the White House if Don Jr.’s sales visit presented “even an appearance of a conflict of interest,” the White House declined to comment.

We deserve an election campaign about policies, not about this garbage. Vote for anyone you want to be the Democratic Party nominee-- except Joe Biden. Forget-- if you must-- that Status Quo Joe has an abysmal decades long record of serving corporate power and the military-industrial complex-- and for playing footsie with unreconstructed racists. Like Trump, Biden has nothing to offer the American people but his own neuroses and a vile family. It doesn't matter which family is worse, neither should be anywhere near the White House.