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I see it as quite analogous to the Trump-Russia investigation, i.e. there was plenty of smoke, and several people under the President were up to no good. However, there was no fire despite extensive searching by the opposition party. The connection incriminating the President himself was always missing.
Come on. Literally his son met with his business partners in his presence. He also complained privately about having to share with Joe. Sure, there's no fire. The whole family lived off this grift for years, and it's obvious to any non-partisan observer. I mean, why the heck did Burisma paid Hunter, for his artistic talents? What could he deliver to them but the link to his father? Please, live in denial as long as you want, this is really not the case I'm willing to spend any time on, it's just ridiculous by now.
Nope, in that investigation there was no "smoke" beyond the infamous Steele dossier, which as we know now was wholly manufactured and paid for by Clinton campaign and promoted by the same campaign operatives, either official or de-facto. Trump has some dirt on him (like Trump University, or $TRUMP, or some of other deals which can reasonably raise some eyebrows) but the whole Russia thing is a pile of pure shit. And, as I said, these things eventually come out - we now know who invented this shit, who paid to whom for this shit, who promoted this shit and who operated the whole shit farm. We will, eventually, also know who operated the shit farm and who paid to whom and how much for the Biden RICO family too. Until then, feel free to deny it.
Hunter wanted to make it seem like Joe was in on it so Hunter could plausibly "sell access", but no money ever made it to Joe. Hunter was obviously corrupt, but there wasn't a link to Joe. Joe even agreeing to make small talk with Hunter's associates was bad no matter how Hunter lied and said they were just his "friends", but far worse was the pardon he gave his son. That's a clear example of corruption. Basically all Presidents have abused the pardon power and it would be better if it was simply abolished outright.
For the Trump-Russia investigation, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, and Roger Stone were all engaged in a bunch of shady stuff. What they were doing was by no means a "pile of pure shit". The issue for Dems is what those individuals did didn't really reach up to Trump.
Right. Joe Biden knew his son is a corrupt degenerate who is selling access to him, and let his business partners, who Joe knew expect benefits from him and pay his son for this, to meet him, but he totally wasn't in on the deal. And this kept repeating for years on and he wasn't even curious about what's up with that. And for some reason Hunter, in private communications, felt the need to falsely complain about having to pay Joe off because he foresaw all of it being published one day and wanted to create a false impression in advance. And also he somehow convinced other people to lie about it, for absolutely no benefit to them. And the partners, getting absolutely no benefits from Joe and actually nothing at all as a return for their money, kept coming back to Hunter for years, and paying him enormous sums, because he was just that good. Because that's how bribes usually work - you give somebody a bribe, he does absolutely nothing for you, you give another one, same thing, and then more and more people come and give you millions of dollars, for nothing at all. Just how dumb do you think one should be to buy it? I'm afraid I can't.
Dated from the date he started dealing with Burisma (and Romanians, and Kazakhs, and China, and Russians, and...). Come on, man. I mean, you can in as deep denial as you want but I feel very uncomfortable being expected to seriously address stuff like this. It's like trying to prove the Nigerian prince doesn't really want to share his wealth with you. By this point, if you want to believe he is, I really shouldn't.
That's not what the claim was. The claim wasn't "certain people in Trump campaign did some ''shady stuff''". The claim was Trump personally is a Russian asset, who was in direct and active cooperation with Russia, or as members of Party of Civility and Decency pungently expressed it, "Putin's cock holster". And multiple prominent Democrat figures swore they personally saw ample proof of that, with their own eye. They all brazenly lied of course, there was no such proof in existence (and none of them by the way suffered any consequences for it). Manafort et all may have been a bunch of shady assholes, but the claim wasn't "Trump sometimes hires assholes". That claim would never fly because everybody in politics sometimes hires assholes. Democrat operatives ranks are full of ginormous assholes, as are Republican ones. But the claim was Trump campaign and he personally has been directly collaborating with Russian government - and that was a very specific claim, not some vague ill-defined "shady stuff". And that claim has been completely false, and literally every single person involved in its creation knew it was false from the very start - we now have evidence that describe how this idea to create this claim was originated and who and how produced the whole show. It wasn't some honest mistake that they thought Trump is bad but they got carried away. They created the whole thing on purpose. So please do not motte-and-bailey me here - it wasn't about Manafort's "shady stuff".
First off, cut it out with this crap, please. Denigrating people who disagree with you as "being in denial" adds nothing productive to the conversation.
In terms of Joe, the best evidence that he didn't take bribes was that Republicans (a hostile party) subpoenaed his bank accounts and repeatedly found nothing of the sort. Joe gave excessive leeway to his son Hunter -- partially from Beau's death, partially from not wanting Hunter to spiral again -- but never discussed anything but simple chitchat with Hunter's "friends". That’s consistent with a father who keeps family and state separated on paper while ignoring the obvious optics problem. Yes, companies will pay decent sums even for this. A few million dollars here and there might be quite a lot in politics, but its chump change for many businesses that would pay even higher sums for (legal) lobbying that also doesn't guarantee outcomes, and which don't even come with access to the President. Some might be willing to pay millions just for the novelty of their firm having dinners where the President makes an appearance.
In terms of the Trump stuff, I broadly agree that the most histrionic Dem attacks weren't true. But that wasn't my point. My point was that there was indeed an issue with Trump's underlings being shady scoundrels. This could easily make a reasonable person think the guy at the top was doing the same sorts of stuff -- but eventually this wasn't proven to be true. Still, there's some degree of a problem with Trump hiring corrupt people just like there's a problem with Joe putting on the blinders when it came to his son.
Im not up to speed on how this discourse went, but I dont think kickbacks to Joe personally are especially relevant? He could have just played his part so that Hunter would have money. I mean whatever he was taking in at that point was mostly for the next generation anyway.
They were the only thing that was really relevant, because that would have been fully illegal and thus an easily impeachable offense. Having family members sell access isn't illegal assuming no quid-pro-quo, it's just an optics problem.
No, what I mean is, if Joe offered to do whatever thing the client wants to corrupt him for, in exchange for payment to Hunter, and Hunter doesn't give any money to Joe, and thats the plan. I would expect this to be illegal as well, but I dont know US law that well.
That could have been illegal still, but R's investigating it mostly dismissed it since the eyewitnesses consistently said Joe just made chitchat and never even discussed official topics, let alone agree to do specific things. They went down checking for bribes instead since they thought that would be a more fruitful endeavor although that too uncovered nothing.
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