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People who think this proves anythng don't understand how corporate boards work. Especially for a relatively young company, board memberships are largely about creating appearances. That is why the former president of Poland was on the board of Burisma, and why Theranos added people like George Schultz to their board. And that is even more the case in in a country with high levels of corruption, like Ukraine; putting big names on the board makes investors think the company has connections and the advantages that come with that. What Burisma needed from Hunter Biden was the appearance of advantage, not so much actual advantage.
People who think that the fact that the practice is widespread proves anything doesn't understand how the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act works. This is 100% illegal if we catch companies with a suitable US presence doing it for children of foreign politicians.
It is illegal under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to have a relative of foreign politician on the board of a US company?
Depends on details. See also.
From your link: "Officials are trying to establish whether the bank hired young workers from prominent, well-connected Chinese families in order to curry favor and win business."
Yes, that is obviously improper. But that begs the question, right? The assumption that if a company puts a famous "unqualified" name on its corporate board, it must be for an improper purpose, is highly naive.
The assumption that if a company puts a famous "unqualified" name on its corporate board, it must be for a proper purpose (and that saying that you're simply getting "appearance" benefits is a magical incantation which guarantees that it's a proper purpose), is highly naive.
I didn't say it was for a proper purpose. Not once.
You just highly implied it, which is kind of your MO. Cards on the table, which of the following do you agree/disagree with?
No, I didn't imply it at all. I made a very simple point: The assumption that, if a company names an "unqualified" person to their board, it can only be for the purpose of bribery or the like, is based on a failure to understand how corporate board appointments work.
As for your questions:
But, again, all of that begs the question as to whether it was for an improper purpose. Again, the common argument, "it must have been for an improper purpose, because all he brings to the table is his name" is based on ignorance, because a famous name is all that many, if not most, corporate board members bring. As is often the case, it is rarely true that "if you are not outraged, you are not paying attention," but rather that "if you are outraged, you probably don't understand what is going on."
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Most 1st world countries have laws like FCPA which prohibit their companies from bribing 3rd world governments, with broad extra-territorial application and broad definitions of bribery. It isn't per se illegal to put a relative of a foreign politician on your board, but if you do it in a notoriously corrupt country then you are going to be spending some time helping the police with their enquiries into precisely what your motives were.
The reverse case - a 1st world politician accepting a bribe from a 3rd world company - comes under domestic bribery laws which are far harder to convict under - basically you either need a quo that is so outrageous that no honest politician could have delivered it, or smoking gun evidence linking the quid to the quo.
The people who write the laws think have a much lower prior on a domestic politician accepting a bribe than on a foreign politician accepting one.
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I agree with that, but it still means he got the seat because his surname was "Biden". If he was "Hunter Morrissey" with the same résumé, would he have been picked? Hard to know because hindsight is always right.
But then again, "trading on your connections" is another way of saying "networking", and we're all supposed to network for the sake of our careers!
Yes, no one doubts that he got the job because of his name. That is my point: As is often the case in corporate boards, it is the name that the company is paying for.
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He wasn’t just “networking” or “trading connections” he was at a bare minimum using his name as a sort of mafia style protection. The prosecutor in Ukraine or the President of Ukraine isn’t going to want to go after a firm with Hunter on the board because they would assume if they built a case they would be getting a phone call being told to drop the case. Which according to the Ukranian prosecutor he did get that phone call to back off.
Networking is like I have a smart friend who would be perfect for your company to get their work done. What Hunter was doing was promising political protection. Otherwise known as corruption.
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When the least corrupt interpretation plausible is that Vice President's crackhead son accepted six or seven figure payments or no-show jobs to intentionally create the appearance of a corrupt bribe scheme in a country where the Vice President was leveraging American spending to have prosecutors removed, this is still a huge scandal by any reasonable interpretation.
I know this is a waste of time, but:
And what, Hunter is just so earnest that he failed to notice that his employment was based on creating the appearance of the ability to influence the highest level of American politics? I said the least corrupt plausible interpretation, which doesn't imply willingness to accept an utterly ridiculous level of obliviousness to the implications of accepting payments from a corrupt company in Eastern Europe.
No, I did not say he doesn’t notice. I actually said the exact opposite in #2 above.
The point is that those who think that there must have been a bribe, because why else would Burisma want an "unqualified" person on their board, are being very naive.
This wasn’t just any board. It was of a company under investigation for corruption. It wasn’t some trinket maker. They needed a very specific thing - a person able to give them political protection.
This wasn’t even say a Theranos looking to add a name to get investors to look at their investment pitch and renting legitimacy. It was a firm looking specifically to not have their assets seized and go to jail.
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It also ignores the fact that Hunter at minimum delivered on the access to his dad. And his dad arranged a call with the company using an anonymous email. Mr. Peters has a lot of explaining to do.
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Being cynically blunt, isn't it true that being related to/the mistress of powerful people both gives you the opportunity to do favours, and encourages people to be nice to you so that you can do favours for them?
I'm reading a lot of biographies of figures in the Tudor courts recently, and it's a recurring theme: people using connections to old school friends, neighbours, distant relations and former employers/servants to send what are practically begging letters, often accompanied by a present, to ask for "so I hear that this job is going now... any chance of considering me/my son/my useless brother that the family needs to get a soft job for?"
I don't think the Ukrainians are unique in making that kind of assumption; I know if I heard that So-and-so's cousin got a nice quango job, or a former top civil servant has moved to work for private industry in the field they formerly oversaw, I'd be making the same kind of assumptions in my own country 😁
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It also seems utter bullshit. This dumb crack addled son was able to pull a fast one on both his father and hardened Eastern European oligarchs? Come on.
Hunter didn't pull a fast one on Joe. Joe is familiar enough with politics to know that Hunter was selling access to him, and happily continued to meet with Hunter's "clients" in order to facilitate Hunter's scheme. On Joe's part this is sleazy, but it is neither unusual nor illegal - selling access to politicians is what professional lobbyists do for a living, and meeting with clients of a lobbyist who donates to your campaign/hires your relative/might hire you after you leave office is SOP for DC swamp creatures. On Hunter's part it is a FARA violation and, it seems, tax evasion. (But FARA is almost certainly unconstitutional).
If you believe the official story (that Burisma hired Hunter as an "OK name" to make them look more respectable for a possible future US floatation) then no fast one was pulled - having Hunter on the board got them the access they were paying for. If Hunter did pull a fast one on Burisma then this would not be surprising - lobbyists promising influence but only providing access is an extremely common scam.
FWIW, if someone told me they could buy me the VP of the US for a mere 5 million USD, I would consider the offer too-good-to-be-true.
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