Will Biden’s Stupidity Be His Undoing?

Joe Biden is stupid. I’ve said it a hundred times in these columns. I’ve said it most often in response to those who claim that age has diminished his cognitive skills. I’ve pointed out his history of plagiarism as evidence of person without the intellectual skills for critical thinking. I’ve pointed out his history of lies and tall tales all designed to make a dull man look interesting. I’ve pointed out his unending verbal gaffs as evidence of a man who cannot hold together a complex idea or thought from beginning to end. I’ve pointed out his hair plugs, capped bright teeth, his artificially smooth skin and his sartorial splendor as evidence of a dull man trying to look successful and intelligent. None of it really works. Joe Biden is a dull man who has defied the “Peter Principle” and risen far above his level of competence.

Joe Biden is also a crook. And in keeping with his general persona, not a very smart crook. He isn’t the first crook to serve in high office and he won’t be the last. I doubt that Mr. Biden started out as a crook. In fact, he may well have started out as a latter day Jefferson Smith (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington). At any rate, Mr. Biden watched his fellow members of Congress go from rags to riches routinely despite the fact they made only about $170,000 per year. And when he saw former President Bill Clinton and his grasping wife Hillary go from “bankrupt” to over $180 Million dollars without lifting a finger he knew that he too could become rich – hugely rich – without lifting a finger. All he had to do was sell influence and move government money, contracts and access to those who would profit greatly while he “wet his beak.”

Mr. Biden is a lawyer – well, I mean, he graduated from law school and despite his bravado about graduating in the upper half of his class, he in fact graduated ninth from the bottom. But he’s not a very good lawyer. He was admitted to the Delaware State Bar in 1969 and mostly bumped around the public defender offices – court appointed criminal law. Instead of practicing law he immediately seized upon political office finding that it was easy work, a steady income and very little accountability. Mr. Biden never looked back. He has been on the public dole in one form or another since 1969 – over fifty years.

And because Mr. Biden is not a very good lawyer he has made the fundamental mistake that bribery requires proof that he – in his own name – has received money from those who sought political favor and that the specific political favor must be identified. A really rookie mistake. And one that not only seems to have effected Mr. Biden’s judgment but the judgment of those seeking to hold him accountable – including members of the various committees of the Republican controlled House of Representatives and the United States Attorney for Delaware (now Special Counsel) who has been “investigating” Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, on various tax evasion and gun possession charges for over five years – all without a hint that the investigation has disclosed corruption of Mr. Biden or any of the other members of his family.

Look, the really smart lawyers – like former Presidents Barack Obama (D) and Bill Clinton (d) and Mr. Clinton’s grasping and greedy wife, Hillary – used “charitable” foundations to park money paid from foreign governments and wealthy donors for access. Of course they and other members of their families “worked” for those charities and were paid salaries and expenses – in many instances the “expenses” exceeded the salaries. They also cashed in on “speaker” fees and “book sales.” They spoke to foreign and domestic groups seeking access for massive sums – in some instances up to a half a million dollars – to lecture about things they really knew nothing about but always seemed to be aligned with a solution that required political intervention – their intervention. They sold books en masse to organization seeking access who in turn gave them away as “party favors” because few actually wanted to pay for their advise.

These are some of the methods for the “pay to play” culture that suffocates government at virtually all levels. They were used not because they are lawful but rather because they are next to impossible to prosecute. And even more difficult to prosecute when the would-be prosecutors are more than willing to turn a blind eye towards those politicians with whom they are allied.

Not surprisingly once these people moved out of the orbit of influence donations, speaker requests, and book sales fell dramatically.

But Mr. Biden was seventy-eight when he took office. During his four years between being Vice-president and becoming President, Mr. Biden drew speaking requests at about $200,000 – an amount considered middling for speakers generally and embarrassingly low for influence peddlers. They would have dried up completely had he not sought the presidency. Mr. Biden and his family have always engaged in influence peddling but they realized that they needed to move fast because of Mr. Biden’s advanced age.

So here is the fundamental mistake. Instead of relying on phony charitable organizations, books and speeches, Mr. Biden seized upon the idea that he could extract direct payments from those seeking influence if he directed that those payments go to members of his family who could be trusted to hold the money for his use as needed. He believed that he would only be at risk if there was direct line from the donor to him individually. Thus, there was the repeated response by Mr. Biden when questioned about corruption and influence peddling – “Where’s the money, Jack?” or that he had not “taken a penny” from any foreign government. These are denials that reek of parsing the truth. Mr. Biden probably did not receive a direct payment for those seeking influence and/or that the source of any payment was not a “foreign government – more likely it was a payment to his son, Hunter or other family members, and while it was not a “foreign government” per se, it was an entity controlled by a foreign government like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or some eastern European oligarch at the direction of their government.

But you do not have to receive a direct payment in order to receive a benefit from a payment made to a third party. If the party who ultimately receives the payment holds it for your future benefit, or pays for your current obligations, you have received the benefit and you are just as guilty of soliciting and accepting bribes as you would be if there was a photograph of you accepting a suitcase full of cash. There is no difference between you receiving money and using it to pay for your purchases and expenses and someone else receiving the money to pay for your purchases and expenses. But then you wouldn’t expect someone as dumb as Mr. Biden with such poor legal skills to have thought of that.

And you don’t have to look very far to see that is precisely what has been done in the corruption of the presidency by Mr. Biden. The Daily Mirror, in a July 5, 2021 described a series of emails from Hunter Biden to family members and others to business associates. In an email to his daughter, Hunter complained:

“. . .that ‘half’ of his salary went to paying his father’s bills while he was Vice President, casting doubt on the Joe’s previous claims that he’s never benefited from his son’s business dealings.

“The bills included a $190-a-month AT&T phone bill and thousands in repairs on Joe’s lakeside home in Wilmington.”

And in an emails between Hunter and his business partners, he acknowledged:

“But in emails between Hunter and Eric Schwerin, his business partner at Rosemont Seneca, in 2010, they discussed how much they needed to spend paying Joe’s bills.

“The subject was ‘JRB bills’ – which match Joe’s initials – and described how $2,600 was to be paid to a contractor for a ‘stone retaining wall’ at Joe’s home, along with $1,475 to be paid to a painter for the ‘back wall and columns’ of the property and $1,239 to a builder who’d fixed the AC at Joe’s late mother’s home. He rented that house to the Secret Service for $2,200 a month.”

These payments were more likely than not just a small tranche of Mr. Biden’s bills paid for by family members and/or their businesses since Mr. Biden’s time as Vice President to former President Barack Obama. (There is no way that Mr. Obama did not know of the corruption practiced by Mr. Biden and apparently did nothing about it – probably because it would be just as embarrassing to Mr. Obama and the Democrat Party as it would have been to Mr. Biden.)

Currently the House committees investigating the corruption of Hunter Biden and probably President Biden have been doing a sterling job tracing the money paid by individuals and foreign governments to the Biden family. The next step is to then trace the payments made by them on behalf of Mr. Biden whether for expenses or investments to close the loop on the bribery schemes.

What a sad day for America that we have someone so corrupt as President of the United States. And sad not only because Mr. Biden is corrupt but because the entire world knows he is corrupt and yet he stands as America’s representative to the world.