Former Vice President Joe Biden says his staff members did not tell him about the possible conflict of interest that involved him and his son, Hunter, vis-à-vis their dealings in Ukraine.
But that revelation in Biden’s recent interview with National Public Radio is, in a sense, old news. The warning from a top official at State, ignored by Biden’s staff, went public some time ago.
The real shocker? Biden flatly stated that he won’t obey a subpoena from the U.S. Senate, where he was once chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to testify during an impeachment trial of President Trump.
The attempted coup might not make it that far. But if it does, and the Biden boys refuse to testify, what happens?
Will the Senate hold Biden, the top Democrat contender for president, in contempt?
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The Interview
Biden might get that invitation to testify because of his role in the international monkeyshines known as the Biden-Burisma influence-peddling scheme.
The nut of that story?
In 2016, Sleepy Joe threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees destined for Ukraine if the country did not fire prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was investigating an energy company called Burisma Holdings for corruption. Why would Biden do that? Because Burisma put Biden’s son, Hunter, who was kicked out of the Navy for drug use and knew nothing about energy or Ukraine, on its board. And the company richly rewarded him for invaluable work.
Biden-Burisma and Ukraine are the nerve bundle of Trump’s impeachment. On July 25, Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky to investigate Biden-Burisma and Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election on behalf of Hillary Clinton. The media call that forgotten collusion a “debunked conspiracy theory.”
It isn’t debunked, but at any rate, Trump offered Ukraine a “quid pro quo,” Democrats allege: Probe Biden and Ukraine collusion with Clinton, and I’ll release military aid.
Thus, the subpoena, which Biden will ignore, he told leftist NPR’s Rachel Martin:
Martin: If you are subpoenaed, would you comply?
Biden: No. I’m not going to let you take the eye off the ball here. Everybody knows what this is about. This is a Trump gambit he plays. Whenever he’s in trouble, he tries to find someone else to divert attention to.
Martin: But this is a real thing that’s happening. Republicans are suggesting that they would subpoena you and President Trump. These issues will be parsed out in the Senate trial.
Biden: That’s right.
Martin: But the question is, would you comply with the subpoena?
Biden: No, I will not yield to what everybody is looking for here…. Everybody knows the issue here is not what I did, because no one has proved one scintilla of evidence that I did anything other than do my job for America as well as anybody could have done it. Making sure that we, in fact, got rid of a corrupt prosecutor who everybody, including our allies and including our allies as well as, as, as the IMF and everyone else said has to go. I did my job incredibly well. And even the people in his administration have testified to my character, testified to my honesty.
That prosecutor, the one Biden “got rid of,” doesn’t agree, and says he got the pink slip because he was hot on the trail of Biden fils — the former drug addict.
The import of Biden’s refusal: I am above the law. I needn’t testify because I’m honest and everyone, including me, says so.
The question, again, is this: What will the Senate do if the leading Democrat candidate for president ducks a subpoena?
George Kent’s Warning
Beyond Biden’s startling claim that he is exempt from a Senate subpoena, he also claimed his staff kept him in the dark about diplomat George Kent’s warning that Hunter Biden’s lucrative position with Burisma was a major problem for the Obama administration.
Martin: You know it didn’t look good for Hunter Biden to be on that board, even if he did nothing wrong. The optics weren’t good. And you talk a lot about what it means to be a Biden and the integrity that is imbued in that family name. But there were former White House aides of yours who tried to warn you about the potential conflicts of interest.
Biden: Nobody warned me about a potential conflict of interest. Nobody warned me about that.
When Martin pressed him and said Kent “raised it to you, and your staff,” Biden stonewalled: “No, he didn’t say me. He did not say me. I never, never heard that once at all.”
Maybe. But that too raises a question.
Why would the former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee need a diplomat to explain that a vice president’s son doing business in Ukraine, when that vice president is involved diplomatically with the country, is a conflict of interest and smacks of self-dealing and influence peddling?
And why did Biden, the man in charge, blame underlings for not telling him? Where will the buck stop in a Biden administration, to quote another famous Democrat?
Photo: AP Images
R. Cort Kirkwood is a long-time contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
