Late last night, Miranda Devine wrote an essay that’s ostensibly about a poll showing that Americans think that Biden was wrong to brush off the news about his squirreling classified documents as “nothing.” In fact, most Americans, including Democrats, think what happened is “something.” But buried in Devine’s article was well-grounded speculation more interesting than poll results: She believes there’s inferential evidence that Hunter Biden was openly selling national security information to foreign governments and corporations.
Devine opens her article, “Majority of voters, including Democrats, believe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents is a scandal,” by discussing a Rasmussen poll asking voters whether they believe that the way in which Biden handled classified documents is a “scandal.” As you may recall, Biden’s only take on the increasing number of classified document finds was that “there’s no there there” and that “there’s nothing there.”
Au contraire said the voters that Rasmussen polled. Those poll results show that 72% of voters, including 55% of Democrat voters, think that Biden’s conduct constitutes a “scandal.” Indeed, 48% believe that it’s a “major scandal.”
Hunter Biden turns out to be part of what voters consider so scandalous. Of those polled, 60% believe that Hunter used classified documents in his business deals.
So, did he? It’s entirely possible that Hunter did indeed borrow information from Daddy to get money from foreign businesses.
It turns out, though, that you don’t just need to speculate about Hunter’s sudden high-level research and linguistic skills to be suspicious. Hunter was openly offering foreign oligarchs information that promised was unavailable elsewhere. Writes Devine:
The classified files Hur is investigating cover Biden’s vice presidential years, when Hunter and his uncle Jim Biden were actively monetizing the family name overseas. Some documents reportedly date back to the president’s time in the Senate.
[snip]
For instance, documents on the laptop from 2011 show that Hunter offered to sell intelligence on Russian oligarchs to the US aluminum firm Alcoa Inc. for $55,000.
In internal discussions over Hunter’s proposal, a senior executive at Alcoa suggested the information was valuable because it “would not otherwise be on Government Affairs team’s radar.”
As I previously reported, Hunter offered to “provide Alcoa with statistical analysis of political and corporate risks, elite networks associated with Oleg Deripaska (OD), Russian CEO of Basic Element company and United company RUSAL.”
Alcoa had just signed a metal supply agreement with RUSAL.
Hunter promised to provide a “list of elites of similar rank in Russia, map of OD’s [Deripaska’s] networks based on frequency of interaction with selected elites and countries.”
Devine has even more information about pricy offers Hunter was making to Russian oligarchs, promising to give them “raw data” from an “elite mapping procedure.” As Devine says, “How Hunter, 52, a raging drug addict with a voracious appetite for cash during much of his father’s vice presidency, got access to classified information is a matter of national concern.”
It’s not necessarily beneficial if Biden gets impeached because that allows Democrats to put their chosen 2024 candidate in the White House, first as Kamala’s Veep and then, when she’s driven out, as President. There is a real incumbent advantage. With the media rhapsodizing about the chosen one, there’s a strong likelihood that a credulous public, with help from a gamed election, will keep that Democrat in the White House. Better a lame duck Biden than an ascendent Michelle or Gavin Newsom.
Ultimately, though, assuming a clean 2024 election, it would be a wonderful thing if Biden and his son Hunter were definitively proven (at an honestly conducted trial, of course) to have engaged in criminal conduct and were then sent for a long stay in one of the less nice federal prisons.