“Every day this bribery scandal becomes more cre
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Posted On: 08/01/2023 3:08:30 PM
“Every day this bribery scandal becomes more credible,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday night. The bribery scandal to which Comer is referring is the one he injected into the political conversation nearly three months ago — one alleging that President Biden took a substantial bribe from an executive with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
Despite Comer’s claim, though, the allegation is not becoming more credible every day. In fact, it is no more credible now than it was in early May, when Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) first introduced it. But Hannity and Comer have a vested interest in presenting the allegation as credible and a vested interest in suggesting that closed-door testimony from one of Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s former business partners, Devon Archer, added to that credibility.
At this point, it does not. And to see why it does not, consider the central argument made by Comer, Hannity and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Monday night — an argument that is easily debunked right at the start.
The argument centers on Hunter Biden’s and Archer’s positions on the board of Burisma during the time that Joe Biden was serving as vice president.
There is no real dispute — and there has never been any real dispute — that Hunter Biden’s role was a function of his presenting himself as a conduit to his father. Instead, the debate is over the extent to which that presentation was accurate. To date, there has been no evidence tying Joe Biden to Hunter Biden’s work in any concrete way, with the White House insisting that the president wasn’t involved in Hunter Biden’s business.
The bombshell that was promised from Archer’s testimony was that Hunter Biden would sporadically call his dad while in the presence of business partners, again to reinforce his purported access. But this comports with the idea that Hunter Biden was selling this perception. The lack of evidence looping President Biden into any business decisions or profit, despite years of searching, undercuts the insinuation that Biden was corrupted by these calls. Comer and Jordan are often left simply insisting that Biden’s past denials of involvement are eroded by his having taken his son’s calls.
On Hannity’s show, Comer tried to build the case that, as vice president, Biden’s role was more significant. He claimed that Archer “said that Hunter Biden was under immense pressure while they both served on the Burisma board to call Washington, D.C., immediately and try to get [Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor] Shokin fired. And, according to Jordan’s account, five days later, Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine.” Speaking to Ukraine’s legislative body on Dec. 9, 2015, he demanded that Shokin be ousted.
Hannity repeated the timeline for his viewers: Hunter Biden, Archer and the head of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, met with the board of the company in Dubai. They called Washington and, “then immediately thereafter,” Biden headed for Ukraine. Comer agreed, saying that “they were pressuring Hunter to immediately get on the phone with his father and get this stopped.”
Fine. Except that Joe Biden’s trip to Ukraine was announced in mid-November. And except that, in mid-September, the American ambassador to Ukraine elevated concerns about Shokin’s reliability in the fight against corruption — the reason Joe Biden offered for demanding that Shokin be fired.
Despite Comer’s claim, though, the allegation is not becoming more credible every day. In fact, it is no more credible now than it was in early May, when Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) first introduced it. But Hannity and Comer have a vested interest in presenting the allegation as credible and a vested interest in suggesting that closed-door testimony from one of Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s former business partners, Devon Archer, added to that credibility.
At this point, it does not. And to see why it does not, consider the central argument made by Comer, Hannity and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Monday night — an argument that is easily debunked right at the start.
The argument centers on Hunter Biden’s and Archer’s positions on the board of Burisma during the time that Joe Biden was serving as vice president.
There is no real dispute — and there has never been any real dispute — that Hunter Biden’s role was a function of his presenting himself as a conduit to his father. Instead, the debate is over the extent to which that presentation was accurate. To date, there has been no evidence tying Joe Biden to Hunter Biden’s work in any concrete way, with the White House insisting that the president wasn’t involved in Hunter Biden’s business.
The bombshell that was promised from Archer’s testimony was that Hunter Biden would sporadically call his dad while in the presence of business partners, again to reinforce his purported access. But this comports with the idea that Hunter Biden was selling this perception. The lack of evidence looping President Biden into any business decisions or profit, despite years of searching, undercuts the insinuation that Biden was corrupted by these calls. Comer and Jordan are often left simply insisting that Biden’s past denials of involvement are eroded by his having taken his son’s calls.
On Hannity’s show, Comer tried to build the case that, as vice president, Biden’s role was more significant. He claimed that Archer “said that Hunter Biden was under immense pressure while they both served on the Burisma board to call Washington, D.C., immediately and try to get [Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor] Shokin fired. And, according to Jordan’s account, five days later, Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine.” Speaking to Ukraine’s legislative body on Dec. 9, 2015, he demanded that Shokin be ousted.
Hannity repeated the timeline for his viewers: Hunter Biden, Archer and the head of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, met with the board of the company in Dubai. They called Washington and, “then immediately thereafter,” Biden headed for Ukraine. Comer agreed, saying that “they were pressuring Hunter to immediately get on the phone with his father and get this stopped.”
Fine. Except that Joe Biden’s trip to Ukraine was announced in mid-November. And except that, in mid-September, the American ambassador to Ukraine elevated concerns about Shokin’s reliability in the fight against corruption — the reason Joe Biden offered for demanding that Shokin be fired.
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