Former Rep. Jason Chaffetz condemned President Joe Biden over news that a Russian lobbyist linked to the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline made a sizable donation to the Democratic cause.
During an appearance on Fox News, Chaffetz, a Utah Republican who served as chairman of the House Oversight Committee from 2015 to 2017, argued that Biden violated his own ethics pledge, even though the Democratic Party returned the money and noted it was received following a botched vetting process.
“You blamed Trump every single step of the way, saying he was embedded in collusion with Russia. Millions of dollars later, there was nothing,” Chaffetz said. “But, you start looking at the Biden record, and hey, we’re only days into this administration, and guess what? He’s already violating his own ethics pledge … Russia has gotten exactly what they wanted.”
BIDEN RECEIVED FUNDS FROM RUSSIAN LOBBYIST BEFORE CONCEDING ON MAJOR PIPELINE: REPORT
On his first day in office, Biden’s White House announced that each appointee in every executive agency would be required to sign an ethics pledge that, among other things, included a commitment to not accept any gifts from registered lobbyists or lobbying organizations.
Biden’s decision to lift sanctions on the company responsible for the construction of Nord Stream 2 has been hammered by numerous GOP critics. Biden’s own secretary of state, Antony Blinken, conceded the completion of the pipeline would “weaken European energy security and that of Ukraine and Eastern flank NATO and EU countries.” But Blinken told the House on Foreign Affairs Committee the administration is trying to “make something positive out of a bad hand that we inherited when we came into office.”
The Russia lobbyist who made donations to the Biden campaign, Richard Burt, is a direct lobbyist for the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline, leading to allegations of the campaign donation and decision to waive sanctions on the company responsible for the construction of the pipeline are linked.
Burt, a former Republican and U.S. ambassador to Germany in the 1980s, made a pair of donations to assist Biden’s presidential election: a $4,000 contribution to Biden’s Victory Fund just ahead of the 2020 presidential election and a $10,000 donation to Unite The Country, a liberal political action committee, in March 2020.
The Democratic National Committee told the New York Post it returned the money after the news outlet reported on the donation in late May.
“When Richard Burt donated to Biden Victory Fund, he failed to acknowledge that he was a registered foreign agent and was therefore ineligible to contribute,” a DNC spokesman insisted. “Because Burt also listed a different employer than on his [Foreign Agents Registration Act] registration, he was not flagged during our vetting process.”
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Still, Chaffetz argued Biden’s attempt to fashion himself as “Mr. Ethics” is a failure.
“He tried to sell himself as, ‘Oh, I’m Joe Biden, Mr. Ethics.’ But Joe Biden has ethics problems every single step of the way,” the former GOP congressman said. “He lives in this mystical world that I just don’t understand. He set the standard, and he violates it … days later.”
