Whatever one may think of President Trump’s actions on Ukraine, it should not preclude the media from pressing Joe Biden on the shady dealings that his son Hunter had while Biden was vice president.
Yes, I thought the transcript of the phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was really bad, and I believe the claims made in the whistleblower complaint warrant follow up.
But at the same time, as Biden seeks to become president, we need to know more about what he knew of his son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine while he became the point person for the Obama administration’s policy in the region.
There’s simply no plausible explanation as to why Hunter, despite a lack of energy experience and a recent discharge from the U.S. Naval Reserve after a positive cocaine test, would be put on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma and paid up to $50,000 a month other than the fact that his father was vice president at the time and the company was hoping to curry favor and bolster its prestige.
Biden and his defenders say the whole story is “debunked” because of the aspect that entails him boasting on camera about strong-arming Ukraine into firing chief prosecutor Viktor Shokin by threatening to withhold money. The defense is that Shokin had already set aside an investigation into Burisma and that the real reason he was pushed out is that he had fallen into disfavor with the Obama administration and the international community for failing to tackle corruption. Biden, the defense goes, was just the messenger for U.S. policy.
Even still, there are plenty of important lines of inquiry for Biden. For instance: Was he aware of Hunter’s deal? Did he think it was OK? Did he raise any concerns within the Obama administration about potential conflicts of interest, especially if he was being made the messenger on Ukraine policy? Furthermore, looking forward, how would he, as president, handle potential conflicts of interest should corporations try to influence policy through his son? After all, as president, he would no longer be the messenger but the decider.
These are all very legitimate lines of inquiry.
There is a reluctance to pursue this line of questioning, however, out of fear that anybody who pursues the story will be giving Trump just what he wanted — an investigation into Biden and a way to distract attention from his own misdeeds.
In the liberal narrative of the 2016 election, the media paid too much attention to Hillary Clinton’s private email server and thus overlooked all of Trump’s corruption. They see any questioning of Biden on this matter as falling into the same trap. Democratic opponents are also reluctant to bring up the issue because they don’t want to appear as if they’re echoing Trump’s talking points.
But the media does not have to be held captive by this calculation. There is a universe in which Trump’s efforts to get Ukraine to investigate Biden can be thoroughly reported while the Hunter Biden story also draws more scrutiny.
