Probably this Hunter Biden situation was perfectly innocent,

[pnwmom]

knowing Joe Biden. He's a patriot.

However, it sure looks like something that could be used to confuse the electorate in a general election. There will be accusations against Don Jr. and Hunter Biden, both involving Russia or Ukraine, and we're counting on the average non-involved, low-information voter to decide Jr. is a crook but Hunter's fine . . .

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/politics/biden-son-ukraine.html

Hunter Biden was a Yale-educated lawyer who had served on the boards of Amtrak and a number of nonprofit organizations and think tanks, but lacked any experience in Ukraine and just months earlier had been discharged from the Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine. He would be paid as much as $50,000 per month in some months for his work for the company, Burisma Holdings.

SNIP

The broad outlines of how the Bidens’ roles intersected in Ukraine have been known for some time. The former vice president’s campaign said that he had always acted to carry out United States policy without regard to any activities of his son, that he had never discussed the matter with Hunter Biden and that he learned of his son’s role with the Ukrainian energy company from news reports.

But new details about Hunter Biden’s involvement, and a decision this year by the current Ukrainian prosecutor general to reverse himself and reopen an investigation into Burisma, have pushed the issue back into the spotlight just as the senior Mr. Biden is beginning his 2020 presidential campaign.

They show how Hunter Biden and his American business partners were part of a broad effort by Burisma to bring in well-connected Democrats during a period when the company was facing investigations backed not just by domestic Ukrainian forces but by officials in the Obama administration. Hunter Biden’s work for Burisma prompted concerns among State Department officials at the time that the connection could complicate Vice President Biden’s diplomacy in Ukraine, former officials said.

“I have had no role whatsoever in relation to any investigation of Burisma, or any of its officers,” Hunter Biden said Wednesday in a statement. “I explicitly limited my role to focus on corporate governance best practices to facilitate Burisma’s desire to expand globally.”

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/may/07/viral-image/fact-checking-joe-biden-hunter-biden-and-ukraine/

Key takeaways
• Hunter Biden did hold a directorship for a Ukrainian gas company while his father was vice president. Experts agree that Hunter Biden's acceptance of the position created a conflict of interest for his father.

• Vice President Joe Biden did urge Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, with the threat of withholding U.S. aid. But that was the position of the wider U.S. government, as well as other international institutions.

• We found no evidence to support the idea that Joe Biden advocated with his son's interests in mind, as the message suggests. It's not even clear that the company was actively under investigation or that a change in prosecutors benefited it.

[Celerity]

1. The Intercept (of all places, lolol) debunked it and shredded Vogel and the NYT

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287115160

[Tipperary]

2. Oh lordie.

This is becoming obvious.

[LongtimeAZDem]

3. +1

[highplainsdem]

4. Your concern is noted.

[LibFarmer]

5. Someone really has it in for Biden

we're counting on the average non-involved, low-information voter to decide Jr. is a crook but Hunter's fine . . .

This is a very weaselly innuendo. Almost like saying "We are trying to convince a low-information voter that Ted Bundy is a serial killer but Hunter Biden is fine..."



I can't believe the OP is desperately searching for one hatchet job after another to smear Joe Biden.

[Demsrule86]

7. It has been non-stop...starting with the Flores BS.

[BannonsLiver]

20. It's pretty much any make candidate/pol

Started with Franken...

[Demsrule86]

6. Seriously disgusting post...you should delete.

[Skya Rhen]

8. Yes - this is so inflammatory. I am appalled that trash like this would even make it to this forum.

[Demsrule86]

9. Me too. And it always backfires. I like this poster and have no idea this is posted

[MineralMan]

10. How Interesting That You Posted This.

At least, you included Hunter Biden's explanation at the end.

[LongtimeAZDem]

17. Perhaps her "teacher friend" was upset about it

[StarfishSaver]

11. This is why the "Hillary had too much baggage but Bernie/Joe woul have won in a walk" arguments fail

Any candidate can be made to look bad, even criminal, when their opponent puts their mind to it.

The reason that Bernie and Joe and others looked like they didn't have Hillary's "baggage" is that the Republicans cans didn't zero in on them since they weren't the candidate and didn't pose a threat. (It also didn't help that one of her opponents and many of his supporters co-signed and perpetuated the smears, giving the impression that they were a universal view on "both sides" and not an ugly partisan attack).

Whoever our nominee is will get the same treatment Hillary did. I just hope they're as good at withstanding it as she was (and she withstood it masterfully).

[MineralMan]

12. Oh, and the cocaine thing - nice touch...

[Tipperary]

13. Tad clumsy, perhaps?

[MineralMan]

14. Well, see...let me think...got it: Irrelevant negative information

can be used to cast doubt on anyone. Yeah...that's the ticket. You just add the irrelevant thing to whatever negative article you're writing, and use the guilt by association principle.

Someone might have used cocaine, so they're bad. Bad, I tell you, really bad.

[Tipperary]

15. Yes, they are doing so without much skill.

Kinda pathetic.

[honest.abe]

16. Nonsense.

This will have no impact in the general election.

[Gothmog]

18. Opinion: Why the alleged Joe Biden "Ukraine conspiracy" doesn't hold up

Link to tweet

The trouble began when right-wing bloggers sought to meld these two points into a single conspiracy in which Joe Biden had the prosecutor sacked to protect his son’s business interests. I may be an outsider to the bewildering mess that is Ukrainian politics, but, on this particular issue, I have a genuine insight into what happened, having written extensively about Hunter Biden’s ex-employer, Mykola Zlochevsky.

As a result, when journalists seek the fire behind the smoke in the Biden-Ukraine tale, they often call to ask my opinion. Many are eager to flesh out what seems a satisfyingly simple conspiracy, but I have to tell them: It isn’t true. The timeline doesn’t work. The investigation into Burisma, Hunter Biden’s employer, had ground to a halt long before the prosecutor was sacked. A subsequent probe into the company’s owner was opened because of a request from Ukrainian legislators, not because of prosecutorial initiative. There is, in short, no there there; the bloggers are putting two and two together — and coming up with 22.

Hunter Biden should not have taken the job; Joe Biden should probably not have boasted about bullying the president of another country. But those are judgment matters for them personally, not proof of conspiracy, and certainly not an affair worth destabilizing the fragile democracy of a new U.S. ally.

But that has not stopped Giuliani, who tweeted last week: “how deep and how high did the alleged Ukraine conspiracy go?” He was responding to a story in the New York Times (the Times apparently not “failing” on this occasion, since Trump retweeted the paper’s story), which analyzed the theories around the Bidens’ Ukraine connection. The article ticked all the journalistic boxes, giving father and son space to deny wrongdoing, but still raised a cloud of smoke for those shouting “fire.” If a major newspaper devotes 2,500 words to conflict-of-interest questions, then those questions presumably exist. How often do you beat your wife?

[pnwmom]

19. This reminds me of the timeline issues in the controversy about Hillary

connected to the state department's sale of the gas co to the Russians.

She also did nothing wrong, and the timeline didn't fit, but it was used against her.

[BannonsLiver]

21. Suuuure it does.