Joseph R. Biden, Jr. may be campaigning as a candidate for president, but his primary goal is not to win. It is to shield himself from high crimes committed while in office. He thought that by running, he would be protected from federal scrutiny as a candidate.
And that's why Democrats are pursuing a potentially disastrous hope-and-a-prayer impeachment of President Donald Trump, because Biden's crimes are of a piece with their own: see Paul Pelosi, Jr. and John Kerry's son, Christopher Heinz.
Trump's longtime friend and sometime personal attorney Rudy Giuliani was pursuing information related to Biden and his son Hunter's dealings in notoriously corrupt Ukraine since November of 2018. It appears that Giuliani began to get some traction. "Joe Biden Announces 2020 Run for President, After Months of Hesitation", the New York Times reported on April 25th, 2019.
Why the months of hesitation? Biden didn't want to run if he didn't have to. When it became clear that Giuliani had begun to uncover the story, Biden's hand was forced.
As the lone moderate with high public recognition, his early success was all but assured. Voters knew what they were in for with Biden: an older, more boring version of Obama. As a result, Biden didn't have to work very hard. The DNC squarely behind him, his primary goal was to stay in the running long enough for Democrats to oust Trump, or try to defeat him at the polls.
Then the water got hot. With news about Hunter starting to snowball, Biden made a shrewd move and hired a New Yorker staff writer (whose work helped to kick off the Mueller probe) to write a softball exposé on Hunter's crazy life. The story brushes over Hunter's "work" in Ukraine (and China), spending all of two paragraphs on the sole reason the lengthy piece was written: to own up to, and downplay, Hunter's corrupt dealings.
Hunter and his writer-helper claimed that the Burisma board "needed advice on how to improve the company’s corporate governance." And who better for the delicate work of making a large, corrupt Ukrainian energy firm function more transparently and ethically than...crack addict Hunter Biden? He was given a seat on the board in April of 2014.
Of course, the going was no easier on the other side. Giuliani, who had planned to make a May trip to Ukraine to gather information, was forced to cancel due to howls from the left, all of which led to the current impeachment hearings (never mind that Trump's alleged quid pro quo is deeply debatable, whereas Biden's boastful quid pro quo is plain as day).
The first clear sign that Biden's candidacy is a sham came from Biden's old boss. Barack Obama has not endorsed Biden precisely because he knows the campaign is bogus. He needs to save his endorsement for the real deal--more on that in a moment. It looks like a slap in the face, especially when compounded by Obama backing blackface artist Justin Trudeau in Canada's recent national election. It looked bad, but Biden knew he wouldn't get Obama's nod.
The ruse becomes more obvious when we look to Iowa. Winning the country's first primary is big business, and campaigns routinely employ one hundred staffers for Iowa alone and spend vast amounts of money there. Biden has fallen to fourth place in state primary polling at a mere 12 points, well behind Warren (28), Buttigieg (20), and Sanders (18). That's right, a gay mayor is beating Blue Collar Joe. The news from his Iowa campaign sounds disjointed at best, altogether phony at worst:
Many of the Democrats interviewed pointed to his Iowa state director, Jake Braun, who doesn’t live there full-time and hasn’t worked on a campaign in the Hawkeye State since 2007. The Democrats cite Braun in trying to explain the weakness of the campaign’s outreach to key officials. They also complained that it can be difficult to get in touch with and work with the Biden team.
--Yahoo News
The Biden campaign pushed back Tuesday, claiming that Braun did work for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, a fund-raising arm for U.S. House races, in Iowa in 2018.
Braun, reached by phone for comment on Monday, declined to say where he lived and hung up. On Tuesday, he wrote to Bloomberg News saying he is in Iowa “5-6 days a week and have consistently since I joined this campaign in May.”
What's going on? Simple: Biden isn't trying to win. That's not his goal, and never was.
In what world is the frontrunner, and by many lights, the most likely to defeat Trump, not awash in lefty cash? And yet, not only is Biden running on fumes, his efforts to raise money sound unrealistic. Plans for greater social media presence and texting likely supporters' cell phones seem to miss the mark: young, tech-savvy people aren't Biden's base. Enter...Super PAC! That's right, despite vowing to refuse big money donations, Biden today announced "Unite the Country," a by-the-books Super PAC.
National polls are all over the place, with discrepancies so vast as to be comical. Today's Politico/Morning Consult poll has Biden at 32, a full +12 over Warren and Sanders, tied at 20. That's odd, that's how things looked before Biden's lackluster debates, Warren's surge, and Sanders' heart attack.
A Quinnipiac poll on October 24th had Warren at 28, Biden at 21, and Sanders at 15. That sounds more like it, but how can two major polls within days of one another show a combined difference of 19 points? Someone is leaning on the scale.
One day before, on the 23rd, two major national polls were released. CNN had Biden at +15 over his closest rival, the Economist/YouGov poll had him at +1. This far into the election cycle, such disparate results are highly suspicious.
Finally, Biden's heart isn't in it either. In public appearances, he looks bewildered, not inspired. His rallies draw hundreds, not thousands. He has no message, no unifying cry. His tales of racial healing such as the Corn Pop fiasco aren't just tired, they're grandfatherly. He searches for words and is easily angered.
These are the actions of a man hiding behind the shield of his candidacy. Any reasonable observer knows he is guilty of trading influence at the very least. His career-capping cash grabs in Ukraine and China were exposed after Hillary Clinton lost, his twin golden parachutes turned to lead. He's a dead man walking, and it's beginning to show.
If Biden does drop out, don't expect Trump to lose interest in his Ukraine and China dealings. But he will at least have served a purpose: to run interference for Hillary, who has neither the patience nor the stamina for the campaign trail and numerous three-hour debates. In fact, that may have been central to the plan all along.
Subscribe to our evening newsletter to stay informed during these challenging times!!
Wait wait wait wait wait.....Jesus Christ. You can't start by saying "It is to shield himself from high crimes committed while in office" then follow up with the reason being, his timing coincided with Giuliani. That is the only argument you make for his running. The only one. As as much as Biden is a crook and as anyone in Washington is, those are some loosely connected dots. My kids could find and connect better dots.
Hi! It's an op-ed. These distinctions matter.