Saturday, August 3, 2019

Out to unseat Biden

Hopefully.
In the late summer of 2006 Joe Biden’s son Hunter and Joe’s younger brother, James, purchased [Paradigm Global Advisor]. On their first day on the job, they showed up with Joe’s other son, Beau, and two large men and ordered the hedge fund’s chief of compliance to fire its president, according to a Paradigm executive who was present.

[...]

At the time, the senator was just months away from both assuming the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and launching his second presidential bid. According to the executive, James Biden made it clear he viewed the fund as a way to take money from rich foreigners who could not legally give money to his older brother or his campaign account. “We've got investors lined up in a line of 747s filled with cash ready to invest in this company,” the executive remembers James Biden saying.

At this, the executive recalled, Beau Biden, who was then running for attorney general of Delaware, turned bright red. He told his uncle, “This can never leave this room, and if you ever say it again, I will have nothing to do with this.”

A spokesman for James and Hunter Biden said no such episode ever occurred. Beau Biden died in 2015, at 46.

But the recollection of an effort to cash in on Joe’s political ties is consistent with other accounts provided by other former executives at the fund.

[...]

Documents submitted as part of a legal dispute over Paradigm’s acquisition show James Biden planned to solicit investments for it from union pension funds. A spokesman for James and Hunter said they did not end up marketing the fund to unions.

[...]

As Joe Biden runs for the Democratic presidential nomination on the argument he can strongly appeal to the party’s dwindling base of blue-collar supporters, the candidate has often made the point that he hasn’t gotten rich from his decades in politics. As recently as 2009, his net worth was less than $30,000, though in recent years he has made millions from book sales and speaking fees.

[...]

Biden’s image as a straight-shooting man of the people, however, is clouded by the careers of his son and brother, who have lengthy track records of making, or seeking, deals that cash in on his name. [...] Interviews, court records, government filings and news reports [...] reveal that some members of the Biden family have consistently mixed business and politics over nearly half a century, moving from one business to the next as Joe’s stature in Washington grew.

  Politico
Joe, perhaps: "Am I my brother's keeper?"
None of the ventures appear to have been runaway successes, and Biden’s relatives have not been accused of criminal wrongdoing in their dealings. But over the years, several of their partners and associates have ended up indicted or convicted.
Too bad they weren't related to Joe.
Their ventures, over nearly half a century, have regularly raised conflict-of-interest questions and brought the Biden family into potentially compromising associations. This investigation offers the most comprehensive account to date of the politically tinged business activities of Biden’s brother and son, and is the first time former associates of James and Hunter have alleged that the pair explicitly sought to make money off of Joe’s political connections.
Continue reading.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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