The knife cuts both ways, when a Dem eventually gets back into office they'll be crying wolf but it'll be too little too late.
1. Per the Corruption Perception Index (wikipedia), Ukraine is around the 40th percentile. Plenty of countries even worse off. But, I won't argue because corruption is a big problem and obviously they have a problem. 2. Sure. As I understand it though, the investigation they wanted was into how the company was financed when it was originally launched. You don't expect corrupt founders to stop being corrupt later, but I don't know about any other allegation. 3. It is very common for directors on boards to not have strictly relevant industry experience. You could even say having a diversity of experience on the board is a strength (with a subscription to HBR, I could probably find a study to that effect). I often hear the media say he was "unqualified." But he does have a law degree from Yale, he worked in banking for a long while, worked in government, and he's started an investment firm and a VC firm. I still believe his last name was part of the consideration for Burisma, but he's not at all an unqualified director. His tenure on the board lasted beyond his father's tenure as VP. Of course, the chairman would know that there was a chance his father could become president later. Anyway, altogether it looks more like good ole' boy-ism than outright corruption -- a hard to regulate, impossible to prosecute sort of petty corruption.
I mean...y’all were so nice to Obama during his 8 years in office...And y’all were saints to Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State...
Well, those are good answers to his points, BUT the exchange still avoids the 800-lb gorilla: if you're interested in Ukraine corruption, why do you (1) avoid existing cooperative state dept. channels to go after it, and (2) only focus on the narrow Hunter Biden related portion, and (3) ask for a CNN announcement of the narrow portion, and (huge 4), clearly withhold Congressionally approved aid (to the extent of alarming a bevy of long-time public servants) to try to get the announcement? We don't have to clear the Bidens of anything. Hell, if they did something illegal (no evidence yet), lock them up. None of that clears Trump and Ghouliani and Pompeii-oh of anything, at all.
Look for anyone that is remotely interested in the truth, Trump is guilty as sin - but if you are on team Trump and your head is buried in the Sand, you are looking for excuses. DD
Don't disagree with any of that. To your point, even if Hunter Biden is dirty, it doesn't really justify what Trump's done. So, I don't really have a problem discussing how much corruption Joe and Hunter Biden may or may not have engaged without always including the caveats of what it might mean for Trump. They can all be guilty at the same time. It so happens though that there is very little evidence, even circumstantial, that the Bidens really are guilty of anything.
Agree. You've made a good point about boards in general, and I know of so many board placements based on connections, perceptions, variety, etc. It's like an old-Europe royal-family marriages sort of thing, from what I can tell.
More on the supposed corruption of Hunter Biden's director role. Biden worked for Boies Schiller Flexner, an international law and consulting firm. After the 2014 revolution, the Burisma owner set out to revamp its corporate governance and hired BSF to consult. It seems through that, they picked up a relationship with Devon Archer and Hunter Biden and the company they started, Rosemont Seneca. Archer and Biden came onto the board, but Burisma paid Rosemont Seneca a consulting fee instead of paying them as directors directly. Rosemont Seneca then paid Biden. So I've seen some articles about how Biden was paid better than most directors, like this one from the Federalist. Which would be true if the $50k/month figure is accurate. The best-paid directors are in the $0.5-1.0 million/year neighborhood per this old article. But regular directors don't work a lot. Investopedia says to expect 5 hours per week. But, if Archer and Biden were doing a more fulsome sort of consulting work to rehab corporate governance as a profit-seeking service from Rosemont Seneca, then you wouldn't really expect his pay to be in line with normal BOD pay -- it'd be in line with high-end consulting pay. Which would also explain why his pay appears to have been variable, varying according to his billable hours. Even to me, this sounds like rationalization. Hiring consultants to advise on building good corporate governance and naming them to the Board themselves sounds like bad corporate governance. If you appoint good directors, they can ask to have a consultant retained and make reports to the Board. Wearing 2 hats makes no sense. Which is probably why Hunter Biden doesn't want to talk about it. But I can't understand why Hunter wasn't paid directly. Maybe it's for tax evoision?
The big question is Chief Justice Roberts and if he will allow Senate Republicans to turn an impeachment of Donald Trump into the trial of Hunter Biden. It’s obvious that this is the defense of Trump. The hundred page GOP laid the groundwork for this yesterday in his defense that Trump secretly cared about Corruption Ukraine. In order to seek that line of defense you have to make your case for corruption.... hence why Hunter Biden becomes the GOP central focus of Trumps trial. If he can use his impeachment to bloody up Biden for 6 weeks in the eyes of low information voters, he can make impeachment a wash politically. I think that’s the real reason why Bloomberg jumped in the race and Pete took a shift to the middle. They see that the GOP are putting every ounce of their energy into mounting a defense of Trump onto a destruction campaign of Biden. Biden going down to Hillary level is the only way Trump can win. Which is why the Dem strategy can be to let Biden absorb this high level of energy and after the dust settles a better candidate can be considered a fresh clean option for the party...at least that’s the theory for Bloomberg or Mayor Pete’s people.
