Papa Biden loves to tout his middle-class, Average Joe credentials. But rest assured, if his son had been Hunter Smith or Hunter Jones or Hunter Brown, the Navys extraordinary dispensations would be all but unattainable. Oh, and if he had been Hunter Palin, The New York Times would be on its 50th front-page investigative report by now. Despite the disgraceful ejection from our military, Hunters Connecticut law license wont be subject to automatic review. Because, well, Biden. Bidens bennies are not just one-offs. Skating by, flouting rules and extracting favors are the story of Hunters life. Hunters first job, acquired after Joe Biden won his 1996 Senate re-election bid in Delaware, was with MBNA. Thats the credit card conglomerate and top campaign finance donor that forked over nearly $63,000 in bundled primary and general contributions from its employees to then Sen. Biden. As Ive reported previously, Daddy Biden secured his custom-built, multimillion-dollar house in Delawares ritziest Chateau Country neighborhood with the help of a leading MBNA corporate executive. Average Joe went on to carry legislative water for MBNA in the Senate for years. Hunter zoomed up to senior vice president by early 1998 and then scored a plum position in the Clinton administrations Commerce Department, specializing in electronic commerce before returning to MBNA three years later as a high-priced consultant. While he collected those consulting (translation: nepotistic access-trading) fees, Hunter became a founding partner in the lobbying firm of Oldaker, Biden and Belair in 2002. William Oldaker was Papa Bidens former fundraiser, campaign treasurer and general counsel — a Beltway barnacle whose Democratic machine days dated back to Ted Kennedys 1980 presidential bid. Under Oldakers tutelage, Hunter lobbied for drug companies, universities and other deep-pocketed clients to the tune of nearly $4 million billed to the company by 2007. Coincidentally, then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama personally requested and secured cozy taxpayer-subsidized earmarks for several of Hunters clients. Hunter got himself appointed to multiple corporate board positions, including a directorship with Eudora Global. Its an investment firm founded by one Jeffrey Cooper, head of one of the biggest asbestos-litigation firms in the country. SimmonsCooper, based in Madison County, Ill., donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Biden the Elders various political campaigns over the past decade — all while the firm poured $6.5 million into lobbying against a key tort-reform bill, which former Sen. Biden worked hard to defeat. Cooper also contributed to the Delaware attorney general campaign of Hunters older brother, Beau, and paid Beau for legal work on lucrative asbestos-litigation cases. Hunter also was previously a top official at Paradigm Global Advisors, a hedge fund holding company founded with Vice President Bidens brother, James, and marketed by convicted finance fraudster Allen Stanford. As Paradigm chairman, Hunter oversaw half a billion dollars of client money invested in hedge funds while remaining a lobbyist at Oldaker, Biden and Belair. Cooper chipped in $2 million for the ill-fated venture, which went bust amid nasty fraud lawsuits. Continually failing upward, Hunter snagged a seat on the board of directors of taxpayer-subsidized, stimulus-inflated Amtrak, where he pretended not to be a lobbyist, but rather an effective advocate for the government railroad system serving the 1 percenters D.C.-NYC corridor. So, where does a coke-abusing influence peddler go after raking in gobs of Daddy-enabled dough and abusing the U.S. Navys ill-considered generosity? Back to Cronyland! Hunter joined Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings — owned by a powerful Russian government sympathizer who fled to Russia in February — this spring. The hypocritical lobbyist-bashers at the White House deny he will be lobbying and deny any conflict of interest. Meanwhile, Just Like You Joe was whipping up class envy in South Carolina last week. Corporate profits have soared, he railed, thanks to these guys running hedge funds in New York, who are to blame for income inequality. You know, like his son and brother and their Beltway back-scratching patrons. The Bidens: Theyre not like us. MICHELLE MALKIN, a Washington Examiner columnist, is nationally syndicated by Creators Syndicate.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 17:58:00 +0000
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