The Bidens, Burisma, Kerry and Obama

One of the enduring questions about the Biden family’s lucrative exploitation of the office of the vice presidency has been why the Obama administration allowed them to get away with it. In most administrations, the White House counsel’s office would have put up a goal-line stand against such conflicts of interest as were allowed in Ukraine, for example. Long before Joe Biden ever got the chance to force out a prosecutor investigating his son’s corporate patron, various government lawyers would have insisted on ethical guardrails. It’s clear that State Department officials and even one of Hunter Biden’s business partners were waving red flags when Hunter joined the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. So why did the man who ran the U.S. State Department—not to mention the man who ran the U.S. government—tolerate the Biden enrichment machine?

A Journal editorial notes:

Mr. Biden was the Obama Administration’s point man for Ukraine, which was fighting Russia’s first invasion, and he can’t claim ignorance about his son’s dealings.

Amos Hochstein, a senior energy official in the Obama Administration, warned the Vice President in 2015 that Russia-backed media were using Hunter’s presence on the Burisma board to “undermine” the U.S. anti-corruption message. The following year a top diplomat in Kyiv, George Kent, was even more blunt in a message to State.

“Ukrainians,” Mr. Kent said, “heard one message from us and then saw another set of behavior, with the family association with a known corrupt figure whose company was known for not playing by the rules in the oil/gas sector.”

At the time the Bidens were mining for riches in Ukraine, the U.S. secretary of state was John Kerry. In 2019 Paul Sonne, Michael Kranish and Matt Viser reported for the Washington Post about Hunter Biden’s 2014 Ukraine opportunity and its impact on his investment company. The firm, known as Rosemont Seneca, happened to involve Mr. Kerry’s very own stepson. The Posties reported of Hunter Biden:

One of his investment company partners, Devon Archer, had just joined the board of Burisma. Soon, Hunter Biden received his own invitation.

But another partner in their investment firm raised serious concerns.

Chris Heinz, Kerry’s stepson, told Archer that joining Burisma was a bad idea, according to a spokesman for Heinz. Heinz was concerned about reports of corruption in Ukraine, geopolitical risks and general questions about appearance.

“Mr. Heinz strongly warned Mr. Archer that working with Burisma was unacceptable. Mr. Archer stated that he and Hunter Biden intended to pursue the opportunity as individuals, not as part of the firm,” Heinz spokesman Chris Bastardi told The Post.

The decision fractured the firm.

“The lack of judgment in this matter was a major catalyst for Mr. Heinz ending his business relationships with Mr. Archer and Mr. Biden,” Bastardi said, adding that Heinz and his investment firm were never involved with Burisma.

In a 2014 speech in Ukraine, Secretary of State Kerry said that he and others were “working with the interim government to help combat corruption.” Can he possibly claim that he was ignorant of the Biden problem identified by his own staff and also by his own stepson?

In 2019 Amanda Golden, who was then at NBC News, tweeted:

In a gaggle with reporters after @JoeBiden‘s town hall in Nashua, NH, I asked @JohnKerry, who was Sec of State at the time, if he knew and was comfortable when Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma:

“I had no knowledge about any of that. None. No.”

In 2020 a report from the Republican majority staff of the Senate Homeland Security and Finance committees said that in May of 2014 Mr. Kerry’s chief of staff briefed him on press inquiries regarding Hunter Biden and Burisma.

Mr. Kerry, who now serves as Mr. Biden’s climate envoy, should clear up the confusion in congressional testimony and explain what he thought of the Biden association with Burisma that so troubled his staff and stepson. Even without his stepson’s reaction, wouldn’t any secretary of state be highly concerned if another senior U.S. official were creating an appearance of corruption in America’s dealings with a foreign country? Wouldn’t this be a concern that a secretary of state would share with the president?

Also, perhaps Barack Obama would consider explaining why he doesn’t appear to have enforced the same ethical rules on Joe Biden that he did on Hillary Clinton.

If voters have any hope that the office of the vice presidency will not be abused in the future the way it was by Joe Biden, then a full accounting is required to understand how and why normal ethical standards were not applied.

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James Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival” and also the co-author of “Borrowed Time: Two Centuries of Booms, Busts and Bailouts at Citi.”

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(Teresa Vozzo helps compile Best of the Web.)

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