Sure enough, on Thursday I uncovered all sorts of documentation that would surely embarrass Biden and his team. Well, I uncovered it by taking the blue plastic wrap off my home delivered New York Times. And there they were: Two stories spread all across the top of the front page. But none of it was classified top secret.
At the top right was the headline: “Classified files found at 2nd site linked to Biden.” By the end of the day the White House was admitting more classified documents had been found in the garage of Biden’s home in Wilmington, Del.
At the top left was the headline: “The Tale of Hunter Biden Comes Front and Center.” The Times unveiled a huge investigative report detailing the schemes by which Hunter Biden profited off his dad’s prominence in global policymaking. The Times reporting also refutes many Republican exaggerations and distortions that claim Joe Biden profited from his son’s profiteering.
When all the investigations are done, Hunter Biden may be found guilty of a crime. But what this was most of all was a horribly sad tale of a son of a famous father who had lost loved ones, fallen victim to drug addiction and alcoholism. It was also a tale of a father (whom I’ve known well) who was caught in a human dilemma when Hunter tried to profit off being a vice president’s son. And the father apparently felt that if he insisted his son stop profiteering from his father’s Ukraine policymaking role, he might push his son into a tragic relapse. Or worse.
The father’s solution — to just never discuss his Ukraine work with his son — was doomed to fail. Burisma was only paying for the appearance of looking like it was highly connected. Biden’s only true solution was to end all appearance that America’s envoy was doing favors. Biden needed to confide his dilemma to President Barack Obama. Together they could have transferred Biden’s Ukraine duties to someone else.
But that never happened. So today, we are left to recall the old story of how Joe Biden reacted when he first heard that Hunter joined Burisma’s board of directors. As Hunter told The New Yorker in 2019: “Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ and I said, ‘I do.’ ”
We will be watching a political payback redramatization of just what Hunter knew and did — and what he got for it — when the House Republicans’ showcase their hearings later this year.
