Washington Post Column Drops Hammer on Biden Family Receiving Foreign Millions: ‘Maybe It’s Entirely Coincidental’

AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

An op-ed published in the Washington Post this week offered brutal details on the scandal involving members of President Joe Biden’s family receiving millions of dollars from foreign sources over the last decade, which has not made much of an impact on most mainstream outlets.

“What about Trump?” has been the general reaction from the press over the news, despite the obvious connection between the revelations and the continuing series of scandals related to Hunter Biden — who until the last year or so enjoyed a cushion of protection from the mainstream press that is now avoiding this story.

But the Washington Post, in an editorial from Jim Geraghty, says “Not so fast.”

The article both explains the details and elaborates on why it’s not plausible to treat this as a non-issue. The headline summarizes the point: “Millions flowed to Biden family members. Don’t pretend it doesn’t matter.”

After noting that the GOP does not, in fact, have any actual proof of wrongdoing with which to support charging anyone with anything, the column points out the undeniable shadiness:

Yet we’re still left with a motley collection of odd and unsavory figures sending a lot of money through a lot of companies to a lot of members of the Biden family, with little explanation why. Comer contends that bank records confirm more than $10 million in payments, run through at least 20 businesses, mostly limited liability companies, to the president’s son Hunter Biden; the president’s brother, James Biden; James’s wife, Sara Jones Biden; Hallie Biden (widow of Joe Biden’s son Beau, who died in 2015); Hunter’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle; Hunter’s current wife, Melissa Cohen; and, as Comer noted, “three children of the president’s son and the president’s brother.”

Just what goods or services did all those Biden family members provide to those companies?

Geraghty explores that question, bringing up Gabriel Popoviciu and Burisma, and asking the obvious question about credulity in reactions and reporting: “Does anyone believe that Chinese energy tycoon Ye Jianming in 2017 gave Hunter Biden a 2.8-carat diamond, estimated to be worth up to $80,000, as a gift out of the pure goodness of his heart?”

He also notes the loopholes that can explain difficulties with paper trails:

President Biden voluntarily releases his tax returns and other financial disclosure reports that are required by law. But members of elected officials’ families are not required to disclose anything, leaving a very easy way for any deep-pocketed individual or institution to purchase a friendship with someone who has the politician’s ear.<?blockquote>

“Maybe it’s entirely coincidental that so many foreign entities just happened to give large amounts of money and gifts to Biden family members,” writes Geraghty cheekily, “and no one involved ever believed, promised, insinuated or suggested that Joe Biden would ever return the favor.”

It’s impossible to read the article and not consider how the story would have been treated in the press were these Republican relatives, much less Trump-related — and that’s true for both the left and the right, from different angles. While the right might object, “the media would treat this differently if it were Trump,” the left can easily, and has, asked of Republicans, “butwhatabout Trump’s family?”

Geraghty’s response is essentially “good question!” He writes:

Confronted with the Comer committee’s report, Democrats scream, “What about Ivanka Trump’s trademarks in China, or Donald Trump and Jared Kushner profiting from Saudi investors?” And they’re right to object. We don’t elect leaders to the presidency — or the vice presidency — so that their relatives can cash in with foreign business executives. The sordid intermingling of personal financial interests with U.S. government policy is absolutely fair game in the 2024 presidential election.

“They’re right to object,” he writes. That’s a fair response. It is also fair to note that these objections have been made regarding the Trump family, and even more fair to say that there is no shortage of investigations into Donald Trump and his family. So one could certainly argue that it’s hardly a lapse by the GOP not to make their Biden investigation about Trump.

And those investigations into Hunter Biden’s business dealings and the connections with China, and whether any of that is connected to the president, are going to continue despite the fact that the media’s main interest in the story is finding out how it reflects poorly on the GOP.

“Variations on Biden’s reflexive ‘My son has done nothing wrong’ response aren’t going to cut it this time,” writes Geraghty, in reference to those inquiries.

The question of whether that reflex will “cut it” with the press is not yet answered, and outlets like the Washington Post and the New York Times have made some efforts in reporting on the story. It remains to be seen.

But it’s not nothing.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.