Kellyanne Conway, communications professional, has an odd habit of saying the quiet part out loud. Here she is yesterday deftly deflecting criticism from Juan Williams about Republicans’ lack of interest in the Trump family’s wholesale looting of the presidency even as they pick through the pissant deals that Hunter Biden made to keep his family fed while fighting a crippling drug addiction.
Fox is currently pulling the laboring oar for the GOP’s bumbling effort to get to President Joe Biden through his only surviving son. Their theory of the case appears to be that Hunter Biden, in the throes of a cocaine addiction which had him leaving incriminating information at random computer repair shops, was simultaneously running a massive influence peddling operation. The problem is that they’ve been trying to make FETCH happen for years, and they’ve come up with exactly nothing that connects Hunter Biden’s sad scrabbling to his father.
Take for instance this memo released yesterday by that hayseed dipshit who heads the House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer. He subpoenaed bank records from Hunter Biden’s business partner John Robinson Walker, whom Comer refers to ominously as “a Biden family associate.”
“Robinson Walker, LLC received a $3 million wire from a Chinese company in March 2017 — less than two months after Vice President Joe Biden left public office — and that Mr. Walker then transferred over a million dollars to various bank accounts associated with the Bidens in the following months,” he continues breathlessly.
How does this connect to Joe Biden? Well, it doesn’t but … look, they’re trying, okay?
The Committee is concerned about the information revealed in these bank records, including: (1) why the Chinese energy company waited less than two months after Vice President Biden left public office to send the $3 million wire; (2) why the Robinson Walker, LLC account received the China company’s payment instead of the Biden family members’ companies; (3) why the payments to the Biden family members were structured in incremental payments to different bank accounts; (4) what services the Biden family members provided to the China company and when those purported services were provided; (5) why Hallie Biden—publicly reported to work as a school counselor—received money from Robinson Walker, LLC; 2 and (6) who the account holder is for the bank account entitled “Biden.” We hope that our Democrat colleagues will join us in addressing these important issues.
“The Committee is concerned about the national security implications of a President’s or Vice President’s immediate family members receiving millions of dollars from foreign nationals or companies without any oversight,” he goes on, which is just precious considering (1) he just conceded that Biden was not in office when those transactions took place; and (2) Comer just nixed all oversight of the gazillions of dollars the Trump family took in during and after his time in the White House.
The younger Biden put out a response noting that he was perfectly entitled to earn a living and spend his money as he pleased:
Hunter Biden, a private citizen with every right to pursue his own business endeavors, joined several business partners in seeking a joint venture with a privately owned, legitimate energy company in China. As part of that joint venture, Hunter received his portion of good faith seed funds which he shared with his uncle, James Biden, and Hallie Biden, with whom he was involved with at the time and sharing expenses. The accounts so dramatically listed by Representative Comer belonged to Hunter, his uncle and Hallie — nobody else.
Which brings us back to Fox yesterday.
“There were massive investigations, millions of dollars spent, and always the question, you know, what are they getting in return?” Martha MacCallum intoned accusingly, eliding the fact that those millions of dollars went to enforce the Oversight Committee’s subpoenas as Trump spent years in court fighting to keep his business records under wraps. “So, do you have the same question for the Biden family when you look at this money transaction? What was China getting in return? Is that something Americans must know?”
But Juan Williams wasn’t having it.
“What we have is a check to a widow from someone who was paid by the Chinese with no context. We don’t know what this money was for. In fact, the same person had sent checks to her before there was any payment from the Chinese,” he demanded of Conway, noting that the Comer memo proves exactly nothing and omits actual context.
“Why don’t you look into things like Jared Kushner getting $2 billion directly from the Saudis after former President Trump bragged about protecting the Saudi prince?”
This was, of course, a reference to the $2 billion the Saudi sovereign wealth fund transferred to Kushner’s fledgling hedge fund, under extremely favorable terms, at the behest of Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who overruled his own advisors to force the transaction through — a deal Republicans have shown zero interest in, because they are laser focused on Hunter Biden, who never worked in the White House, and his efforts to monetize his name for a few million dollars.
Williams went on: “We don’t know, but I think this is a thin veil for the fact that, after all this investigation and talk about Hunter Biden, the committee’s come up with zero. With nothing! And they got the laptop, they got this, that … nothing!”
“Well, Jared, of course, is the only person I think who has benefitted in the billions – with a ‘B’ – from the Trump presidency. That’s for sure,” she conceded. Because even Kellyanne Conway, the queen of alternative facts, cannot wish away the millions of dollars earned from foreign sources by every member of the Trump family, including the then-sitting president. Not Ivanka’s Chinese patents, not the ghost bookings of blocks of hotel rooms at Trump properties by Saudi royalty, not Don Jr.’s access peddling in India, not Jared’s sister promising visas for Chinese buyers of the family’s condos, just … come the fuck on. And that’s not even including the hundreds of millions of dollars Trump raked in at the Trump Hotel in DC from domestic companies and candidates trying to slip a little something into his G-string in hopes of receiving favorable treatment.
“But look, I think whataboutism isn’t gonna work here,” Conway blurted, in hopes of clawing her way back. But of course the damage was already done. Mostly to America, of course, but also to the Republicans, who will continue to peddle this horseshit until the earth falls into the sun.
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