While the Biden family’s influence-peddling schemes appear to be the main focus of Republicans on the House Oversight Committee, Chairman Jim Comer (R-KY) wants some answers pertaining to Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. To that end, he has subpoenaed Dana Remus, the former White House counsel. In fact, Comer suspects the two issues might be connected. More and more, it seems as though the Biden scandals might just outdo those of any other president anyone can remember. Of course, that would depend on one’s political preferences and how one defines “scandal.”
Dictionary.com offers “a disgraceful or discreditable action, circumstance, etc.” as a broad definition of “scandal.” The Cambridge English Dictionary describes it as “(an action or event that causes) a public feeling of shock and strong moral disapproval.” So, in truth, what some people would consider scandalous, others would probably not. For example, Politico Magazine published an article titled "13 Trump Scandals You Forgot About" in July of 2017 – yes, just barely seven months into former President Donald Trump’s White House term. Top of the list was, of course, the “Russia scandal.” As it turned out, Mr. Trump had done nothing wrong and the most scandalous thing about the now-discredited Russia collusion hoax is how it was fabricated and then investigated, based on no verifiable evidence whatsoever.
(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Then again, as far as Democrats and the left-wing media were concerned, everything Trump said and did was a scandal. The rest of the Politico list of Trump scandals was, at best, questionable. The Trump administration “sidelines” climate scientists, for example. How that qualifies as scandalous is not at all clear. It seems more like a policy decision.
A Look at the Biden Scandals – So Far
The Biden scandals, meanwhile, are piling up. Apart from the family raking in cash from all over the world, funneled through shell companies, in exchange for access to Joe Biden’s political connections, there are several more involving the wider administration. Then-Biden campaign advisor and current Secretary of State Antony Blinken in 2020 colluded with former Intelligence Community officials to bury the Hunter Biden laptop story in the run up to the presidential election.
The National School Boards Association (NSBA) urged the Justice Department to investigate parents who complained to school boards about the indoctrination of their children. The NSBA clearly implied in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland that these parents were akin to domestic terrorists. Garland does not appear to agree with that analogy, but still he directed the FBI to investigate. Where’s the scandal? Well, it transpires that the Biden administration had essentially nudged the NSBA into writing the letter and may even have co-authored it.
If we go back to Politico’s fast and loose definition of “scandal” as applied to Trump, there are perhaps half a dozen, at least, Biden scandals that would require quite a few column inches to describe. The heavy-handed FBI SWAT arrest of a frail old man, Trump associate Roger Stone, with CNN camera crew in tow. Then, of course, there was the raid of Trump’s own Florida residence in pursuit of classified documents while Joe Biden had boxes of them scattered willy-nilly throughout his house, garage, and an old office in Washington, DC.
Then there’s the Big Kahuna, the Hunter Biden international shakedown operation, which has spawned multiple other Biden scandals. The effort to cover it up, as mentioned above, being just one of them. James Biden’s payments to his brother, Joe, being another. Cocaine mysteriously showing up in the White House – one of the most secure buildings on the planet – with no one having a clue as to how it got there. Pretty scandalous, no? Joe Biden demanding the firing of Ukraine’s chief prosecutor, who happened to be investigating corruption at a company in which Hunter Biden held an $87,000-a-month directorship. It’s almost as if the Biden scandals are breeding.
Joe Biden (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Which brings us back to Jim Comer’s latest subpoena. “Facts continue to emerge showing that the White House’s narrative of President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents doesn’t add up,” said Comer in a Nov. 13 statement. “It is imperative to learn whether President Biden retained sensitive documents related to any countries involving his family’s foreign business dealings that brought in millions for the Biden family.” Two scandals merging into one, perhaps. Right now, we don’t know – mainly because the supposedly ongoing special counsel investigation into Biden’s boxes of government papers is being kept under wraps. By contrast, almost every tiny detail of Trump’s possession of classified documents has been handed over to the media.
The Many Scandals of ‘Scandal-Free’ Obama
Of course, when it comes to scandals, Barack Obama could probably give Biden a run for his money. Obama’s closest advisor, Valerie Jarrett, once said her boss, “prides himself on the fact that his administration hasn’t had a scandal, and he hasn’t done something to embarrass himself.” The statement is nothing short of stunningly dishonest. A diligent internet search of any of the following words or phrases will easily prove how far from the mark Jarrett was: Operation Fast and Furious; IRS targeting conservatives; Benghazi; spying on the Trump 2016 campaign; Veterans Affairs cover-up; pallets of cash to Iran; (then-Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton’s private email server. The list continues.
Trump’s critics would still insist that his administration had almost too many scandals to count. Obama’s fiercest detractors will likely say that the 44th president still holds the record for the most scandals. The current administration, though, is trying hard to keep a lid on multiple Biden scandals that potentially have grave national security implications beyond anything either of the last two presidents may or may not have endangered the nation with. If Joe Biden is, as many suspect, beholden to our most dangerous adversary, China, because of his son’s shady business ventures and his own profiting from them, we are in a perilous situation indeed.
The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary defines “scandal” primarily as “behaviour or an event that people think is morally or legally wrong and causes public feelings of shock or anger.” So, yes, it is a matter of perspective, to an extent. Progressives would apply that definition to just about everything Trump did. Conservatives would do the same with Obama. The current occupant of the White House might have sold America out, quite literally, though. Millions of dollars flowed from China, Russia, Ukraine, and other countries into Biden-associated companies and bank accounts. As Comer has said, the bank records don’t lie.
What does that really mean now that the family patriarch is running the country? Whether one considers oneself a Democrat or Republican, a liberal, progressive, conservative, or libertarian, it behooves all Americans not to dismiss how potentially dangerous to us all the Biden scandals could be.
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