How a politician’s family gets rich

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Because of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, the American public has become educated about Hunter Biden. Specifically the enormous income he made in the countries of Ukraine and China.

In 2014 — when his father, Joe Biden, was vice-president of the United States and spearheading the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy — Hunter was hired to serve on the board of Burisma Holdings, an oil and natural gas company based in Ukraine.

From 2014 to 2019 when he was on the board Hunter never visited Ukraine for company business. During that time his salary was reported to have been $50,000 a month, or $600,000 per year.

According to an article on thefederalist.com, board members for S&P 500 companies in the energy industry were compensated with a median income of $213,000 a year in 2018, with those in the 75th percentile of the salary range still only bringing in $289,000, less than half of what Hunter Biden has been reported to have earned at Burisma.

Last year Burisma had a revenue of $400 million. ExxonMobil reported earnings of $20.8 billion. If you are lucky enough to know someone who is on the board of ExxonMobil, chances are they earn around $365,000. Still not near what Hunter was paid by Burisma.

A political scientist Ian Bremmer has tweeted “Impossible to justify $50k/month for Hunter Biden serving on a Ukrainian energy board w zero expertise unless he promised to sell access.”

Whether or not Hunter — without any experience in oil and natural gas — was able to provide any input to the board to justify this income is not what this column is about.

While it is illegal for a foreign company, such as Burisma, to donate money — say $600,000 — to a politician or their political campaign, there is no law stopping them from buying influence by employing a member of a politician’s family.

This was not the first time Hunter made money because of his last name. He started working, fresh out of law school for MBNA, then a dominant issuer of credit cards out of Delaware. Hunter went on to receive consulting fees from MBNA from 2001 to 2005. Coincidentally his father, then a senator, was pushing successfully for legislation that would make it harder for consumers to file for bankruptcy protection.

During that time Hunter also served on the board of Amtrak. Democrats claimed he deserved the post because he traveled regularly on trains. Using that same logic I should be eligible to be on the board of Apple — I have used their products since 1984.

Again, most likely because of family connections, Hunter was chosen to be one of nine directors at BHR — at it’s founding — a private-equity company controlled by Chinese government-backed stakeholders while his father was vice-president.

He stepped down last year when his father started campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president.

Hunter Biden’s net worth is reported to be $117 million. His father and mother, Joe and Jill are worth just $9 million.

In December Joe Biden, on the campaign trail said that he would not let his family cash in on his name and work overseas if he is elected president.

I guess that policy was not necessary when he was just vice-president, or maybe it’s not necessary now that his son is worth over $100 million.

Joe Biden’s younger brother James has also profited from his relationship. In Nov. 2010 James joined a construction firm HillStone International. In June 2011 while Joe Biden was overseeing Iraq policy, that same construction firm won a $1.5 billion contract building homes in Iraq.

What’s disturbing is that this is common among senior-level politicians of all political persuasions. So common it has his own term — “soft corruption.”

There are three ways politicians and their families legally profit off their name and influence. First by looking to gain access and influence, such as the Biden example; second by starting a charitable foundation, as in Bill and Hillary Clinton; and thirdly by employment in a political campaign or other government jobs such as what Bernie Sanders has done for his wife Jane.

I originally thought I could cover all three in one column. But, I ran out of room. So watch this column next week when I explore other reasons that people go into national politics — and you thought is was just to serve their fellow citizens.