Paging Hypocritical Dems: Biden Has a Huge Ethics Problem, and It Could Be a Big Legal Problem Too

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

We’ve seen the left losing their minds over Justice Clarence Thomas going on free trips with a friend he’s known for many years. Not only is there nothing improper about this, there isn’t any indication that it had to do with court decisions or that the friend tried to influence Thomas in any way.

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Why were the Democrats trying to throw things like this up against the wall on Thomas now? Because they want to do all they can to try to invalidate the Supreme Court, specifically by getting rid of Thomas. As Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) explained, this had nothing at all to do with trips or ethics, it was about seeing if they could somehow remove Thomas. They didn’t care about all the trips the other justices had taken at all.

When this whole issue came up, it occurred to me that there is someone else for whom there could be a big problem in terms of receiving gifts — offerings the hypocritical Democratic politicians are not calling out — and it’s Joe Biden.

Now it looks like ethics experts are also thinking the same way and calling out Joe Biden for his failure to report the gifts and free getaways he’s taken. You know that Biden seems to be constantly on vacation. Some of that time he’s going to his own homes in Wilmington or Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. But some of the vacations he’s taken while in office have included stays at the homes of wealthy and politically connected donors.

The New York Post called out three beach trips this past year in particular, two of which they said he did not pay the owner for the trip, and in the third case, it was also suspected he hadn’t paid. Yet Biden reported that he received no gifts in the disclosure form that he signed on May 14.

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Ethics experts Walter Shaub, who led the Obama-era Office of Government Ethics, and Richard Painter, the top ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush White House, say free vacation-home stays need to be disclosed if the homeowner isn’t present — and it appears they were not — because a “personal hospitality” exception would not apply.

“The homeowner has to be a personal friend of the president or first lady and be present during the stay — otherwise that goes on the form. There’s no excuse not to have it on the form,” Painter, now a University of Minnesota law professor, told The Post.

“You can’t have the president just going around using people’s houses for free without disclosure.”

Painter went even further, saying if it was “intentionally left off, then you get into the [criminal] false statements law … and that could be a felony.”

Whoops. Hey, Democrats, are you listening? Where is your outrage over this? Where are the people calling for action on Biden?

The president and his family took a week’s vacation to Kiawah Island, S.C. in August at the home of donor Maria Allwin, and asked to use her home. Jill stayed another five days after she came down with COVID. They did not pay for it, according to sources

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Then in November Biden and his family went to Nantucket and stayed at the home of billionaire David Rubenstein for Thanksgiving for six days. He isn’t talking about whether or not the Bidens paid.

The Bidens also went on yet another vacation in December for seven days at the St. Croix home of Bill and Connie Neville which was usually listed as a VRBO rental. The Nevilles got invited to Biden’s first state dinner for French President Emmanuel Macron.

Biden had stayed at all the homes before, including when he was vice president, and he didn’t list the free stays as gifts then either. Meanwhile, the Nevilles advertised the home for rent by using Biden’s name, saying it “hosted” him on “his many trips to St. Croix.”

“President Biden has stayed at donors’ lavish vacation homes and he’s not being honest with the American people,” said House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who is leading an investigation of whether Biden misused his office as vice president to enrich his family through foreign business ventures in countries where he controlled US policy.

“Americans deserve the truth about the President and first family’s influence peddling,” Comer told The Post. “That is why we are pursuing legislation as part of our investigation into the Biden family’s financial schemes to strengthen ethics laws to provide greater transparency to the American people.”

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So how could Democrats possibly be so hypocritical as to criticize Thomas, when what Biden did was far more questionable and problematic? Because it isn’t about the gifts, it’s about the politics. That’s why they don’t give a darn about Biden. But now that Republicans are looking into the question of influence peddling, they need to delve into this and see if he lied on those forms and/or never declared these gifts.

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