As of April 28th, U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal has
not yet endorsed likely Democrat Party presidential nominee Joe Biden. Blumenthal’s
continued non-endorsement cannot be the result of an oversight. Most prominent
Democrats, even those engaged in the Democrat primary – including Massachusetts
Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Vermont socialist Senator Bernie Sanders – have
offered their heartfelt endorsements. Former President Barack Obama, after a
little hectoring from big wigs in his own party, has issued a late but fulsome
endorsement.
No one seems to know for certain what may be holding up the
Blumenthal endorsement, but theories are making the rounds.
May 11th will mark the one year anniversary of
the publication of a piece that appeared in the New York Post titled “The
troubling reason why Biden is so soft on China” written by investigative journalist Peter Schweizer, the author of “Secret
Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family
and Friends.”
Some are nursing the
theory that Blumenthal may have speed-read the piece and, a man of conscience,
it disturbed his political equipoise. How could any self-respecting Democrat
endorse as president and the nominal head of the Democrat Party a politician
who is “soft on China,” particularly now when China is importing stolen,
proprietary data from companies in the United States that supply military
equipment to the arsenal of democracy while exporting Coronavirus to the
Western world?
Schweizer believes that the all but certain presidential nominee of the
Democrat Party may be soft on China in part because China may have purchased his
affections by providing money and golden opportunities to his son, Hunter
Biden.
The devil, we are told, is in the details. In the Schweizer piece the
Devil’s details are hauled out of the shadows. “In 2013,” Schweizer writes,
“then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden flew aboard Air Force
Two to China. Less than two weeks later, Hunter Biden’s firm inked a $1 billion
private equity deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of
China. The deal was later expanded to $1.5 billion. In short, the Chinese
government funded a business that it co-owned along with the son of a sitting
vice president.” The Post piece dots all its “i’s” and crosses all its “t’s”
with a superfluity of details. It is, as we sometimes say in the business,
convincing – absent an equally convincing response from Biden.
One of the Devil’s details cited by Schweizer stands out like a sore
thumb. “Hunter Biden’s father, the vice president, met with Chinese President
Hu Jintao in Washington as part of the Nuclear Security Summit,” Schweizer
writes. Twelve days after Hunter Biden “stepped off Air Force Two in Beijing,
his company [Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC] signed a historic deal with the Bank
of China, the state-owned financial behemoth often used as a tool of the
Chinese government. The Bank of China had created a first-of-its-kind
investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). According to BHR, one of its
founding partners was none other than Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC.”
Rosemont, the Biden-Archer firm, became “increasingly involved with
China. Devon Archer became the vice chairman of Bohai Harvest (BHR), helping [to] oversee some of the fund’s investments… In December 2014, BHR became an ‘anchor
investor’ in the IPO of China General Nuclear Power Corp. (CGN), a state-owned
energy company involved in the construction of nuclear reactors. In April 2016,
the US Justice Department would charge CGN with stealing nuclear secrets from
the United States — actions prosecutors said could cause ‘significant damage to
our national security.’”
Asked what he knew and when he knew it concerning the China/Hunter
Biden connections detailed by Schweizer, Joe Biden implausibly claimed he and
his son never discussed Hunter Biden’s business relations.
The Schweizer piece, some note, will have been in the public stream for
a year in May and yet has not proven an obstacle to Biden’s march to the White
House. None of the details were discussed during the sometimes contentious
Democrat Primary, and the media has devoted little attention to it. Why should
we not suppose it is a dead letter – old news?
That is always possible, but not likely in mano a mano debates between
President Donald Trump – who, whatever his failings, knows how to make news –
and Biden who, most will acknowledge, is not William Jennings Bryant on the
stump.
However, the question immediately before the house is: why has
Blumenthal not yet endorsed Biden? The answer to that question most flattering
to Blumenthal may be: perhaps Blumenthal is a man of strong ethical principles
after all. Given the Schweizer analysis, which has not been disputed by Biden
or Blumenthal, how it is possible to maintain a view that Trump is too cozy
with China, roughly Blumenthal’s position, while extending a hearty endorsement
of Biden, whose son Hunter has been woven into the Chinese tapestry in a
fashion some might consider compromising?
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