Burisma Revisited
27th May 2021
John Hinderaker at Power Line.
Joe Biden is a classic corrupt politician. He has used his decades in public office to enrich himself and his family in a manner that we usually associate with graft-seeking politicians of the 19th Century. The Burisma story, from which the Democratic Party press studiously averted its eyes, is a perfect example.
Joe’s son Hunter was given a place on Burisma’s board of directors and paid a salary of $1 million per year, making him by far the highest-paid person associated with Burisma. No Burisma employee, and no one else on Burisma’s board, made anywhere near that much money. This despite the fact that Hunter did not speak Ukrainian, knew nothing about the natural gas industry, and was a drug-addled, barely employable neer-do-well. The money obviously was intended as a bribe for the benefit of then-Vice President Joe Biden, who was in charge of Ukraine policy for the Obama administration. No one is dumb enough to write a check to a politician so as to document a bribe. Rather, the check is written to a bag man. That was the role that Hunter played here.
All of this is a well-known story, to those who pay attention if not to readers who rely on the New York Times. Now an additional fact has come to light: Burisma cut Hunter’s income in half when Joe’s term as Vice President ended.