Former Vice President Joe Biden has been creeping out Americans with his handsy, innuendo-ridden physical behavior around women and young girls for decades, but only now has his behavior become an “issue.”
As the former veep gears up for a potential 2020 presidential bid of his own, a story broke last week that broke wide open the wide-open “secret” in D.C. regarding Biden’s sexual creepiness, told in first person by Lucy Flores, who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor of Nevada in 2014.
Flores claims that right before she was scheduled to take the stage at a campaign event she appeared at with him, the then-VP sidled up behind her real close, leaned in, took a big whiff of her (unwashed) hair and slowly planted a lingering kiss atop her head.
All of which made her feel angry, shocked, and…creeped out.
Since Flores told her story a second woman has come forward, CNN no doubt begrudgingly reported: Amy Lappos told the Hartford (Connecticut) Courant newspaper (Biden’s from Connecticut) that the veep touched her inappropriately as well.
If you do an Internet search for “Joe Biden creepy videos” you’re going to find a lot of them. Why it’s suddenly an issue is already political fodder; maybe “someone” in the Democratic establishment doesn’t want an old white guy to be the face of the party in 2020 (so look for Crazy Bernie to be sandbagged next, if this is true).
But there is another reason why Biden cannot and should not be placed at the pinnacle of American power: He may also be corrupt.
’You’re not getting the billion’
According to ace investigative reporter John Solomon, writing at The Hill, Biden’s perhaps/maybe 2020 presidential campaign may be over before it starts, and not just because his legendary creepiness is coming home to roost.
Solomon notes that earlier this year, Biden – speaking during a Council on Foreign Relations event – couldn’t help bragging about how he effectively threatened the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, in 2016 that he would see to it the U.S. withheld $1 billion in American loan guarantees, which would have bankrupted Kiev, if he didn’t fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin immediately.
“I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden says he told Poroshenko.
“Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time” – which is diplomatic speak for “someone the Obama administration favored.” He even implicated the former president in the exchange.
Solomon noted further:
Interviews with a half-dozen senior Ukrainian officials confirm Biden’s account, though they claim the pressure was applied over several months in late 2015 and early 2016, not just six hours of one dramatic day. Whatever the case, Poroshenko and Ukraine’s parliament obliged by ending Shokin’s tenure as prosecutor. Shokin was facing steep criticism in Ukraine, and among some U.S. officials, for not bringing enough corruption prosecutions when he was fired.
In subsequent interviews with Ukrainian officials, however, they related something to Solomon they say Biden no doubt knew when he issued his ultimatum: The prosecutor who was fired was leading a far-reaching corruption probe into Burisma Holdings, a natural gas firm that just happened to employ Biden’s son, Hunter, as a board member.
Solomon noted that, according to banking records, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, Hunter Biden’s U.S. firm, “received regular transfers into one of its accounts – usually more than $166,000 a month – from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia.”
The general prosecutor’s file on the probe shows that officials with the office had already identified Hunter Biden, business partner Devon Archer, and their firm, Rosemont Seneca, as likely recipients of the money. (Related: The complete Hillary-Ukraine connection: Official investigating leak of Manafort financial records to help her win in 2016.)
In written answers, Shokin told Solomon that he was widening his investigation to include interrogations of members of Burisma board – including Hunter Biden.
Creepy Joe needs to answer some hard questions
Former VP Biden never mentioned any of this in his braggadocio discussion at the CFR seminar, but Solomon says that U.S. and Ukrainian authorities said Biden and his office certainly knew of the general prosecutor’s investigation.
Why? Because:
-- Hunter Biden’s appointment to the board was widely reported in the U.S.;
-- The U.S. Embassy located in Kiev which coordinated Biden’s in-country work discussed the prosecutor’s case against Burisma often and publicly;
-- Great Britain took well-publicized actions against Burisma while VP Biden was involved in the Ukraine-Russia mess;
-- Biden’s office was quoted on the record, noting Hunter Biden’s appointment to and role on Burisma’s board, stating that as a private citizen and lawyer, he was free to pursue his own private business deals.
The investigation stopped cold after Shokin was fired. But though Shokin was out, his replacement – the man VP Biden hailed as “solid” – Yuriy Lutsenko – began looking in to the funny money that was changing hands and allegedly streaming into the account of Hunter Biden after rumors began to swirl that his dad was considering a 2020 presidential run.
And now, after finding similarities between his own review of the case file and Sokin’s original findings, Lutsenko told Solomon that he’d like to present what he has to POTUS Trump’s new attorney general, William Barr. And he would particularly like to highlight the former Veep’s intervention.
In all, Solomon notes, Ukrainian officials believe some $3 million made it into the accounts of Hunter Biden and Archer, his partner. And while everyone is innocent until proven guilty, Joe Biden needs to answer some hard questions about this if he decides to run.
That is, if he even makes it past the “creeper” part.
Read more about the Obama administration’s rampant corruption at Corruption.news.
Sources include:
Please contact us for more information.