Donald Trump’s Family Benefitted More From Foreign Deals Than Joe Biden’s – Donald Trump, indicted four times and facing 91 charges, uploaded a video on his social media platform Truth last week attacking the “Biden crime family.” Those words could come back to haunt him.
Accusing them of receiving millions of dollars from foreign countries, Trump said: “He’s a Manchurian candidate. That’s why Crooked Joe is letting other countries walk all over the United States.”
Trump’s comments were a clear reference towards Hunter Biden.
Trump’s insistent belief that the President benefited from his son’s foreign business dealings has spurred on a House investigation, with Republican lawmakers toying with the idea of impeachment.
However, there remains no concrete evidence that President Biden benefitted from his son’s business affairs, and the $ 20 million or so that Hunter collected are far below the levels of income that Trump and his own family have made since he became the 45th President of the United States.
Trump’s Financial Gains
During his presidency, Donald Trump continued to control his business empire, albeit through his sons while he was occupied by presidential commitments.
His luxury hotel, opened yards away from the White House, became a prime destination for lobbyists, dealmakers, and foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain.
Unlike Biden, who has kept Hunter away from politics (or at least tried to), Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner both served in his administration in positions where they could shape policy relating to overseas business.
Kushner in particular played a key role in shaping foreign policy towards the Middle East, and later started a private equity firm with $2 billion in funds from countries which stood to benefit from U.S. policies.
“What both Hunter and Jared have in common is that they are the well-educated sons of prominent people, and that their familial ties certainly helped them in business,” said Don Fox, a former general counsel of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, told the New York Times. “That is where the similarities end.”
“Hunter never held public office, and a fair amount of his work involving Ukraine occurred when his father was out of office,” Fox added.
Kushner’s Defense But GOP Concerns Remain
Kushner’s allies insist there was no wrongdoing, and that his negotiations in the Middle East were based on trust rather than administrative policy.
“There is no factual comparison between Hunter and Jared,” a representative for Mr. Kushner said in a statement. “Jared was a successful businessman before entering politics, achieved historic peace and trade agreements, and like many before him, he re-entered business after serving for free in the White House, where he fully complied with the Office of Government Ethics rules.”
Optics are always important in politics; even if Kushner’s actions were legal and in line with procedure, it looks somewhat hypocritical for his father-in-law to accuse his main rival of benefitting from family business relationships. Chris Christie,
Trump’s most outspoken Republican critic, said the family had been “involved in grifting for quite some time,” on CNN in June.
“Jared Kushner, six months after he leaves the White House, gets $2 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund,” he said. “What was Jared Kushner doing in the Middle East? We had Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo as secretaries of state. We didn’t need Jared Kushner. He was put there to make those relationships, and then he cashed in on those relationships when he left the office.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James R. Comer, who is currently spearheading the Biden investigation, admitted to CNN that Kushner’s involvement “crossed the line of ethics” but noted that his personal gains occurred after he left office.
Actions by Trump’s family were never found to be illegal or unconstitutional. Then again, neither have Biden’s. It’s clear that he is keen to attack the “Biden crime family” while happy to ignore financial gains from within his own – something which may come back to haunt him closer to the election.
Shay Bottomley is a British journalist based in Canada. He has written for the Western Standard, Maidenhead Advertiser, Slough Express, Windsor Express, Berkshire Live and Southend Echo, and has covered notable events including the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
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