On June 8 President Biden was asked about news of the FBI informant report that he had received a substantial bribe in connection with his duties as vice president in the Obama administration. Asked about the news, Biden found it highly amusing. He asked, “Where’s the money?” Yuk yuk. I asked “Why is this man laughing?”
"…there's damning evidence in an FBI file that you sold out the country. Do you have a response?"
BIDEN: "Where's the money?" pic.twitter.com/eInHkzkzhH
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 8, 2023
Today we learn that Biden is laughing in part because his son has now worked out a sweetheart deal with the United States Attorney in Delaware. You should be so lucky.
On the point of the Biden family business, however, we note that Biden served as a government official from January 1973 through January 2017 and then again since January 2021. For most of his long life Biden has pulled down a government salary. What was his road to riches?
Bob Anderson takes up this question in this illuminating Federalist column. Here is the heart of it (links and graphic omitted):
In the wake of a whistleblower report of a $5 million bribe allegedly accepted by then-Vice President Biden to influence policy in Ukraine, Republican lawmakers are now demanding transparency from the president regarding the substantial income he reported on his 2017 taxes.
The questions are long overdue. I first asked, “Where Is Hunter Biden’s Money?” just before the 2020 election, noting that civilian Biden had reported $9.5 million in income for fiscal year 2017 — almost twice as much as he had earned in the prior 19 years combined. A subsequent piece last year analyzed the accepted premise that this money had come from his book deal with Flatiron Books.
What I found was that “a notable $8.7 million gap exists between (his income tax-reported) $9.5 million net income in 2017 and the $809,709 of disclosed income in that year from book tour and related speaking events,” and “since his disclosure covers only part of 2017, we lack the insight into other income that may explain it.”
We lack the insight because this money flowed to Joe and Jill Biden by way of two S-corporations that they set up shortly after he left office in 2017, CelticCapri Corp. (his) and Giacoppa Corp. (hers). Despite claims that their tax returns had been released, the truth was that they only released their individual returns — not the upstream S-corporations’ returns. Without those documents, it’s simply impossible to know the sources of this anomalous income. What can be ascertained with basic math is that his dismal book sales could not have yielded that kind of money.
As I noted, “For analysis purposes, consider that his book had a retail price of $27 for hardcover and $18 for paperback, and assume a reasonable mix of sales so the average price was $23 (with no discounting). On 300,000 books sold, gross revenues would’ve been just under $7 million. As an author, Biden would’ve likely received about 12 percent of that using a blended royalty rate (15 percent hardcover and 7.5 percent paperback typical from publishers), yielding about $800,000 in income. Round it up to $1 million if you prefer. Double it. It’s still not close to $8 million.”
Whole thing here. Highly recommended.
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