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I wonder how much of this is self-protection? Biden opened Pandora's box (or was seen to) with prosecutions of Trump. That '10% for the big man' avenue could be investigated, not to mention the hair-sniffing and showering-with-teen diary entry. I'm sure a creative judicial approach could find ways to make his life miserable until death. Hunter certainly wants Biden to retain power and protect him, that much is clear.
Biden can just pardon himself and hunter on the way out.
I’m not entirely sure if he can, based on the Supreme courts ruling on presidential immunity (which in effect says that a president cannot be prosecuted for official acts), I’m not sure what the outcome of a sel pardon would be (at a minimum it would end up in court and cost a lot of money).
The Supreme Court's immunity ruling did not rule either way on self-pardons (because they weren't at issue).
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I don’t think Trump will go after Biden, he isn’t really a central enemy the way that various prosecutors and perhaps some media figures are. He might go after Hillary but he seems mostly over her too.
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I know it's fun to assume maximally salacious details, but the diary entry gave absolutely no indication as to how old Ashley was at the time.
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With what endgame? It seems unlikely at the moment that the big guy will survive his son.
I don't think we should make any assumptions based on Hunter 'Drugs and Hookers' Biden having strong long-term planning skills.
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Hunter has another trial coming up.
What trial?
Tax fraud.
I don't actually think that Joe winning improves the situation for Hunter with his legal troubles though. If Joe loses he can pardon Hunter on the way out.
"25A time" is a logical consequence of "too senile to run again" at this point though -- so best case for Hunter is probably "runs and loses" -- then Biden can write a January pardon along the lines of "I hereby pardon my whole damn family for anything and everything we ever did or didn't do; I am a pretty Big Guy lol"
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Biden can pardon Hunter whether he wins or loses; it's not like there's takebacks on November 20th.
That's my point. I don't dispute that Hunter wants Joe to retain power, but I don't see his personal legal issues as being a motivating factor.
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What happens to unspent campaign cash after an election? Let's say Biden is tanking but has healthy coffers. Would it benefit a candidate to quietly accept an early loss and become thrifty in the final months, setting aside a surplus of funds as a nice consolation prize?
You can spend it on more political campaigns. Pocketing it is a federal crime that everyone who does it gets prosecuted for.
Everyone? This list looks very short considering how much cash is involved and the kind of person attracted to a career in politics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_people_convicted_of_campaign_finance_violations
It looks like campaign money can also go into charities/foundations and PACs. You seem more confident in the sanctity of these funds than I am, especially when it's in the hands of a family associated with over 20 shell companies. Maybe the Clintons can tutor them on how to run a completely above-board Foundation.
I wondered if this was the case and looked it up just before reading your comment. I'm now also wondering if this is more common than we know. The analogy I have in mind is Wikipedia. At some point, someone was the first person to publicly point out that Wikipedia takes in vastly more donations than they need to actually run the site, and oh by the way, much of the extra money seems to get funneled into leftist causes. I don't know how widely spread that piece of information is (and frankly, I haven't checked into it, so I'm hoping I'm not falling into Scott's "too good to check"). But has anyone done a broad look at what percentage of campaign funds actually get spent on the campaigns, themselves? What, in practice, often happens with the leftovers? I imagine plenty of it gets recycled into future campaigns, but how much? How much gets rolled into 'charitable organizations'? How many of those are, like, actually spending the money on real charitable things, rather than being a hiring/holding location for party operatives, as a way to keep a bench of folks on some sort of payroll? Do the different parties have different mixes of how their funds get used? Etc.
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Yeah at a minimum the campaign funds could go to some sort of Biden PAC which pays a healthy salary and expenses to the family.
It’s not like Biden is going to be drawing hefty speaking fees post presidency like Obama.
I doubt that money is Biden’s motivation but saying this can never happen is silly.
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That's... Not how it works. You can't pocket unspent campaign money.
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