Unit2Sucks said:Jared Kushner (aka Trump) has done very similar things with larger dollar amounts and is not under investigation. Not a single GOPer (even including moderates like you) have called for any investigations into the Trump children.OdontoBear66 said:Not educated in the legal jargon being tossed here, but the big thing you avoid, and the thing so many are angry about in our society today is "If his name were Hunter Trump" what would you be saying Unit? The lack of an answer there is very telling. The lack of an answer there is why there is so much hatred in our society.Unit2Sucks said:We seem to be getting into counter-factual territory. Devon Archer pulled Hunter onto the Burisma board. He wasn't hired off the street because Burisma had a headhunter looking for a specific profile. Like many well-connected people, he got a sweet gig based on his unearned privilege.calbear93 said:Unit2Sucks said:The fact that you as an American lawyer in one of the strongest corporate governance regimes in the world wouldn't think of hiring a foreign lawyer to your board kind of proves the point doesn't it?calbear93 said:Unit2Sucks said:I don't know why you are choosing to take a limited the field of governance. Burisma was a private company so I have no idea why you are talking about listing standards. But more importantly, there are governance principles like accountability, transparency, risk management etc, that you implement through business processes. Surely you could bring your self-evident experience to bear with a foreign company (particularly one in a developing country like Ukraine) even if you don't know how many times you need to clap your hands to adjourn a board meeting or what the name of the form is to appoint directors.calbear93 said:Unit2Sucks said:I think you know that a lot of governance principles would apply even across borders. Burisma wasn't a tiny company - reportedly revenue was in the hundreds of millions - and they were dealing with a corruption scandal, so it's not insane for them to bring on an American with exceptional credentials (he went to Yale law school, no slouch), worked at a prominent law firm, had investment experience, and had a nice last name. I've seen board members at smaller US companies make more money. I think you have as well.calbear93 said:Unit2Sucks said:Hunter Biden graduated from Georgetown undergrad and Yale law school. As I recall you have immense respect for these sorts of institutions and the accomplished people who graduate from them. He earned editorships at multiple journals while at Yale.calbear93 said:
If he was not enriching himself from the money his son received from peddling influence, then Joe at least was engaged in willful blindness. He knows his son and his lack of capabilities. Did he not wondering why powerful foreign companies were hiring his unqualified son? Does that pass the sniff test any more than J. Thomas was just hanging out with his friends.
From there, he went on to hedge fund work and investment and advisory work. He also co-founded a VC firm and was counsel at Boies Schiller.
You like to talk a lot about credentials and accomplishments - it sure seems like Hunter had them.
Biden was purportedly hired by Burisma due to his corporate governance skills, not for his energy knowledge. That's what he was doing in his work with Boies Schiller. Do you know for a fact that he had no such skills or are you just accepting the narrative?
I know it's de riguer for the deplorables to pile on by saying that Hunter had no skills and was unaccomplished, but his resume says otherwise. How are you able to conclude that Hunter lacked capabilities and was unqualified for his positions? How would you expect his father (who was quite busy with his own career) to have made those determinations?
Don't get me wrong - I believe that a lot of these scions of senators and other politicians are out there trading on their names more than anything else, but at a certain point they do benefit from their experiences. At what point did Dubya stop being a f()ckup cokehead and become a serious person worthy of your vote (presumably you voted for him in 2000 and 2004)? How about John McCain?
I have known more than a few people with substance abuse problems (and other issues) who were quite accomplished and successful in their careers. I know the narrative is that Hunter had zero marketable skills apart from his name, but has anyone ever actually pressure tested that narrative?
Governance skill at a foreign corporation? You as a long practicing legal professional - would you feel qualified to serve as a governance expert in a foreign energy company? You of all people should know how different laws are in local jurisdictions. I hired local counsel even when I was in private practice. What would happen if you applied to serve as a board member in a foreign corporation? You would never get an invite. You are probably more of a governance expert.
You know he had no skills whatsoever to serve in that capacity and be paid that much money. No more than somehow he became an artist worthy of $500k per painting. If he went to work for a hedge fund or law firm, great.
But you know better. Just stand back, assume his name was Hunter Trump and judge fairly.
He wouldn't have been there if he hadn't been introduced by his prominent friend Devon Archer, so there are a lot of reasons I wasn't asked to serve on Burisma's board. Back then people didn't know he was a degenerate scumbag tax cheat either, so he probably had more of a halo effect than we imagine now.
I'm not saying that Burisma's appointment of Hunter was the product of a meritocracy. You know that I don't believe that there is enough meritocracy in this world and that we have both seen connected people reap the rewards. There is nothing new here and the only thing that makes Hunter unique is that he happens to be Joe Biden's scumbag kid and that he has made a number of obvious horrible mistakes which have come back to bite him.
I don't know what you mean. Most of the governance requirements for my public clients were based on Delaware corporation laws, Delaware case law, NYSE listing standards, and charter documents. We had local counsel manage the laws for our foreign subsidiaries because the requirements, from in person meetings, residency requirements, etc. were so different. I would never serve on a board of a foreign corporation based on my governance expertise. I cannot believe someone as experienced as you with so much public company experience just wrote that.
Reports of Hunter's role on the board sound like pretty typical director duties that someone with his background (and impeccable academic credentials - YLS!).Quote:
Interviews with more than a dozen people, including executives and former prosecutors in Ukraine, paint a picture of a director who provided advice on legal issues, corporate finance and strategy during a five-year term on the board, which ended in April of this year.
I'm obviously playing a bit of devil's advocate here but your hyperbolic arguments don't really make a lot of sense. I think if you strip away all of the unproven allegations against him, this isn't outrageous. Any more so than Paul Ryan serving on the board of Fox and joining a PE firm based entirely on his Rolodex or Al Gore being on the board of Apple (he didn't actually invent the internet).
I'm sorry but maybe your experience and my experience are different. Who seeks transparency as a board skill? Accountability? I have attended many board meetings in private practice, led N&G Committee as executive champion as GC, and was on board of private company as an investor and currently serve on a public board, including as chair of the N&G committee. The corporate governance are not what you describe. There is risk management, which is a skillset not from governance lawyer but from CEO / CFO roles. No way we would ever consider a foreign attorney to serve on a board because of their governance practice. Your description is so removed from my actual experience. Did you see generally see appointment of foreign attorneys in you PE experience? Lawyers generally are not favored on private or public boards but definitely not foreign attorneys. They are generally CEO, CFO or marketing/CIO. The only reason I am on a board is because I represented them in practice and is close to the chairman. How many boards have you worked with? Maybe more limited since you were primarily in M&A?
Doesn't sound like your experience (or mine) is relevant to a Ukrainian company who was under investigation before they hired Hunter (and hired him in part to help rehab their image). I'm assuming they didn't know he would take the money and spend it on hookers and meth and that their worst scandal would be appointing him to their board.
It seems like all of your responses today are based exclusively on your personal experience and that you and I have different ways of evaluating situations. I'm not claiming that Hunter was the best person in the world to clean up Burisma, but I do think it passes the sniff test.
You seem to be saying that since you would never do it for your American companies and that you think Hunter had zero capabilities (even with a degree from Yale law school and numerous other accomplishments). I'm just saying that Hunter's resume (with his last name) doesn't preclude Burisma from having appointed him to the board in good faith. I have no actual knowledge of Burisma or what Hunter actually did there or anything else.
If you told us that you were friends with the son of a prominent senator who went to law school with you, worked at your fancy law firm, worked at your fancy hedge fund, started his own VC fund and subsequently was appointed to a foreign corporation's board - I think we would all say "yup, that sounds like how the world currently works."
For what it's worth, there are a lot of people trying to change the way the world works to make it more fair or meritocratic. I would like my children to grow up in a more fair world, even if it means they won't get some of the benefits that Hunter had.
Honestly I don't know why you think it's that complicated.
Surprised more US lawyers are not being sought after by foreign corporations for their governance skills. My network is pretty broad and I know zero.
That is why it's strange. I was in the profession for decades and that is my experience. If it's relevant to your experience, do you not give weight to your experience?
Again - zero folks in my networks of Ivy League trained lawyers who were hired to serve as board members because of their US trained governance skill.
No way I would say - yup that's how it works.
Now if he was peddling influence because of his father's role as a VP and ability to use his connect to his father to benefit the foreign corporation, then that is peddling corruption.
As for peddling influence, Archer testified that Hunter did trade on the "illusion" of access to his father, but that he actually had none.
Here's a WaPo opinion piece about this:Quote:
Archer explained that his work for Burisma was centered on finding external financing for the then-young company to expand. Hunter Biden also helped set up connections in Washington, helping "set Burisma up with [legal firm] Boies Schiller, with Blue Star Group, with the DHS lobbyists, with a whole government affairs and lobbying team in D.C."
He said that Biden's last name helped and that Hunter Biden sought to give the impression he was leveraging Joe Biden in his role. But he also testified that Hunter Biden knew this was deceptive. Archer confirmed an email in which Hunter Biden discussed how to frame an announced trip by the then-vice president to Ukraine.
"The announcement of my guy's" his father's "upcoming travels should be characterized as part of our advice and thinking but what he will say and do is out of our hands," the email read. "In other words, it could be a really good thing or it could end up creating too great an expectation."
This distills Archer's broader point: Hunter Biden wanted to give the impression he could bend Joe Biden's will but, in private conversation, he said he couldn't.
I read that and think - that's pretty typical and it happens all of the time with well-connected people.
There is nothing there that implicated Joe Biden whatsoever and that's about the closest the GOP has come to proving their case. In fact, they think Devon Archer has been their star witness lol.
Again, the fact that you don't have this personal experience doesn't mean that Joe Biden is corrupt.
Unless and until we see evidence of actual corruption, I'm far more concerned about the type of corruption that I saw every day when I was a practicing lawyer - which is the revolving door of people leaving federal agencies for prominent private sector jobs where they leverage their connections. I can come up with dozens of examples of people I've worked with or come into contact with who fit that profile. And absolutely no one is surprised when it happens. I'm not even referring to defense contractors. If you look at prominent fintech companies they are thick with these people. Facebook's first GC (nice guy, I'm not dogging him) was a white house lawyer for Dubya. There is basically a never ending list of these people and it goes well beyond the legal types I'm referring to.
I love the idea of Manchin thinking Independent and maybe No Labels. Not because it hurts or helps one side or the other, but because it brings things back to the middle and "common sense"---a little bit left, a little right, but definitely not ultra conservative or liberal. If anything changes in our political landscape through all of this tension I hope it is a middle third party establishment, much to the chagrin of both Repubs and Dems. I am hated in my own party (RINO) because my conservatism extends to economic and monetary matters only.
I suspect you can admit to some measure of fairness Unit. Step up
So we know the answer - if his name was Hunter Trump he would still be raking in the big bucks and no one would be doing anything about it.
If Kushner were under investigation for a crime, Trump would have pardoned him and claimed the whole thing were a witch hunt. No one in the GOP would criticize him (not even moderates like you).
Hunter has been prosecuted for crimes (mis-statement on a gun license, not paying taxes) that typically aren't criminally prosecuted and rarely result in any jail time at all. If he were a Trump, we know how this would play out.
It's not just Jared - look at how Ivanka went with her daddy on AF1 to China to meet with Chinese politicians and then magically numerous trademark applications were approved. Look at how Trump's hotel in DC was filled with foreign diplomats - everyone knew if you were visiting the white house you had to stay at Trump's hotel.
There was plenty of corruption to chase under Trump, and the GOP couldn't care less (including moderates like you).
I'm not really defending Hunter - I am just saying that I don't buy a lot of the conclusions about him and Burisma (and some of the other claims). He's obviously a dirtbag and a drug addict with a lot of problems, but that doesn't mean that the GOP is justified in inventing claims with no basis. They've been chasing after him for like 4+ years and have yet to land on a single obvious thing he did wrong regarding corruption. Sure he didn't pay his taxes (Trump's business has been criminally convicted with tax fraud and not a single GOPer batted an eyelash (not even a moderate like you) so forgive me for not pretending like his failure to pay taxes is unique.
I could care less if Hunter loses his trial(s) and goes to jail but unless and until there is actual evidence of corruption, this whole thing looks like a wild goose chase. So that's what I am saying.
PS: Odonto it appears you have an interest in eliminating government corruption. Will you join me in calling for a bipartisan investigation into potentially corrupt acts by Trump's adult children? If not, why not? Do you think the Trumps should be shielded from investigation that they would suffer from if their last name was Biden?
I am not him but I would resist until I felt both instances of corruption were investigated. If, like here, you want to excuse Biden and use it as political persecution of Trump only, then no. If both will be investigated, I would be thrilled. Shine sunlight on both corrupt families. Take politics out of it. Just have not seen that anyone here will stand of principle and not tribalism. I for one would love it if both parties were subject to the same standards and we could apply the standards equally independent of our political leanings. But that has not been the case even in theory and debate here.