'He should state, as other Democrats have, that not even his son is above the law,' author Sarah Chayes wrote of President Biden
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A new piece from The Atlantic slammed both Hunter Biden for his foreign business dealings and his father President Joe Biden for acting like Hunter did nothing wrong. The article claimed both Bidens have been sanitizing and reinforcing a corrupt scheme.
Author Sarah Chayes published the piece Wednesday arguing that though there’s "no evidence" then-Vice President Joe Biden did anything illegal to serve his son’s overseas business interests, his denial of his son’s wrongdoing essentially served to support the behavior.
Chayes stated that one of the few ways President Biden can stop looking like someone laundering his son’s corruption is to stop saying Hunter did "nothing wrong" and admit that he isn’t above the law.
COMER DEMANDS NATIONAL ARCHIVES FORK OVER UNREDACTED EMAILS INVOLVING HUNTER BIDEN, UKRAINE, BURISMA
A piece in The Atlantic slammed President Joe Biden for covering for his sons corrupt business dealings. (Getty Images)
The author began her article with the observation that because of the appointment of a special counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Hunter Biden probe, "Democrats will be fielding uncomfortable questions throughout the 2024 presidential campaign."
She advised, "They would do well to think before they speak. Asked one such question in a television interview in May, President Biden insisted, ‘My son’s done nothing wrong.’"
"But is that true?" Chayes asked, adding, "It now seems quite likely that Hunter Biden has violated one or more U.S. laws. And that’s not all the wrong he has done. There is a difference between what is technically illegal and what is wrong."
The author continued with an explanation of how the breadth of corruption on Hunter’s part stretches beyond what is technically illegal and how Joe Biden’s blind eye towards it may not have been illegal either, but served the corruption.
Chayes noted she spent a "decade" in Afghanistan observing corruption in the country’s government, an experience she claimed, "makes plain to me what was wrong about the Bidens’ behavior, even if it wasn’t illegal."
She wrote, "There is absolutely no evidence that Joe Biden, as vice president, changed any aspect of U.S. foreign policy to benefit Burisma or any of its principals. But Hunter Biden’s position on that board of directors served to undermine the very U.S. anti-corruption policy his father was promoting."
The Atlantic's Sarah Chayes urged Biden to stop claiming his son "did nothing wrong." (REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz)
The author quoted the head of the U.S. embassy’s anti-corruption effort in Kyiv, Ukraine, George Kent, who once said, "Hunter’s presence on the Burisma board undercut the anti-corruption message the VP and we were advancing in Ukraine, b/c Ukrainians heard one message from us then saw another set of behavior, with the family association with a known corrupt figure."
She slammed Biden supporting his son’s behavior, adding, "Biden was supposed to be different. Yet his unconditional public support for everything his son has done serves to sanitize and reinforce a business model that provides image-laundering services for foreign kleptocrats and monetizes access to power—or the appearance of such access."
"For a president and a political party whose brand stresses integrity, that’s a self-inflicted wound," she added.
Chayes also urged the president to stop claiming his son’s innocence and curb his "business model." "As tenderly as a father may love his struggling son, the president can do better than parrot the "nothing wrong" chorus. When controversy over Hunter Biden’s work for Burisma erupted during the 2020 presidential campaign, I expressed the hope that his father would use his moral and potential future executive authority to curb that business model. He still can."
She then concluded, "He should state, as other Democrats have, that not even his son is above the law. He should never again participate in an occasion that Hunter might use to impress his business associates. And he should push for legislation that would close some of the loopholes that Supreme Court decisions have blown in U.S. anti-corruption laws."
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Gabriel Hays is an associate editor for Fox News Digital.
