Republicans announced Friday that they had uncovered a “direct payment” to President Joe Biden — exactly the kind of evidence they’ve sought linking Biden to his family’s foreign business deals.
But the March 2018 payment came from Joe Biden’s brother James, not a Ukrainian oligarch or Chinese tycoon, and the check was marked as a “loan repayment.”
Still, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), who obtained the records via subpoena, said the $200,000 check looks suspicious for the president.
“Does he have documents proving he lent such a large sum of money to his brother,” Comer said in a video, “and what were the terms of such financial arrangement?”
You’re overlooking some things here. Just a few years prior, Clarence Thomas had just undergone an intensive and public trial for sexual harassment of Anita HIll. Meanwhile, a sea change of public opinion against sexual harassment in the workplace was underway in practically every corner of the country. At that time, if you were a federal employee, you could get in serious trouble for abusing your position of power like that. But of course, the President isn’t a federal employee.
This was not just a minor lie and a clandestine blowjob. It was someone in a position of power taking advantage of a subordinate, in the workplace, and doing irrevocable harm to that subordinate’s reputation in the process.
Finally, just because something isn’t a criminal offense doesn’t make it acceptable. Nor does the fact that the Republicans seized on this for political gain make it less wrong.