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1) Not to excuse Hunter Biden from trading on his father's name -- or the Kushner couple from trading much better on Trump's, but it's about time to admit that influence peddling is not at all a crime under the U.S. code. It is legal. Congress has left it as a hole that....
https://twitter.com/wertwhile/status/1701752531934699713
2) ...all parties involved in our governance and their friends and relations can drive a truck through. Extortion is a crime under the law. Bribery is a crime. But earning money by talking horseshit about how you know and who will listen to you is the premise of the K Street....
3) ....lobbying class. Federal prosecutors have a name for the activity that involved people talking shit and pumping up their influence for salary and consulting fees. "Rainmaking." A player goes to the chump and says if you hire me, I can make it rain. Rain being whatever...
4) legislation, or subsidy or grant the chump wants to get from the government. If the player does anything overtly illegal to advance the chump's agenda -- a bribe, a threat, a quid pro quo -- then there is the possibility of prosecution. If the player doesn't do shit....
4) ....other then whatever a lobbyist or consultant is legally allowed to do, and the subsidy is obtained or bill gets passed, he made it rain and seems worth his pay. If it doesn't, then the chump overpaid. But influence peddling? That's legal. It's built in to the process....
5) What the Republicans lack so far is a single fucking overt criminal act by Hunter Biden, never mind Biden as vice president. They've got the younger Biden pimping his name, as Kushner and his wife pimped theirs to greater profit. And again, this is shitty, but in not criminal.
Apologies for two 4)s in the thread. Math is what kept me out of business school, if not the federal courthouse.
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