(Transcript provided by RealClearPolitics)
PETER SCHWEIZER, PRESIDENT, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY INSTITUTE: Well, it’s another example, Maria, of basically a strategic retreat by the Biden administration.
I mean, they talk tough. They claim that they’re serious about the challenge represented by China. But what you basically get is retreat. And you saw that enunciated by Joe Biden in his speech to the United Nations earlier in this week in New York, where he basically said, yes, we might have some disagreements with China, but all of that is trumped by these other issues we have to work with them on.
So, the bottom line is, China has said consistently they seek to surpass the United States in political and strategic capabilities. And their goal is to be the supreme power on the globe over the next couple of decades. And the Biden administration says, they’re not a competitor, and they basically are backing down on so many positions that were staked out by the Trump administration.
BARTIROMO: What is this about?
I mean, is this about the current leadership in Washington not wanting to upset China? Or is this about conflicts of interest that the Biden family has with China?
SCHWEIZER: Well, I think it’s probably both.
There’s no question those conflicts exist. Joe Biden himself, two of his family members, his son Hunter Biden, of course, and his brother James Biden, have received millions of dollars from politically connected Chinese interests.
We also know, by the way, Maria, that Joe Biden has been a beneficiary. I mean, the Hunter Biden e-mails show that Hunter Biden was paying some of his dad’s bills while he was vice president of the United States. So you have the conflicts with the Bidens.
If you look at Tony Blinken, if you look at some of the other senior people in this administration, they too have financial conflicts of interest as it relates to China. So, my view is, why is this not being scrutinized by the media?
Certainly, if you were talking about Wall Street money or big oil, they’d be talking about conflicts of interests.
SCHWEIZER: But, for some reason, when it comes to China, they don’t seem to discuss it…
I mean, you have to basically stake this out to genius level corruption. And what I mean, Maria, is that Hunter Biden previously was going around the world striking business deals. That required a certain level of transparency. If you’re sitting on a corporate board, that gets disclosed.
The art world is very, very hard-to-trace money. In fact, the Senate did an investigation in 2019, and concluded that the art world was rife with money laundering, oligarchs moving money around.
So, going into the art world, Hunter Biden has created a circumstance whereby he can collect half-a-million dollars at pop — at a pop for a piece of work, and there’s going to be no paper trail.
And the White House says the ethics solution here — I will put that in quotation marks, Maria — is that nobody’s going to know anything about anyone involved.
Well, that’s absurd. We know that these art deals, these art shows, Hunter Biden’s going to be there schmoozing with people. We know that the man holding these art deals and showing Hunter’s art has said China is a growth market, where he really wants to go.
And we know that this is what the Bidens have done for decades. It’s really not in dispute. So, this is a new avenue for corruption. The money is going to give an opportunity for foreign corrupt intermediaries who want to curry favor with this administration.
And Jill Biden is displaying this artwork in the White House, which is a really nice gallery for foreign dignitaries to see the work.