Joe Biden’s mug now mars New York’s historic Times Square. A pro-Trump super PAC has launched a billboard plastered with the former vice president’s face — and quotes from his historic quid pro quo confession. While Democrats have impeached Trump for ostensibly pressuring the Ukrainians to investigate Biden’s son Hunter and his dealings with the Ukrainian gas firm Burisma, Joe Biden himself confessed to pressuring Ukraine to fire a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.
The Committee to Defend the President, one of the largest pro-Trump PACs, will spend $40,000 to run the billboard until March 1, in addition to spending at least $5,000 on Facebook advertising to spread the word. The billboard, located at 1500 Broadway and 43rd Street, is two-sided and both sides feature the video of Biden admitting to withholding aid to Ukraine until its government fired the prosecutor investigating his son’s company.
The billboard directs New Yorkers to visit SubpoenaBiden.com, where they can sign a petition to Senate Republicans, urging them to subpoena the former vice president to testify on potential corruption in Ukraine.
“The Biden family name is synonymous with corruption, especially in Ukraine,” Ted Harvey, the committee’s chairman, told PJ Media on Thursday. “Our goal is to educate Americans about the shady deals and ruthless power moves that ‘Quid Pro Joe’ executed on behalf of his son, Hunter, and at the expense of the Ukrainian government. The American people deserve to know the truth, and we are committed to sharing it with them.”
Hunter Biden joined the board of the notoriously corrupt Ukraine gas company Burisma despite his lack of experience in Ukraine or in the energy business while his father was the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine. At the time, the company’s founder, Mykola Zlochevsky, was already under investigation for fraud. This investigation was dropped after Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, resigned — after Biden pressured President Petro Poroshenko to fire him.
The former vice president bragged about the quid pro quo at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“They were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, … we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, ‘You have no authority. You’re not the president—the president said’ … I said, ‘Call him.’ I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars.’ I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion. … I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a b—-. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time,” Biden recalled.
He clearly conditioned U.S. aid to Ukraine on Poroshenko agreeing to fire the prosecutor. Shokin resigned and the investigation into Burisma was dropped.
Biden’s campaign has loudly denied any corruption in the demand for Shokin’s ouster, insisting that the prosecutor general had not fought hard enough against corruption.
Yet the whole arrangement stinks to high heaven. Many members of Biden’s family have traded on the vice president’s last name to secure financial gain, and Hunter Biden’s exploits are not limited to Ukraine — he also cashed in in China while his father was vice president.
President Trump was well within his rights to ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate this situation in the July 25 phone call at the center of the Democrats’ impeachment effort. Yet for some reason, many media outlets have decided to cover for Joe Biden. New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg excoriated the press for not attacking Trump’s corruption claims as outright lies or a “conspiracy theory.”
Americans deserve to know the truth and this Times Square billboard will remind them of the scandal.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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