Did Biden's Remarkable Wealth Come From Civil Service?

With "all things Trump" over the past six years about his business dealings and taxes before the self-made billionaire entered the White House, ever wonder how Joe Biden — who spent the entirety of his nearly half century on the public dole — amassed an estimated $9 million in assets and affords taxes on expensive private real estate?

I'm referring here to two Delaware homes, one in Wilmington, the other in Rehoboth, reportedly valued at about $4 million combined.

Over most of his long Senate career Joe made about $174,000 annually, and as vice president $235,000.

Now, as president, he gets $400,000, including lots of cool perks, of course, like a $50,000 expense account, free swanky room and board, spiffy rides on Air Force One, and quick helicopter hops to Delaware rather than long Amtrak commutes.

Hey, he's president of the United States of America. Apart from opportunities to sleep in and rent out the Lincoln bedroom, lots of corporate execs make way more than that.

But how did he become so wealthy before getting the nation's top job? After leaving the Obama White House, he reportedly raked in more than $15 million.

Is he a renowned intellectual speaker? Not really, other than famously lifting thoughts from the speeches of Robert Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey and British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock —  claiming them as his — which caused him to withdraw as a presidential candidate in 1988.

No Joke Man!

An academic intellect, monetarily sought for policy advice?

This isn't evident in his graduation as 76^th in his Syracuse Law School class of 85, or former Obama-Biden administration Defense Secretary Robert Gates' assessment of Joe having "been wrong on every major foreign policy and national security decision in the last four decades."

A bestselling author with an inspiring story to tell? After more than four decades as senator, vice president, now president, with no notable achievements most anyone can think of ... Nada.

Did he create or grow profitable private sector businesses that have provided employment, tax revenues and other successful demonstrations of entrepreneurial leadership?

Come on Man!

All of the foregoing appears to beg the fundamental question regarding what product or service was Joe peddling for the "10 percent for the big guy" arranged by his son Hunter from CEFC, a now-defunct energy company closely associated with the Chinese regime. It reportedly paid Hunter and Jim Biden $4.8 million in 2017-2018 plus a currently-missing 3.16-carat diamond worth about $80,000.

Researcher Peter Schweizer chronicled in the New York Post that "the Biden family has done five deals in China totaling some $31 million," each arranged by individuals with direct ties to Chinese intelligence — some reaching the very top of China's spy agency.

Apart from that perhaps troubling Communist Chinese connection, why might this possibly matter?

Maybe because Hunter and Joe's brother Jim appear to have some potential financial and unregistered foreign lobbying problems of their own which have turned up in more than 150 U.S. Treasury Department suspicious activity reports (SARs) involving funds from "China and other foreign nations" which have been under investigation in a Delaware federal court since 2018.

Specific criminal charges against Hunter under consideration reportedly include possible money laundering, violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and whether he paid taxes on all of his income.

The new GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee is also investigating possible connections between Hunter's foreign business deals and his father – but until very recently, Treasury has refused to provide access to those SARs.

As committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., said: "After two months of dragging their feet, the Treasury Department is finally providing us with access to the suspicious activity reports for the Biden family and their associates' business transactions.

"It should never have taken us threatening to hold a hearing and conduct a transcribed interview with an official under the penalty of perjury for Treasury to finally accommodate part of our request."

Rep. Comer's House Committee is also likely looking into numerous other suspicious foreign Biden family dealings which may have troublesome links to Joe when he was vice president.

Like, for example, why Hunter, who accompanied him on a 2013 trip to Beijing on Air Force Two, scored a $1 billion Chinese government private equity deal for his startup company two weeks later.

Or why, according to 2010 emails on Hunter's "laptop from hell," did he pay thousands of dollars in house repairs and monthly AT&T service bills for his VP dad?

In case you're wondering, that was the same Wilmington, Delaware, estate where Joe's lawyers found at least six classified documents, and where Hunter declared to be his residence on credit cards and his driver's license.

And what, exactly, was Hunter referring to in texts to his daughter Naomi in 2019 complaining about having to give his father half of his salary?

So, is some of Scranton Joe's remarkable wealth as a lifetime civil servant comingled with revenues from his family's questionable foreign forays?

Maybe we'll finally get that answer now that Treasury has released records that have been slow walked and stonewalled from Congress.

Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.