Former President Obama’s ethics chief ripped into President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, for selling his art at prices ranging up to half a million dollars to anonymous buyers.
Walter Shaub, the former Office of Government Ethics director under Obama, said that the lucrative arrangement has a “shameful and grifty feeling to it.”
“The notion of a president’s son capitalizing on that relationship by selling art at obviously inflated prices and keeping the public in the dark about who’s funneling money to him has a shameful and grifty feel to it,” Shaub told Fox News on Monday.Shaub also warned that the anonymity granted to Hunter’s clients could allow “influence-seekers” to funnel money to the Biden family.
“Just as hotel charges and real estate purchases created a risk of unknown parties funneling money to the Trump family for potentially unsavory purposes, Hunter Biden’s grotesquely inflated art prices create a similar risk of influence-seekers funneling money to the Biden family,” Shaub said.
Shaub said he thinks that Biden and his art dealer, Georges Berges, “should disclose the identity of the purchasers” so the public can see if the buyers try to “gain access to [the] government.”
He also said that the “public should not have to take it on blind faith that government officials will behave” regardless if “any attempt to curry favor or buy influence is likely to succeed.”
“But I also think it’s ridiculous that Hunter Biden is even going forward with this sale as a first-time artist,” Shaub continued. “He can’t possibly think anyone is paying him based on the quality of the art. This smells like an attempt to cash in on a family connection to the White House.”
