Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies (17 page)

Like the president he hopes to succeed, Sen. McCain does not believe the government has a real role to play in protecting Americans from unscrupulous lending practices.... He would continue to allow the banks and credit card companies to tilt the playing field in their favor, at the expense of hardworking Americans.
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The 2005 bankruptcy measures, this Senator said in his aggressive attacks on McCain, amounted to “siding with banking industry lobbyists” and against the downtrodden. Who was this vocal senator opposed to the bankruptcy law changes championed by McCain and Biden? None other than Barack Obama, who would later pick Joe Biden as his running mate.

Notwithstanding Biden’s legislative victories, MBNA’s credit card operations (taken over by Bank of America in 2006) began to run into trouble after the U.S. economy cratered in late 2007. As a result of rising defaults, Bank of America’s credit card services unit lost $373 million in the third quarter
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and $204 million in the fourth quarter
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of 2008. But don’t feel too badly for Biden’s MBNA pals. Bank of America has received $45 billion of taxpayer money via the Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.
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The Obama campaign team knew Biden’s MBNA ties would cause trouble and acknowledged that the relationship “was one of the most sensitive issues they examined while vetting the senator for a spot on the ticket.”
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But they pressed forward anyway. Glossing over the cognitive dissonance, Team Obama vehemently denied any ethical improprieties on Biden’s part. But the incestuous entanglements do not pass the smell test.

MEET THE RAINMAKERS

Hunter Biden raked in the MBNA consulting payments while serving as a founding partner of the Washington, D.C., lobbying firm, Oldaker, Biden & Belair, which opened shop in 2002. While Biden’s son was raking in the bucks as a well-connected lobbyist, Barack Obama was boasting that lobbyists “won’t find a job in my White House.” In November 2007, Obama vowed at a campaign event in Spartanburg, South Carolina:

One year from now, we have the chance to tell all those corporate lobbyists that the days of them setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more to take on lobbyists than any other candidate in this race—and I’ve won. I don’t take a dime of their money, and when I am President, they won’t find a job in my White House. Because real change isn’t another four years of defending lobbyists who don’t represent real Americans—it’s standing with working Americans who have seen their jobs disappear and their wages decline and their hope for the future slip further and further away. That’s the change we can offer in 2008.
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But those evil corporate lobbyists found plenty of room in Joe Biden’s coffers—and offered him plenty of change. “He’s no stranger to how the system works,” David Williams, vice president of policy for Citizens Against Government Waste, put it politely.
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According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the lobbying industry kicked in $344,400 for Biden’s campaigns since 1989, making lobbyists his tenth largest contributing industry. During the 2008 election cycle, he took in $43,000 more than the average $81,700 that lobbyists gave senators. One of Biden’s top 20 most generous contributors over time was lobbying firm Blank Rome LLP, whose employees donated $68,200.
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What was the effect of these lobbying contributions? Joe Biden himself said it best at a campaign event in December 2007 addressing a supporter named “Lynn”:
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Lobbyists aren’t bad people. Special interest groups are not bad people, but guess what? They’re corrosive. People who accept the money from them aren’t bad people. But it’s human nature. You go out, Lynn, and bundle $250,000 for me—all legal—and then you call me after I’m elected and say, “Joe I’d like to come and talk to you about something.” You didn’t buy me, but it’s human nature. You helped me. I’m going to say, “sure, Lynn, come on in.”

Obama and Biden spokespeople repeatedly emphasized that the younger Biden never lobbied his father directly—which is entirely beside the point. No direct lobbying is necessary. The buying of access works by wink and nods. Carrying the Biden name greased the wheels. As Biden the Elder said, “It’s human nature.” Or, as transparency advocate Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation explained: “It’s not necessarily that the father’s going to do favors for the child’s clients, but that every other member knows who his father is and what the connection is and that can carry a lot of influence as well.”
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ABC News reported that, since 2003, Hunter Biden has lobbied for drug companies, universities, and other clients who have paid his firm “a total of $3.8 million, jumping from $20,000 in 2003 to $1.6 million in 2007,” including “drug research companies Achaogen and Pulmatrix, Sharp & Barnes on internet gambling, and six universities: Regis University, St. Joseph’s University, St. Xavier University, University of Detroit Mercy, Xavier University, and University of Scranton which is located in his father’s hometown.”
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In the first half of 2008 alone, Hunter Biden worked on accounts worth nearly a half million dollars for the firm.

Coincidentally, some of the educational earmark projects brought lobbyist Hunter Biden into contact with that outspoken foe of lobbyists and earmarks, Senator Barack Obama. Obama secured $192,000 for Hunter Biden’s client St. Xavier University, which is located in suburban Chicago. Hunter Biden first contacted the small Roman Catholic institution in 2005 with the promise of winning federal earmark funding. An official for the school told the
Washington Post
that he “found Biden’s parentage a selling point.”
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Nepotism has its privileges. Biden took school officials around to members of the Illinois delegation. Small world! Senator Barack Obama was on their earmark itinerary.

Another Hunter Biden client in Chicago: Thorek Memorial Hospital. Senator Obama went to bat for the cancer treatment center, seeking $2 million in federal funding. Hunter Biden represented Thorek Memorial and earned $120,000 representing the hospital. In all, Senator Obama pursued more than $3.4 million in congressional earmarks for clients who just happened to be represented by Hunter Biden .
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Small world!

One major client of Hunter Biden’s, biotech firm Achaogen, nailed a $24.7 million Pentagon contract for anthrax-threat mitigation in October 2006
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and a $26.6 million contract for biodefense research in March 2009.
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Lobbyist disclosure filings show that Achaogen paid Oldaker, Biden & Belair $20,000 in the last quarter of 2006 and a total of $90,000 in 2008.

Two days after Obama tapped Biden for the vice presidential slot, Hunter Biden quit the “corrosive” lobbying business.
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But the son’s resignation did not end questions about the family’s influence peddling racket. In fact, the “resignation” was partial. While foregoing any more lobbying fees for his work with one firm, he continued to lobby at Oldaker, Biden & Belair on behalf of medical and academic clients.
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In late 2008, Oldaker, Biden & Belair dropped Biden from its masthead and became “Oldaker, Belair & Wittie.”

The “Oldaker” in “Oldaker, Biden & Belair” is William Oldaker. Oldaker represented everything Barack Obama purported to detest. Nicknamed “The Rainmaker,” Oldaker had served as Biden’s former fundraiser/campaign treasurer/general counsel and presidential campaign adviser before establishing his lobbying shop with Hunter Biden as co-partner.

Oldaker’s Democrat machine days stretched back to 1980, when he served as top counsel for Teddy Kennedy’s 1980 Democratic presidential bid. What distinguished Oldaker was his special expertise in campaign finance law. From 1968 to 1975, Oldaker served as general counsel at the Federal Election Commission. He parlayed that niche into a lucrative, double-dealing career. As a
Legal Times
profile in 2006 noted, “Oldaker is one of the gurus of election law, and over the past quarter-century as a lobbyist, he has advised campaigns and handled the financial books for more than 20 politicians. He also has signed off on quarterly statements as treasurer for 26 political action committees, according to FEC records.”
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The mingling of lobbying and campaign work raised red flags on Capitol Hill, but not enough for Biden to completely cut himself off from Oldaker. He dropped Oldaker as his campaign treasurer, but retained him to do election law work. Biden’s chief of staff in 2006, Alan Hoffman, said he spoke with Oldaker “for campaign advice almost weekly.”
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The employees of Oldaker’s firm earned more than $140,000 in legal fees incurred by Biden’s failed presidential bid in 2008.
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Other Oldaker staffers held positions as Biden’s PAC treasurer or assistant treasurer until early 2009, according to the
Wilmington News Journal
.
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In addition, Oldaker created another lobbying arm that worked out of the same office as the firm he co-founded with Biden’s son. The National Group specialized in securing federal earmarks—taxpayer funds for lawmakers’ pet projects—from Oldaker’s former employer and lobbying client, Senator Biden. Oldaker helped drum up hefty sums for the University of Delaware, which has paid his firm $1.5 million in legal fees. Oldaker also helped secure tens of millions in earmarks for university projects including defense research, a student-exchange program, and a drug-and-alcohol-studies program.
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The
Wilmington News Journal
reported in June 2008 that Oldaker garnered nearly $70 million from the Delaware congressional delegation for the University of Delaware. Though the university’s main source of federal funding is still annual grants of about $100 million, the university has secured another $68 million from the Delaware delegation in the five years since The National Group’s lobbyists began working for UD. In the three years before The National Group began lobbying for UD, the university averaged about $7.4 million a year in earmarks obtained through the Delaware delegation, according to Senator Biden’s office. The firm’s price tag for UD is listed in federal reports as $240,000 a year .
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Another notable National Group client: the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. None other than Senator Barack Obama requested $300,000 in federal earmark funding for the institution, which he jacked up by 900 percent to $3 million, between 2006 and 2008. The planetarium’s board of trustees chairman was Frank Clark—a top Obama donor and mega-bundler who raised between $200,000 and $500,000 for Obama’s presidential campaign.
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Several other officers and trustees of the planetarium had also contributed to Obama’s campaigns. The non-profit planetarium was hardly needy; it had more than $33 million in assets at the end of 2006. Obama had sought, but was unsuccessful in securing, money to replace the planetarium’s projector and other theater equipment. Happily for the planetarium, former Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel—who subsequently became White House chief of staff—stuffed a $900,000 earmark for the planetarium into the $410 billion spending bill President Obama signed in 2009.
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And the benefit to Biden buddy Oldaker? In 2008, the planetarium paid The National Group $120,000 for lobbying services—triple its lobbying expenses from 2002.
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The working relationship between Senator Biden’s office and his close advisor and son’s lobbying firm was so intimate that staffers grew accustomed to receiving phone calls from The National Group at the beginning of every appropriations cycle—with expected follow-up calls later.
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On speed-dial, no doubt.

THE BIDEN FAMILY AND TRIAL LAWYERS: BFF!

“Average Joe” Biden wants you to believe he hangs with the regular guys at Home Depot. But the BFFs (Best Friends Forever!) of the Bidens wear pin-striped suits, not coveralls. They carry briefcases, not toolboxes. And you can bet they’re not driving pick-up trucks.

One lucrative cloud seeded by “rainmaker” William Oldaker showered generous benefits on both Hunter Biden and his dad. In 2005-06, the Chicago-based personal injury law firm of Cooney and Conway paid Oldaker, Biden & Belair $220,000 to push its tort reform proposals.
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At the same time, Cooney and Conway gave Senator Biden’s political campaigns more than $70,000.
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The firm’s founding co-partner John Cooney told the
Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
that he struck up a friendship with Biden in 2004 over a legislative battle before Biden’s Senate Judiciary Committee. Cooney was part of a small group that strategized with Biden on campaign matters at his Delaware home.
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Cooney and Conway represent clients claiming asbestos-related injuries. Biden sided with the trial lawyers, actively opposing measures to reduce frivolous lawsuits and reduce the returns on future lawsuits.

Other heavy-hitting law firms that pitched in to Biden’s campaigns: Baltimore-based Peter Angelos, whose law firm gave Biden $156,250; Wilmington-based Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, which kicked in $127, 979; and Pachulski Stang Zielhl & Jones, which donated $145,625, according to
The American Lawyer
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Philip Howard, author and founder of Common Good, a bipartisan coalition that advocates for legal reform, summed up his record: “Senator Biden has a pretty clear record of being close to the trial lawyers. To people who are interested in restoring reliability to the legal system, he’s probably unlikely to be the champion.”
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