Ya'll leave Joe Bidens son alone

[Tigermike 3,426]

Joe Biden's son, is not fair game. He's only making money off his dad's connections, that's all.

After all this is dimocrats lead by a "community organizer" from Chicago.

Obama - No lobbyist - but I will overlook this.

My Son, The Lobbyist: Biden's Son a Well-Paid DC Insider

Firm Lobbies Senator Biden Although Son Does Not

By EMMA SCHWARTZ

Aug. 24, 2008

The son of Barack Obama's vice presidential pick, Sen. Joe Biden, is a top partner at a Washington law firm that has lobbied his father's office, a family tie that could prove embarrassing for a campaign that has positioned itself as fighting lobbyists and special interests in Washington.

In the first six months of this year R. Hunter Biden, a founding partner of Oldaker, Biden & Belair, has worked on accounts that brought it $470,000 from nine clients, according to lobbying disclosure records.

Although firm members say Biden, 38, does not lobby his father, this kind of family tie, said Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, "raises the potential of a conflict of interest."

For its part, the Obama campaign said that Sen. Biden had always followed ethics rules. "Hunter Biden has never lobbied Sen. Biden's office or committees, period," David Wade, Obama-Biden spokesperson, wrote in an email response.

"He's never worked on a client issue where other members of the firm have lobbied the office. Hunter shares expenses not revenues with his partners, so there's no benefit to him when a partner lobbies. Sen. Biden has been as strong a supporter of ethics reform as the Senate has known, and his office follows all ethics laws right down to the letter."

But the connections between the law firm and Biden are very close.

For instance, William Oldaker, another named partner and former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission, has been Sen. Biden's campaign treasurer for Congress.

Oldaker has advised Biden on campaign issues, first during the Senator's failed 1988 presidential bid. And while Oldaker has said he does not lobby Biden personally, he has spoken with Biden's staff about some clients.

One example was the University of Delaware, which Oldaker approached in 2002, shortly after founding the firm with Hunter Biden and Robert Belair. Since then, the university has paid Oldaker's firm $1.5 million.

The payoff: as of 2006, $24.8 million in earmarks for defense research, a student-exchange program, and a drug-and-alcohol-studies program.

Biden's then chief-of-staff, Alan Hoffman told Legal Times in 2006, "We help University of Delaware the way we would help a whole other host of institutions in Delaware."

Oldaker did not return a phone call to his home.

Belair, the firm's other named partner, said he has never personally lobbied Sen. Biden, but has on occasion spoken with Biden's staff for a client with issues before the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose membership includes Biden.

Belair said he does not think there is any conflict of interest because he has worked for this client, SEARCH Group, a law enforcement research organization, for decades long before he ever met or began working with Hunter Biden.

Belair said the firm has no formal policy banning Hunter from lobbying his father but said, "I think in all the years since we've put the firm together I'm unaware of Hunter ever, ever lobbying his dad or that office. I don't think that happened. I never asked him to. I never would ask him and I think he would refuse."

Oldaker and Hunter Biden first formed a firm in 1999. In 2002, they founded what is now known as Oldaker, Biden & Belair, located just blocks from the White House.

Since 2003, Hunter Biden has been registered to lobby for an array of small universities, hospitals, and drug research companies seeking earmarks and other appropriations. Those clients have paid his firm a total of $3.8 million, jumping from $20,000 in 2003 to $1.6 million in 2007, according to lobbying disclosure records.

This year Hunter Biden has lobbied for 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.

Hunter served in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps following graduation and has worked as a presidential appointee in the Department of Commerce, according to his online firm bio. He was also confirmed by the senate as a member of the Amtrak Reform Board in 2006.

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5640118

Hope and Change - just a slogan that means nothing to Obama.

[arnaldoabru 11]

It seems like he should be working in the McSame camp.

[OldNewby 27]

Biden's Son Employed in Profession Obama Disdains: Lobbying

Timothy J. Burger

Sun Aug 24, 1:11 AM ET

Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama's speech announcing his running mate Joe Biden singled out the Delaware senator's son who is headed for Iraq. Obama didn't mention the profession of Biden's other son, who lobbied for two drug companies and five universities.

Hunter Biden, 38, described as a lawyer in the biography of his father distributed yesterday by the Obama campaign, lobbied for clients that paid his firm at least $380,000 in the first six months of this year, federal records show.

Both Obama and Republican presidential rival John McCain have said lobbyists may not work on their campaigns. McCain recently called lobbyists ``birds of prey,'' and Obama has refused to accept their contributions. In his speech yesterday in Springfield, Illinois, Obama said he's running in part to repair ``a government that has fallen prey to special interests.''

Hunter Biden's work for Oldaker, Biden & Belair on behalf of biotech clients Achaogen, Inc., of South San Francisco and Pulmatrix, Inc., of Lexington, Massachusetts, illustrates the quandary posed when legislators have lobbyists within the family.

``It's always something to watch out for when you have a high-ranking member of Congress or an important senator whose child goes into the influence business,'' said Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington nonprofit that advocates transparency.

Influential Connection

``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,'' Allison said in an interview.

Elizabeth Alexander, a spokeswoman for Biden's Senate office, said the senator follows ethics rules.

``Hunter Biden does not lobby and has not lobbied Senator Biden's office,'' Alexander said in an e-mail. ``Our rules are dictated by the Senate ethics bill, and we follow it by the letter.'' Alexander said she knew of no favors done for Hunter Biden's clients.

Hunter Biden couldn't be reached yesterday through Alexander and did not return a message left on his office voicemail. His home phone in Washington is unlisted.

The senator's Web site describes Hunter Biden as a lawyer.

The Obama-Biden campaign had no comment.

Hunter Biden also sits on the board of Amtrak, the passenger railroad whose federal subsidies McCain has often criticized. Joe Biden rides home to Wilmington on Amtrak trains every night after work in the Senate.

Anthrax Contract

Before Hunter Biden was listed in disclosures as working on the Achaogen account, the company announced in October 2006 that it had received a $24.7 million Pentagon contract to work on anthrax-threat mitigation, according to a press release on the company's Web site.

Achaogen paid Biden's firm $20,000 in the final quarter of 2006, according to filings.

By coincidence, the senator's office in Wilmington had an anthrax scare in October 2006 when an aide opened a letter that had a mysterious powder in it. Authorities later determined it wasn't anthrax.

Hunter Biden's lobbying clients also include the University of Scranton and St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, which paid Biden's firm $80,000 to lobby the House and Senate on matters including defense appropriations. Another of his clients was Regis University in Denver, which paid the firm $80,000 for the same kind of work in the same period.

To contact the reporter on this story: Timothy J. Burger in Washington at tburger2@bloomberg.net .

link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20080824...rg/a6qrvqdtzkv4

Biden's Son, Brother Named in Two Suits

By Kimberly Kindy and Joe Stephens

Washington Post Staff Writers

Sunday, August 24, 2008; Page A09

A son and a brother of Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) are accused in two lawsuits of defrauding a former business partner and an investor of millions of dollars in a hedge fund deal that went sour, court records show.

The Democratic vice presidential candidate's son Hunter, 38, and brother James, 59, assert instead that their former partner defrauded them by misrepresenting his experience in the hedge fund industry and recommending that they hire a lawyer with felony convictions.

The legal actions have been playing out in New York State Supreme Court since 2007, and they focus on Hunter and James Biden's involvement in Paradigm Companies LLC, a hedge fund group. Hunter Biden, a Washington lobbyist, briefly served as president of the firm.

A lawsuit filed by their former partner Anthony Lotito Jr. asserts in court papers that the deal was crafted to get Hunter Biden out of lobbying because his father was concerned about the impact it would have on his bid for the White House. Biden was running for the Democratic nomination at the time the suit was filed.

Hunter Biden was made president with an annual salary of $1.2 million, despite his inexperience in the hedge fund industry, the lawsuit said. Before that, he had been part of the Washington law firm Oldaker, Biden & Belair, which earned $1.76 million in lobbying revenue in the first half of 2006, according to Congressional Quarterly's CQ MoneyLine. One of its biggest clients is the National Association of Shareholder and Consumer Attorneys, a District-based group representing law firms specializing in investment and corporate law.

Hunter Biden is one of many children and relatives of prominent members of Congress who have made their careers as lobbyists. He returned to lobbying after less than a year with Paradigm.

Lotito's lawsuit alleges that James Biden called him in January 2006 to arrange a job for Hunter Biden. It says James Biden told him that his brother (Sen. Biden) "was concerned with the impact that Hunter's lobbying activities might have on his expected campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination," and, "Biden told Lotito that, in light of these concerns, his brother had asked him to seek Lotito's assistance in finding employment for Hunter in a non-lobbying capacity."

Lotito does not provide any direct evidence of the senator's involvement and offers no witnesses to the assertion.

The campaign of Sens. Barack Obama and Biden declined to comment on the case, referring questions to Nicholas Gravante Jr., a lawyer representing Hunter and James Biden. Gravante said assertions that Joseph Biden told his brother he was concerned about his son's lobbying are "absolutely false."

"This lawsuit has nothing to do with Joe Biden, and there is absolutely no truth to those allegations," Gravante said. "It is a business dispute between former partners. The suit is baseless."

Brian C. Wille, an attorney for Lotito, said the lawsuit alleges no wrongdoing by Sen. Biden, only that his concerns set in motion the business deal.

"There was a concern that Hunter Biden's role as a lobbyist would have an impact on the senator's proposed presidential run," Wille said. "That's what James Biden told Mr. Lotito. . . . Was it true? Who knows? There is no allegation the senator was involved in any of these events."

In an affidavit, Hunter Biden said his father had nothing to do with the deal and that it is Lotito who swindled the Bidens.

He said Lotito lied about being a "fully licensed and accredited securities professional" with hedge fund experience.

In addition, he said Lotito recommended a lawyer to vet the business deal who was under investigation and was ultimately convicted on several felony charges of conspiracy and wire and mail fraud in a scheme to steal millions from a computer company.

In the hedge fund business deal, Lotito and the Bidens created a company called LLB Holdings USA and together agreed to pay $21.3 million for 54 percent interest in Paradigm.

In the lawsuit, Lotito said that soon after creating LLB, the Bidens crafted a "secret deal" to create their own company that was designed to buy out his shares in Paradigm for a low rate, to which he agreed. He said he knew nothing of the secret deal until later and now believes he was defrauded out of millions of dollars and his share in the company.

In the second lawsuit against the Bidens, which was filed in June, Lotito is also named as a defendant. Stephane Farouze, now an executive with Deutsche Bank, seeks $10 million, saying the Bidens and Lotito promised to buy his shares in the hedge fund company but reneged.

link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8082302200.html