Biden is drawn into bribery row over his son’s secret art buyers

White House plan to keep secret the buyers of Hunter Biden’s paintings attacked as a ‘perfect mechanism for funnelling bribes’.

Paintings by Hunter Biden have been valued at up to $500,000, with White House Plans to keep the sale anonymous raising fears that buyers might try to gain influence with the administration. Picture: AFP

Plans to keep secret the buyers of paintings by the president’s son have been attacked as a “mechanism for funnelling bribes”.

Pictures by Hunter Biden have been valued at between $100,000 and $670,000 before a New York gallery sale, attracting criticism that buyers might try to gain influence with the administration. President Biden’s spokeswoman set out a plan for the gallery owner, Georges Berges, to keep the names of buyers confidential and weed out suspicious offers. Biden, 51, has previously been accused of exploiting his name by taking a board role with a Ukrainian gas company while his father was supposed to be leading American efforts to tackle corruption in Ukraine.

Jen Psaki, the president’s press secretary, was asked if the White House had been involved in drawing up the plan to protect buyers’ identities. She replied: “A system has been established that allows for Hunter Biden to work in his profession within reasonable safeguards.

“Of course he has the right to pursue an artistic career, just like any child of a president has the right to pursue a career. But all interactions regarding the selling of art and the setting of prices will be handled by a professional gallerist, adhering to the highest industry standards and any offer out of the normal course would be rejected out of hand. And the gallerist will not share information about buyers or prospective buyers, including their identities, with Hunter Biden or the administration, which provides quite a level of protection and transparency.”

Barack Obama’s former ethics chief said the arrangement was a “perfect mechanism” for bribery. Walter Schaub, who was director of the Office of Government Ethics until 2017 said: “They have outsourced government ethics to an art dealer.”

Schaub, 51, told CNN: “She [Psaki] mentioned industry standards: it’s an industry that’s notorious for money laundering. There’s no standards in that industry. The idea that they’re going to flag any overly priced offers, well this is art that hasn’t even been juried into a community art sale. How are they going to decide what’s unreasonable when they have already priced it in the range of $100,000 to $670,000 for a first outing?”

Many art experts have questioned the valuations. “How much of that value is due to the art itself? That’s easy: none of it,” Jeffry Cudlin, a professor of curatorial studies and practice at the Maryland Institute College of Art, told the Washington Examiner.

Richard Painter, the chief ethics lawyer under President George W Bush, pointed to the art’s “high prices” as evidence that “the whole thing is a really bad idea.” Painter, 59, added: “The initial reaction a lot of people are going to have is that he’s capitalising on being the son of a president and wants people to give him a lot of money.”

Bottom line: secrecy never works in ethics. Whether it’s secret sales of Hunter Biden’s art or the University of Pennsylvania’s secret donations from China and Saudi Arabia. Secrecy never works.

— Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) July 11, 2021

Schaub agreed that the sale had “the absolute appearance that he’s profiting off his father’s fame”. He added: “He’s not selling under a pseudonym, he’s not waiting until his father’s out of office and he’s not selling at any price comparable to what other first-time artists are selling. The problem is, now they’ve set a precedent for the next president. And even if you happen to trust Joe Biden, what if the next president has the character of a Donald Trump?”

Trump yesterday (Sunday) praised Ashli Babbitt, a woman shot dead by a police officer while jumping through the broken glass of a barricaded door during the storming of the Capitol on January 6. “Who shot Ashli Babbitt, why are they keeping that secret?” Trump said on Fox News. “Who is the person that shot an innocent, wonderful, incredible woman?” Trump has been accused of being part of efforts to turn Babbitt, 35, into a martyr.

The Times