Biden son quits lobbying firm
Posted: Saturday, September 13, 2008 3:41 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Joe Biden
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Worth noting, the New York Times reports: “R. Hunter Biden, the 38-year-old son of the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., has quit working as a Washington lobbyist, a job that had sparked controversy given Senator Barack Obama's denunciations of influence-peddling in the capital.
“Mr. Obama's presidential campaign said Friday that Mr. Biden had stopped lobbying for nine clients shortly after his father was chosen last month as Mr. Obama's running mate. But the campaign did not announce that he had given up lobbying until Friday after reporters asked questions about his recent work for a couple under federal investigation over online gambling.
“Federal lobbying records show that Hunter Biden's firm was hired in June by lawyers for J. Russell DeLeon and his wife, Ruth Parasol, billionaire expatriates who founded a Web site called PartyPoker. Their company, PartyGaming P.L.C., which later went public in London, stopped doing business in the United States after President Bush signed a bill into law in 2006 aimed at curbing online gambling.”
Republicans have pushed the issue of the Democratic vice presidential nominee's son's lobbying. On NBC's Meet the Press last Sunday, Tom Brokaw asked Sen. Biden about his son's lobbying:
BROKAW: In retrospect, wasn't it inappropriate for someone like you in the middle of all this to have your son collecting money from this big credit card company while you were on the floor protecting its interests?
BIDEN: Absolutely not. My son graduated from Yale Law School. The starting salary in Wall Street is $140,000 a year if you want to lawyer. Options he had. He came home to work for a bank. Surprise, surprise, number one. Number two, this is the second largest employer in the state. All the contributions added up make up less than 2 percent of the contributions I've received. Number three, I blocked the bank--first three bankruptcy bills that the credit card companies wanted. I would not support a bankruptcy bill until they did three things. They put women and children first. Every single social welfare agency relating to alimony and child support supported this bill. Eight-five senators supported this bill. So try as people might to make to this out.
You want to know whether or not I am in the pocket of the corporate lobbyists, which makes it apply--sounds like it's right here. Ask the people in the industry here how happy they are. How happy the DuPont company is with me and the Hercules Corporation that I would not sign on the asbestos bill. How happy they are with me--look, the fact of the matter is, that I have had an entire career that no one has every questioned whether or not anybody has influenced me, number one. No group has ever, ever been involved with more than--contributing more than 2 percent to my campaign. I'm listed as the 98th or 99th of the 100 poorest guy in the Senate in terms of net worth. I have a 35-year career of actually, of being viewed, at least in my state, as being independent. And so you can take individual votes and you can talk about them, but they're totally out of context, Tom.
BROKAW: But the fact is, it was not just the Republicans. It's your home town newspaper, consumers groups, a number of other people thought that you went way too far in bankruptcy protection and cracking down on those people who may not get the relief that they need.
BIDEN: Well, and most people thought differently. But how come the social welfare agencies supported it, Tom? Are they a bunch of radical, corporate whatever? How come 89--or 85 United States senators supported it? Now, Barack voted a different way. I respect his vote. The question is, is the glass half-full or half-empty? Fewer than 10 percent of all the filers in bankruptcy are even affected. I'm the guy that insisted there be a safe harbor, that no one making under $50,000 or $49,000 could even be considered in this.
And look, the big issue people have is what about people who go bankrupt because of their healthcare bills. That's why we need national health insurance. Are we going to say to every doctor and hospital, "Look, you get to write off your bill, get to write off your bill because people can't pay." The way to do that, that's a societal responsibility, not the responsibility of individual doctors and--assuming they're charging a fair price. And so look, and everybody else voted--not everybody. The vast majority of the members of the Congress voted that way.
BROKAW: So if you get to Washington as president and vice president, given the promises that Senator Obama has made, would you look at situations like you just went through, which has raised some questions, where sons work for big banks that have interests in states...
BIDEN: My son has never spoken. I voted for every campaign reform that's existed with regard to lobbyists. I voted for every single solitary proposal to make it tougher. And if you ask around here, ask--try to find how many lobbyists have actually--I probably have spoken to lobbyists, but I don't--it's not a practice I have. If they want to see me, the CEO has to come and see me from the company.
BROKAW: But specifically, what would this administration do about K Street and lobbyists, which has begun...
BIDEN: Well, what, what they would do is they'd stop them from writing the bills. They wouldn't be sitting like Cheney was with lobbyists, writing an energy policy. They'd get to have their voice. Look, there is a thing called free speech. They get to petition their government. But in terms of their ability to be able to set the agenda, write legislation, be these--and my--you know, it's just, it would not--it just a total different atmosphere. A totally different atmosphere, just like it was 25 years ago when it didn't become such a growth industry.
