Remember when the Biden administration promised that President Biden would have no knowledge of the people purchasing Hunter Biden’s artwork.
In July 2021, MSN reported the following:
A New York gallery owner will facilitate sales of Hunter Biden’s original artwork, an arrangement meant to diffuse concerns over buyers paying top dollar to win influence with the president’s son, according to a source familiar with the situation.
The gallerist, Georges Berges, will independently set prices on the artwork of President Joe Biden‘s son and keep the identities of buyers confidential, including from the president and administration officials. Berges will be the sole person authorized to collect, reject and agree on offers. Berges has agreed to reject any offer that seems unusual, including offers above asking price.
Yesterday The New York Post reported:
It was a family affair Wednesday when Hunter Biden finally showed up at the Manhattan art gallery where his novice paintings are being offered for up to $500,000 each amid concerns about influence-peddling by the president’s son.
Biden, 51, carried his 1-1/2-year-old son Beau on his shoulders as he, wife Melissa Cohen and daughter Maisy Biden were escorted by owner George Berges into his eponymous Soho storefront for a party more than two weeks after the exhibition opened to a mere trickle of prospective buyers.
About 60 guests gathered for the belated event, including President Biden’s younger sister, Valerie Biden Owens, and reality TV star Meghan King of The Real Housewives of Orange County.
The article at The New York Post concludes:
Other attendees at the Hollywood show included Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti — the president’s nominee to be ambassador to India — as well as musician Moby and artist Shepard Fairey, who created the iconic “Hope” poster for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
The White House has said that the identities of any buyers of Hunter Biden’s art will be kept secret to prevent them from holding sway over President Biden’s administration — claim that’s been widely derided by experts including Walter Shaub, who ran the Office of Government Ethics under then-President Barack Obama.
“There is no ethics program in the world that can be built around the head of state’s staff working with a dealer to keep the public in the dark about the identities of individuals who pay vast sums to the leader’s family member for subjectively priced items of no intrinsic value,” Shaub tweeted last month.
“If this were [Donald] Trump, Xi [Jinping] or [Vladimir] Putin, you’d have no doubt whatsoever that this creates a vehicle for funneling cash to the first family in exchange for access or favors. Nor would you doubt that the appearance of monetizing the presidency was outrageous.”
I guess ethics rules don’t apply to the Biden family.