Michael: A politician’s family member lands a million-dollar-a-year board seat in a foreign country, despite having zero experience in the industry. Coincidence? Or is that just the price of doing business in modern politics? Kevin: Wow, that sounds like the plot of a movie. But I have a feeling you're going to tell me it's real. The answer is probably more complicated, and far more transactional, than we'd like to think. Michael: It's the central question in Peter Schweizer's explosive book, Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America's Progressive Elite. He argues that these aren't just coincidences; they're a pattern. Kevin: And Schweizer is a fascinating and controversial author. He's the president of the Government Accountability Institute, which he co-founded with Steve Bannon, and his previous book Clinton Cash triggered an FBI investigation. He's known for this 'follow the money' style of journalism. Michael: Exactly. And while his work is highly-rated by his supporters, it's also heavily criticized by others for being partisan. Today, we're not here to debate the politics, but to explore the patterns he uncovers. And the first pattern he points to is a real paradox.

Michael: Let's start with the politician who arguably built her entire modern brand on being a fierce consumer watchdog: Elizabeth Warren. Kevin: Right, the Harvard professor, the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Her image is all about fighting for the little guy against Wall Street and big corporations. She’s the one who famously said the game is "rigged." Michael: That's the public persona. But Schweizer digs into her past, before she was a senator, when she was a highly sought-after legal consultant. And the clients she worked for are... surprising. Kevin: How so? Michael: Well, for over a decade, she was paid handsomely to advise major corporations on how to navigate bankruptcy and shield themselves from liability. For example, Schweizer documents her work for Dow Chemical. Kevin: The chemical giant? What was the case? Michael: Dow Chemical was facing a tidal wave of lawsuits related to faulty silicone breast implants that were causing severe health problems for women. They were trying to use a legal maneuver involving a subsidiary's bankruptcy to limit their financial liability to the victims. Elizabeth Warren was brought in to provide expert legal advice to help them. Kevin: Hold on. Elizabeth Warren was helping Dow Chemical find a way to pay less to women who were harmed by their products? That seems to fly in the face of everything she stands for now. Michael: That's precisely the paradox Schweizer highlights. He also details her work for Travelers Insurance. They were facing massive claims from victims of asbestos exposure—people who were dying from mesothelioma. Warren was hired to argue on behalf of Travelers, helping them fight against paying out the full claims to the victims' families. Kevin: That's just staggering. Was she just a lawyer doing her job, or does the book suggest something more? Michael: Schweizer's argument is that it reveals a fundamental disconnect. He points out that she was earning a huge amount for this work—her billing rate back in 2002 was $700 an hour. He presents it as a case of someone who is fluent in the language of corporate power because she used to work for it. Later, she took that expertise and flipped it to build a political career as an anti-corporate crusader. Kevin: So the book is essentially accusing her of hypocrisy? Building a career on fighting a system she once profited from by helping it crush the little guy. Michael: Exactly. Schweizer frames it as a core example of the progressive paradox: publicly decrying a "rigged game" while having a history of being a highly-paid player for the other team. He also touches on her family's real estate investments, where they bought up foreclosed homes during an economic downturn and flipped them for substantial profits. Kevin: Buying foreclosed homes and flipping them... that's the kind of activity she would likely criticize today as predatory. Michael: That's the point he makes. The book argues that these aren't isolated incidents but part of a larger pattern where the public rhetoric of progressive leaders doesn't always match their private financial activities. Kevin: It’s a powerful accusation. But it also makes me wonder, if the corruption isn't always about the politician themselves, where else does the money flow? Michael: And that brings us to the second, and perhaps even more insidious, pattern the book explores. The idea that political power isn't just a personal asset, but a family business.

Kevin: The family business. That sounds... dynastic. And a lot harder to track. You can't just look at a politician's bank account. Michael: Precisely. And this is where Schweizer presents his ultimate case study: the Biden family. The book argues that during Joe Biden's time as Vice President, a series of lucrative international business opportunities seemed to magically open up for his family members, particularly his son Hunter and his brother James. Kevin: I think most people have heard about Hunter Biden and Ukraine, but what does the book actually lay out? Michael: It's all about the timing. The book details a trip in December 2013. Vice President Joe Biden flies to Beijing on Air Force Two for official diplomatic meetings. And his son, Hunter, comes along for the ride. Kevin: Okay, bringing your son on an official trip isn't that unusual, is it? Michael: Perhaps not. But what happened next is what raises eyebrows. While his father was in high-level meetings with Chinese officials, Hunter was reportedly arranging his own meetings. He even managed to introduce his Chinese business partner, Jonathan Li, to his father, the Vice President. Kevin: A little handshake, a photo op. I can see how that would be valuable for his partner. Michael: It seems it was very valuable. Because just ten days after that trip, Hunter Biden's small investment firm finalized a massive, exclusive deal with the state-owned Bank of China. We're talking about a $1.5 billion private equity fund. Kevin: Ten days? Wow. The timing is just... blatant. A brand new firm, run by the Vice President's son, lands a billion-and-a-half-dollar deal with a foreign government's bank right after a personal introduction to the VP. Michael: That's the pattern Schweizer points to. It's not a direct payment. It's access. It's the appearance of influence. Then there's the infamous case of Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company. Kevin: Right, the one that was at the center of the impeachment saga. Michael: Yes. In 2014, Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of Burisma. The book notes he had absolutely no experience in the energy sector, or in Ukraine for that matter. For this board seat, he was paid a reported $83,000 a month. Kevin: A million dollars a year for a no-show job, essentially. And what was happening with his father at the time? Michael: Joe Biden was the Obama administration's point person on Ukraine. He was leading the U.S. anti-corruption efforts there. At the same time, his son was on the board of a Ukrainian company widely seen as corrupt, run by an oligarch who was under investigation. Kevin: The irony is almost painful. The guy in charge of fighting corruption in Ukraine has a son collecting a million a year from a corrupt Ukrainian company. Michael: And the story gets even more complicated when the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma was fired. Joe Biden later publicly bragged about threatening to withhold a billion dollars in U.S. loan guarantees unless that specific prosecutor was removed. Kevin: So the book is drawing a direct line between the Vice President's official actions and the financial benefit to his son's company. Michael: It presents the evidence and lets the reader connect the dots. The book also details deals involving Joe Biden's brother, James, in Iraq, and his other brother, Frank, in Costa Rica, all of which seemed to materialize in conjunction with Joe Biden's official government travel or influence. It paints a picture of a global enterprise. Kevin: It's a much more subtle form of enrichment. It's not a bribe in a briefcase. It's creating a golden path for your family members to walk down, paved with your political influence. And it gives the politician plausible deniability. Michael: Which is why Joe Biden has always been able to stick to his famous line on the matter. Kevin: Right, the one he's said over and over: "I never talked with my son or my brother or anyone else... about their business interests. Period." Based on the evidence Schweizer presents, how credible is that denial? Michael: The book doesn't offer a smoking gun of a recorded conversation. Instead, it builds a circumstantial case based on a mountain of coincidences—meetings, flights, and financial transactions—that all seem to point in one direction. It suggests that you don't need to have an explicit conversation for everyone to understand how the game is played.

Kevin: So when you put these two patterns together—the 'Progressive Paradox' with someone like Warren, and 'The Family Business' with the Bidens—what's the big picture Schweizer is painting about corruption in America? Michael: He argues that our conventional idea of corruption is outdated. It's not always a suitcase full of cash exchanged in a dark alley. In modern politics, it's more subtle. It's access. It's future opportunities. It's enriching your family. He quotes the great historian Robert Caro, who spent his life studying power. Caro said, "power always reveals." Kevin: Power reveals. I like that. It's not that power corrupts, but that it shows you who a person truly was all along. Michael: Exactly. Schweizer's point is that when you see these patterns—a consumer advocate working for corporations, or a vice president's family cashing in on foreign deals—you're seeing the true nature of how that power is being used. It's a revelation of character. Kevin: And it raises a really tough question for voters, doesn't it? The book focuses on progressives, who often advocate for more government power to solve problems like inequality or climate change. Michael: Right. And Schweizer's implicit question is, can you trust them with more power if this is how they use what they already have? It’s a direct challenge to their platform. Kevin: It forces you to look past the speeches and the party labels. It's not about being a Democrat or a Republican. It's about scrutinizing the actions of the people who want to lead. Michael: It pushes us to ask a more fundamental question about any candidate, from any party. Kevin: What do their actions, and the actions of those closest to them, truly reveal about their character and their relationship with power? It's a question worth asking, no matter who you vote for. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.