Oh no. Joe Biden is being accused of lobbying Saudi Arabia to postpone cuts in OPEC's oil production until after the 2022 midterm elections.
If true, and the Saudi Ministry of Foreign affairs hinted it was in a Thursday statement, then Biden did what President Donald Trump was impeached for by Democrats — allegedly putting his own political interest ahead of the national interest. The almost daily revelations from the no-longer-secret Hunter Biden laptop are however giving credence to the conclusion that Trump may indeed have been acting in the national interest. And past Biden pressure tactics while abroad earned him the nickname "Quid pro Joe".
Breitbart News on Thursday noted: "What is becoming a growing scandal for the Biden administration began with Biden himself visiting Saudi Arabia and meeting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), reportedly to urge him to increase Saudi Arabia’s oil production. Biden enthusiastically denied that this was the objective of his visit in July, but neither he nor his officials ever clarified what the actual goal in traveling there allegedly was."
According to this week’s Wall Street Journal report, Biden's visit, which has come to be known as the "fist-bump summit," went so poorly for Biden that MBS decided to cut scheduled oil production increases after the meeting.
The Journal's report also said that Team Biden had urged the Saudi government to pressure OPEC+, a cartel that includes Russia, to wait until after the midterm elections to announce any production cuts, keeping prices lower just in time for Americans to vote.
Team Biden has accused Saudi Arabia of backing the cut in production because the Saudis had decided to support Russia in its war with Ukraine. The statement from the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the White House for that claim.
Related — Kuhner: Impeach Joe Biden for high crimes and misdemeanors, June 23, 2021
The extensive statement also mentioned rumors, first reported in the Journal, that Team Biden had attempted to convince Saudi officials to delay any oil production cut until after the midterm elections.
A statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the statements issued about the Kingdom following the OPEC+ decision. pic.twitter.com/Bo7JVPDzFo
— Foreign Ministry 🇸🇦 (@KSAmofaEN) October 12, 2022
Breitbart's Joel B. Pollak noted: "In other words: Biden asked the Saudi Arabian regime to proceed with oil production cuts, which would raise prices and damage the U.S. economy, in a way that would minimize the political damage to his own party, which is facing a tough midterm election fight. Notably, Biden has not tried to expand U.S. oil production."
In his opening statement at Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate, California Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff stated: "The Framers of our Constitution worried then — as we worry today — that a leader could come to power not to carry out the will of the people that he was elected to represent, but to pursue his own interests. They feared that a president could subvert our democracy by abusing the awesome power of his office for his own personal or political gain."
Schiff charged that Trump asking Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, was in his political interest and not the national interest.
As for Biden, Pollak noted, that he "has used the 'awesome power of his office' to harm the national interest by allowing oil prices to rise, but pleading with the Saudis to help him politically by delaying the OPEC+ decision to cut production until after the November midterm elections — or, at the very least, until after most of the Democratic Party electorate, which favors voting early, had already cast their ballots. ... There is no national interest promoted by allowing oil prices to rise dramatically during a period of inflation."
On the other hand, Pollak noted, Trump's call for an investigation of the Bidens was "in the national interest to probe the Bidens’ conflicts of interest — as the revelations from Hunter Biden’s laptop have since made clear."
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