FILE – In this Jan. 30, 2010, file photo, Vice President Joe Biden, left, with his son Hunter, right, at the Duke Georgetown NCAA college basketball game in Washington. Hunter Biden is expressing regret for being discharged from the Navy Reserve amid published reports that he tested positive for cocaine. The Wall Street Journal reports that Hunter Biden failed the drug test last year and was discharged in February. In a statement issued Thursday, Oct. 16, Biden doesn’t say why he was discharged. He says he’s embarrassed that his actions led to his discharge and that he respects the Navy’s decision. The vice president’s office declined to comment.(AP Photo/Nick Wass, File)

One of the central elements in the ongoing kerfuffle about President Trump’s conversation with President Zelensky of Ukraine is over the investigation into Hunter Biden’s mysterious appointment as a member of the board of directors of Ukraine’s largest private natural gas company, Burisma. While Joe Biden was vice-president and self-described “point person” for the Obama administration on Ukraine, one of his portfolios was trying to convince the Ukrainians to improve transparency in their economy and suppress corruption. To that end, Burisma hired Hunter Biden who, by the way, had zero experience in much of anything other than grifting off the family name and keeping hookers gainfully employed, as a member of its board of directors. The salary Biden fils received has been variously reported as $50,000 or $80,000 per month.

To be charitable, let’s put aside our disbelief and pretend that Hunter Biden was hired because of his totally mad business skills and just ignore the facts and circumstances surrounding Joe Biden’s demand that a Ukrainian prosecutor who may have targeted his son be fired. A quick test of the legitmacy of Hunter Biden’s salary is its comparability to other, similarly situated companies. It is estimated that Burisma’s earnings are about $400 million annually.

There is a great reference table.

CREDIT: Spencer Stuart Board Index

Burisma is not quite 1/4 the size of the smallest company on this list. The group of smallest companies pays between $285-$330,000 per year for a non-employee director. Hunter Biden was paid $600,000 (at least) for being a board member of a company whose language he did not speak, whose home country he’d never lived in, and which was in an industry about which Hunter Biden was pig-ignorant.

ADDENDUM.

An alert Twitter follower notes that in most other cases, non-employee directors were paid in a combination of cash and stock, often as much as 60% stock. Biden was paid in 100% cash.

@streiffredstate As you pointed out in your article Hunter made almost double of what average board members made despite no experience or launguage skills. What is also interesting is that Bharisma paid Hunter, unlike others on chart 100% in cash. Unless he also got stock? pic.twitter.com/2qqmZc9GYM — Kevin Goldman (@KevinGoldman10) October 3, 2019

You can pretend, if you want, that there was a purpose in hiring Hunter Biden beyond currying favor with his father. You can pretend, as did John Kerry’s State Department, that there was no conflict of interest or quid pro quo involved that involved pressure being removed from Ukraine in return for employing Joe Biden’s kid. You can pretend that Joe Bidens’ interest in firing that prosecutor was some high minded expression of unity with the EU. Just don’t expect anyone else to go along with that sick fantasy.

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