We have previously discussed how NBC News anchor Chuck Todd uses questions to express extreme condemnations of President Donald Trump and his supporters. While Todd realizes that he would be fired for saying outright that Trump supporters “just want to be lied to,” he can make the same point by asking another person if they “just want to be lied to.” Todd returned to his feigned neutrality in asking presidential candidate Joe Biden if “there is blood on the president’s hands.” Not to be undone, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has declared that “as the president fiddles, people are dying.” At least Pelosi had the integrity to make the statement outright.

If reports are accurate, influence peddling may be something of a family cottage industry. Biden and his business partners however insist that their business dealings have been widely misrepresented in the media. While Congress continues to look at the Hunter Biden contract and his effort to sell his name to foreign companies, the brother of Joe Biden is facing the same allegations in an expanding controversy over his selling of his connection to the former vice president. James Biden was anything but subtle in his pitching his connections to his brother. Update: after initially posting this blog, I heard from Michael Lewitt, friend and partner of “Jim” Biden, who offered some useful (and not widely known) details on the loan controversy in this litigation. I have offered their side of this litigation below, which makes some good points. It also gives a perspective of a core player who has found himself at the center of a swirling controversy during a vicious presidential election cycle.