Everyday Americans are questioning how former Vice President Joe Biden’s cocaine-addicted son, Hunter, who was dishonorably discharged from the US Navy, landed a $50,000 per month job on the board of Bursima Holdings, the largest gas and oil company in Ukraine.
- Yoshiko M. Herrera, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and an expert on Russia and Eurasia, told The Washington Post: “I think there is a conflict of interest even if it doesn’t break any laws. It’s a big deal. It’s the vice president, who is the point person of the Obama administration’s policy on Ukraine, and his son is suddenly hired to be a director on the board of Ukraine’s largest private gas producer.”
In 2014, the far-left The Washington Post also questioned the qualifications of another white, privileged chid of prominent Democrat lawmakers. Hillary and Bill Clinton’s only child, Chelsea Clinton, who had just landed a 600K/year job with no previous experience in the industry.
If that name hadn’t been connected to American royalty, she could have expected to rake in between $100,000 and $200,000 as a first-year network correspondent, a job that people from less-high-profile families snare only through years and years of tireless work covering the news. That salary range is confirmed by several people familiar with the compensation levels at major network news outlets.
“I’m sure that that salary figure is going to make other NBC correspondents’ heads spin right off their shoulders,” says one of those sources.
Chelsea did do some hard-hitting interviews for NBC, like the interview with the Geico gecko, where she asked the little creature, “Now gecko, do people recognize you on the street?” And, “Is there a downside to all this fame?”
A key platform for Clinton’s inspirational stories dried up in June 2013, when the network canceled “Rock Center with Brian Williams.” Even so, she has been on the nightly news every now and again. Her $600,000 deal came up for renewal this year, reports Politico, but the network decided to place her on a month-to-month arrangement in case her mom, Hillary Rodham Clinton, should declare for the 2016 presidential race.
NBC News refers to Clinton as a “special correspondent,” a title best interpreted literally. What unspecial correspondent, after all, gets paid more than a half-million to do puff stories and travel to Nairobi to check in on elephants?
At the time of Chelsea Clinton’s accession to NBC News, the New York Times cited a “person close” to her as saying this:
The person also said that Ms. Clinton had said she intended to donate most of the money she earned from NBC to the Clinton Foundation and the George Washington University Hospital in the name of her grandmother, who died this month.
When asked if she’d indeed made such contributions, Kamyl Bazbaz, a spokesperson for Chelsea Clinton, responded, “With regards to your question, Chelsea has given generously to causes and organizations she cares about (including The George Washington University Hospital and the Clinton Foundation).”
Whatever she’s done with her paycheck, this whole Chelsea Clinton-NBC News saga is awful. Awful because it’s an affront to hard-working broadcast journalists. Awful because any NBC News reporter or anchor who hustles for an exclusive with Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton has to live with the suspicion that the network’s familial ties to the Clintons facilitated the “get.” Awful because $600,000.
When everyday American kids graduate from school, they don’t get the same special treatment as children of high-profile Democrats like Chelsea Clinton and Hunter Biden. Everyday Americans have to do it the old-fashioned way, with hard work and dedication.