UNITED STATES CODE: Joe Biden is permanently disqualified from holding any public office in the U.S. Federal Government

Source: http://stateofthenation.co/?page_id=30667

Published: August 15, 2020

Joe Biden is prohibited from holding public office in the US government—Here’s why!

By his own admission, then Vice President Joe Biden used upwards of $1 billion of US government loan guarantees in a bribery coercion scheme to threaten the Ukraine president to immediately terminate the Prosecutor General who was investigating the corrupt practices of Burisma Holdings, as well as the involvement of board director Hunter Biden.

This criminal act constitutes a federal felony crime and disqualifies Biden from holding public office.

All the hard evidence and applicable laws follow in this straightforward legal analysis.

First, here’s Biden’s unequivocal admission of his crime on video:

Joe Biden Admits to Extorting Ukraine With Billion Dollar aid funds (.mp4 video, running time: 1:03 minutes)

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act

Now, here is the relevant section from the FOREIGN CORRUPT PRACTICES ACT, that is codified as United States Federal Law, which strictly “prohibits U.S. citizens and entities from bribing foreign government officials to benefit their business interests”¹.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), enacted in 1977, generally prohibits the payment of bribes to foreign officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business. The FCPA can apply to prohibited conduct anywhere in the world and extends to publicly traded companies and their officers, directors, employees, stockholders, and agents. Agents can include third party agents, consultants, distributors, joint-venture partners, and others.

The FCPA also requires issuers to maintain accurate books and records and have a system of internal controls sufficient to, among other things, provide reasonable assurances that transactions are executed and assets are accessed and accounted for in accordance with management's authorization.

Source: https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/foreign-corrupt-practices-act.shtml

15 U.S. Code § 78dd–1 – Prohibited foreign trade practices by issuers

The applicable section of the U.S. Code can be found in 15 U.S. Code § 78dd–1 as follows:

(a) Prohibition

It shall be unlawful for any issuer which has a class of securities registered pursuant to section 78l of this title or which is required to file reports under section 78o(d) of this title, or for any officer, director, employee, or agent of such issuer or any stockholder thereof acting on behalf of such issuer, to make use of the mails or any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce corruptly in furtherance of an offer, payment, promise to pay, or authorization of the payment of any money, or offer, gift, promise to give, or authorization of the giving of anything of value to—

(1) any foreign official for purposes of—

(A)

(i) influencing any act or decision of such foreign official in his official capacity, (ii) inducing such foreign official to do or omit to do any act in violation of the lawful duty of such official, or (iii) securing any improper advantage; or

(B) inducing such foreign official to use his influence with a foreign government or instrumentality thereof to affect or influence any act or decision of such government or instrumentality,

in order to assist such issuer in obtaining or retaining business for or with, or directing business to, any person;

Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/78dd-1

U.S. Department of Justice Guidance

Furthermore, the U.S. Department of Justice has published “An Overview” which spells out that what VP Joe Biden did by threatening to withhold loan guarantees to the Ukraine was in blatant violation of U.S. Federal Law.

The Fraud Section of the Criminal Division of the DoJ makes it clear what constitutes a violation of the FOREIGN CORRUPT PRACTICES ACT as follows.

An Overview

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, 15 U.S.C. §§ 78dd-1, et seq. ("FCPA"), was enacted for the purpose of making it unlawful for certain classes of persons and entities to make payments to foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business. Specifically, the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA prohibit the willful use of the mails or any means of instrumentality of interstate commerce corruptly in furtherance of any offer, payment, promise to pay, or authorization of the payment of money or anything of value to any person, while knowing that all or a portion of such money or thing of value will be offered, given or promised, directly or indirectly, to a foreign official to influence the foreign official in his or her official capacity, induce the foreign official to do or omit to do an act in violation of his or her lawful duty, or to secure any improper advantage in order to assist in obtaining or retaining business for or with, or directing business to, any person.

Since 1977, the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA have applied to all U.S. persons and certain foreign issuers of securities. With the enactment of certain amendments in 1998, the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA now also apply to foreign firms and persons who cause, directly or through agents, an act in furtherance of such a corrupt payment to take place within the territory of the United States.

The FCPA also requires companies whose securities are listed in the United States to meet its accounting provisions. See 15 U.S.C. § 78m. These accounting provisions, which were designed to operate in tandem with the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA, require corporations covered by the provisions to (a) make and keep books and records that accurately and fairly reflect the transactions of the corporation and (b) devise and maintain an adequate system of internal accounting controls.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/foreign-corrupt-practices-act#:~:text=The%20Foreign%20Corrupt%20Practices%20Act,in%20obtaining%20or%20retaining%20business

Code of Federal Regulations

Next, there is the pertinent section of Code of Federal Regulations (e-CFR) which explicitly states that no employee of the U.S. Federal Government should use their public office for private gain. The following excerpt was taken from: 5 CFR § 2635.702 – Use of public office for private gain.

(a) Inducement or coercion of benefits. An employee shall not use or permit the use of his Government position or title or any authority associated with his public office in a manner that is intended to coerce or induce another person, including a subordinate, to provide any benefit, financial or otherwise, to himself or to friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity.

Here’s a screenshot (converted to text below - JA) of the same CFR regulation that is directly applicable to Joe Biden’s official misconduct while VPOTUS and acting on behalf of his son Hunter Biden in his official capacity as member of the Board of Directors of Burisma Holding Limited, a Ukrainian Company.

5 CFR § 2635.702 - Use of public office for private gain.

An employee shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity, including nonprofit organizations of which the employee is an officer or member, and persons with whom the employee has or seeks employment or business relations. The specific prohibitions set forth in paragraphs (a) through (d) of this section apply this general standard, but are not intended to be exclusive or to limit the application of this section.

(a) Inducement or coercion of benefits. An employee shall not use or permit the use of his Government position or title or any authority associated with his public office in a manner that is intended to coerce or induce another person, including a subordinate, to provide any benefit, financial or otherwise, to himself or to friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity.

Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/5/2635.702

18 U.S.C. § 201: Bribery of public officials and witnesses

Then there is the federal statute codified by the U.S. Code concerning the “Bribery of public officials and witnesses”. Here again Vice President Biden clearly acted in contravention of both 18 U.S.C. § 201(b)(1) as to the giver, and § 201(b)(2) as to the recipient, in the crime of bribery of a pubic official.

18 U.S.C. § 201 proscribes bribery and the acceptance of certain gratuities. The U.S. Supreme Court in [[https://www.oge.gov/Web/OGE.nsf/Legal%20Interpretation/029DC4C54C14CF0C85257E96006A91ED/$FILE/dc7499483fd74a0396215f4efc85b7982.pdf?open | United States v. Sun-Diamond Growers of California, 526 U.S. 398, 404-405 (1999), describes the two crimes as follows:

“The first crime, described in § 201(b)(1) as to the giver, and § 201(b)(2) as to the recipient, is bribery, which requires a showing that something of value was corruptly given, offered, or promised to a public official (as to the giver) or corruptly demanded, sought, received, accepted, or agreed to be received or accepted by a public official (as to the recipient) with intent, inter alia, ‘to influence any official act’ (giver) or in return for ‘being influenced in the performance of any official act’ (recipient). The second crime, defined in § 201(c)(1)(A) as to the giver, and § 201(c)(1)(B) as to the recipient, is illegal gratuity, which requires a showing that something of value was given, offered, or promised to a public official (as to the giver), or demanded, sought, received, accepted, or agreed to be received or accepted by a public official (as to the recipient), ‘for or because of any official act performed or to be performed by such public official.’

The distinguishing feature of each crime is its intent element. Bribery requires intent ‘to influence’ an official act or ‘to be influenced’ in an official act, while illegal gratuity requires only that the gratuity be given or accepted ‘for or because of’ an official act. In other words, for bribery there must be a quid pro quo a specific intent to give or receive something of value in exchange for an official act. An illegal gratuity, on the other hand, may constitute merely a reward for some future act that the public official will take (and may already have determined to take), or for a past act that he has already taken.”

The U.S. Office of Government Ethics does not render opinions on 18 U.S.C. § 201, but may provide links to relevant information about the topic, when appropriate.

Concealment of Vice President Joe Biden’s senatorial records

There’s one more serious transgression of federal law that Joe Biden is guilty of: the deliberate concealment of his senatorial records. Those records are currently housed at the University of Delaware and Biden himself can permit their release.

In this particular regard, Biden’s refusal to release those public records is a brazen violation of 18 U.S. Code § 2071 which concerns the “Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally” of government records, documents, files, etc. The letter of the law can be read in the following screen capture taken from the Cornell Law School website. The disqualification clause is highlighted in blue.

Text: ²

KEY POINT: Joe Biden isn’t the first Democrat POTUS candidate to be disqualified from holding public office because of concealment or destruction of government records. Hillary Clinton was also prohibited (according to the law of the land) from running for President prior the 2016 election because of the her intentional removal and destruction of official government email correspondence. See: Sometimes the hard truth appears in the funniest places … like a Law Library.

Conclusion

Joe Biden, acting in his official capacity of Vice President of the United States of America, bribed the Ukraine government in order to compel President Petro Poroshenko to fire the General Prosecutor. This criminal act was carried out with the explicit intent to terminate the ongoing criminal investigation of Burisma Holdings Limited, as well as to stop the investigation and avert the prosecution of his son—Board Director Hunter Biden.

Various sections of the U.S. Code describe this official behavior as criminal and, therefore, subject to prosecution as well as disqualification to hold public office in the US government. Given the extreme seriousness of Biden’s admitted crime and flagrant breach of the public trust, the Democrat POTUS nominee is effectively barred from running for any public office until his criminal case is properly prosecuted and adjudicated. Moreover, Biden’s premeditated concealment of his senatorial records further adds to this open-and-shut case which necessitates his permanent prohibition to hold public office.

CASE CLOSED!

Video of Joe Biden at the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) smugly describing himself extorting then Ukraine President Poroshenko

(.mp4 video, running time: 1:02 minutes)

Footnotes

1 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act ⇑

2 (a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.

(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 795; Pub. L. 101–510, div. A, title V, § 552(a), Nov. 5, 1990, 104 Stat. 1566; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(I), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.) ⇑

Tags: Date-2020-08-15, TheSwamp, Law, Democracy, America, CouncilOnForeignRelations, Ukraine

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