PropertyValue
?:author
?:datePublished
  • 2019-10-09 (xsd:date)
?:headline
  • Does a C-SPAN Video Show Joe Biden 'Confessing to Bribery'? (en)
?:inLanguage
?:itemReviewed
?:mentions
?:reviewBody
  • As an impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump's actions commenced in October 2019, so did partisan invocations of whataboutism — a logical fallacy that involves a reversal of accusation, arguing that an opponent is guilty of an offense just as egregious or worse than what the original party was accused of doing, however unconnected the offenses may be. One example of such was a video clip posted to C-SPAN's website on Sept. 21, 2019 under the title Joe Biden Confesses to Bribery. The video was accompanied by a caption reading Former Vice President Joe Biden confesses to being in charge of Ukraine for the Obama Administration, and withholding $1 billion in loan guarantees from the USA to force Ukraine to fire prosecutor who was looking into the company that Hunter Biden was receiving $83,000+ PER MONTH from: The user-created clip fostered a false impression by pairing a misleading caption with an excerpt from a much longer video with no context. (The video carries a statement from C-SPAN noting that This clip, title, and description were not created by C-SPAN.) President Trump has been accused by a whistleblower, and is under a House-led impeachment inquiry, for allegedly attempting to coerce Ukraine into provide damaging information on Trump political rival Joe Biden by withholding crucial military aid from that country. The video on C-SPAN's website attempted to show Biden, a potential political rival for the presidency in 2020, admitting to a parallel wrongdoing during a trip to Ukraine in 2016: The video clip was taken from a portion of a talk Biden gave in January 2018 at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting in Washington, D.C., which was held in conjunction with the publication of the January/February issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. Biden had co-authored an article for that month's issue with former White House official Michael Carpenter, titled How to Stand Up to the Kremlin: Defending Democracy Against Its Enemies. In the excerpted portion of the clip, Biden was discussing his efforts on behalf of the Obama administration to pressure Ukraine into prosecuting corruption and firing Viktor Shokin, an ineffective prosecutor. That effort by Biden has been used by Trump supporters to argue, inaccurately, that Biden single-handedly had Shokin fired because Shokin was investigating Burisma, a Ukrainian group of energy exploration and production companies of which Biden's son Hunter was a board member. However, Shokin was not fired for investigating Burisma, but for his failure to pursue corruption investigations -- including investigations connected to Burisma. And Biden wasn't alone in the effort to push Shokin out, but rather was spearheading the Obama administration's policy, which represented a consensus among diplomats, officials from various European countries, and the International Monetary Fund that Shokin was an impediment to rooting out corruption in his country, according to Bloomberg: Moreover, among the reasons the U.S. and others sought Shokin's ouster was his failure to assist with or pursue an investigation of Burisma Holdings' owner: That's not to say the former vice president's 2018 commentary at the Council on Foreign Relations meeting was worded well. Before his remarks morphed into evidence for claims that Biden ordered Ukraine to fire Shokin for investigating Burisma, they were picked up by Russian government-controlled outlets such as RT and Sputnik to levy accusations that the Obama administration was engaged in heavy-handed meddling in Ukraine's affairs. Biden's remarks can bee seen in full in the video below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0_AqpdwqK4&feature=youtu.be&t=3118 (en)
?:reviewRating
rdf:type
?:url