Biden: Funneling Campaign Cash to Relatives Raises Questions

Joe Biden likes to talk a good game about how he is ethical and he runs things above board and has all this experience fighting corruption and being a reformer. Nonsense. An Obama/Biden administration would be just as ethical as this Democrat led Congress where we get more sex scandals, more money laundering, and more subversion. Joe Biden is engaging in the questionable practice of funneling campaign cash to relatives...What other trappings of his office could he be doing? Are we talking Pay to Play:

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. has paid more than $2 million in campaign cash to his family members, their businesses and employers over the years, a practice that watchdogs criticize as rife with potential conflicts of interest.


Getty Images FAMILY: Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s son, Hunter Biden, was at a campaign stop with his father in December. The candidate's sister, Valerie Biden Owens, is his longtime campaign manager.

The money largely flowed from the coffers of Mr. Biden's failed presidential campaign during the past two years to a company that employs his sister and longtime campaign manager, Valerie Biden Owens, according to campaign disclosure filings.

The senator from Delaware also directed campaign legal work to a Washington lobbying and law firm founded by his son R. Hunter Biden, the disclosures show.

Putting family members and their companies on the political payroll is legal if the work is legitimate and charged at market rates, according to the Federal Election Commission. Still, public watchdog groups have long criticized such arrangements.

The majority of Biden campaign money tied to family - $1.8 million - was for media consulting bills to Joe Slade White & Co., where Mrs. Owens is a top executive. The firm did not return telephone and e-mail messages.

Such payments usually include a large portion of "pass through" money, where the consulting company gets campaign cash then uses it to produce and buy political ads. Still, the consulting company usually keeps a portion of the money, Mr. Holman said.

"It's a lot of money either way," he said.