The only way to cast an informed vote for political candidates is to become familiar with their qualifications for office. Such information is important for any election, but especially so for a presidential election. It permits voters to base their judgment on facts about the various candidates’ strengths and weaknesses, accomplishments and failures, rather than on general impressions and campaign speeches, which can be misleading.
In-depth investigative studies are among the best sources of information about candidates, particularly if the authors have a record of dependability and support their assertions with accurate footnotes or endnotes.
Peter Schweizer has such a record and he recently published Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite. He also documented his findings with over 900 source citations, which occupy 88 pages or slightly over 25% of the book. This by any standard would be considered meticulous documentation.
Each of eight Democrat candidates for the presidency is assigned a separate chapter. Here are synopses of what he reported about five key candidates— Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders:
Kamala Harris: Schweizer says that in 15 years as a prosecutor in San Francisco, Harris “fail[ed] to prosecute a single case” of abuse by a priest although there were arguably many such cases that should have been prosecuted. However, Schweizer explains, she accepted “high-dollar donations” from those “connected to the Catholic Church institutional hierarchy.” From this and other data, Schweizer concludes that “Harris has used her powers as a prosecutor to leverage her rise to power, and protect corrupt allies and friends.”
Joe Biden: “The Biden family’s apparent self-enrichment depends on Joe Biden’s political influence and involves no less than five family members: Joe’s son Hunter, daughter Ashley, brothers James and Frank, and sister Valerie,” writes Schweizer. Hunter Biden’s business deals were in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, and China. The China deal alone gained $1.5 billion for his company. James Biden’s deals were in Iraq, Pueto Rico, and the U.S. mainland; Frank’s in Costa Rico, Jamaica and in a Florida program called “Mavericks in Education” in a number of Florida cities. After presenting similar information about other members of the Biden family, Schweizer concludes that “there is a culture within the Biden family that trades off Joe’s power. And Joe appears willing to act on their behalf whenever he can.”
Cory Booker: Schweizer sums up his research on Booker with these words: “As both an executive, while mayor, and as a legislator in the U.S. Senate, he has wielded power to secure donations for his political machine, including his nonprofits. In the U.S. Senate, he has offered his close aides a path to great wealth as lobbyists by using his position on Senate committees for their commercial benefit.”
Elizabeth Warren: “Despite her claims to be a consumer advocate,” reports Schweizer, “Warren’s legal work for large corporations was helping her to make both her and her husband rich.” And when serving as Senator, “she would take curious positions on a number of issues that would seem to benefit her daughter.”
Bernie Sanders: “From the outset” of gaining political office, “Sanders established a pattern of benefiting himself and his allies,” notably his second wife Jane and her daughter Carina. For example, according to Schweizer, in 2004 Burlington College (BC) named Jane its president and she “steered [the college’s resources] in the same direction as Bernie did his campaign money: it went to the family.” Five years later, the nonprofit BC signed a deal with a woodworking school owned by Carina. Over time that school received “more than $500,000 “ from BC. As for Sanders himself, Schweizer claims, during his almost 30 year career in Washington he has written or co-written more books than legislative bills. The latter number is seven, including “the naming of two post offices” and the declaration of a “Vermont Bicentennial Day.”
As of February 10, 2020 Schweitzer’s book was #3 on Amazon’s Best Seller list. I did a Google search on that same day and found, on the first 10 pages, no major newspapers reporting on the book other than the NY Post and the Washington Times, and no major cable stations other than Fox.
There’s no denying that Schweizer’s book is important, particularly when one of the people he was writing about could theoretically be the next President! Therefore, one might expect that the every news agency in the country would have not only reported on the book and interviewed the author, but also assigned their staffs to scrutinize the voluminous data the author compiled. That surely would have been the case if someone written a book claiming that President Trump had engaged in a fraction of what Schweizer found.
So why were MSNBC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, the Washington Post, LA Times, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, NY Daily News, and the Boston Globe, among others, so silent about Schweizer’s book? The answer, I believe, is simple. The story doesn’t fit the narrative they are wedded to. In that narrative, Donald Trump is the villain and the Democrat candidates are the heroes, and any evidence to the contrary is unthinkable and therefore not to be reported.
If I am correct in believing the mainstream news outlets have decided to withhold such important news from their readers/viewers, then they are not only violating their journalistic code and the principal reason for their existence—they are also making it difficult for the public to carry out their duty as citizens and vote responsibly. In short, they are endangering the country, and that is more than lamentable. It is despicable.
Copyright © 2020 by Vincent Ryan Ruggiero. All rights reserved
