Never Forget the Time Joe Biden Said 'Don't Assume I'm Not Corrupt'
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran during the 2020 presidential campaign; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
An old clip of Joe Biden discussing whether he could be corrupted by power took on new significance less than a week before the Nov. 3, 2020, election.
At the time, the Democrats’ lone shot at seizing power from the American people was embroiled in controversy surrounding reports that he used his son to peddle his influence while he served as the country’s vice president.
Contents discovered on a laptop that reportedly belonged to his son Hunter Biden continued to bring up questions about Biden’s alleged involvement in the younger Biden’s international business dealings.
Numerous and credible reports that Biden himself was involved in making money from Hunter Biden’s business in China, Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine were also not challenged on substance.
But they portrayed a political family rooted in corruption, and they made a case that Biden himself allegedly guided American foreign policy while serving as VP with his own financial interests in mind.
Due to these and other reports, a decades-old unearthed clip of Biden speaking about political corruption became more important than ever before.
An old Biden interview showed Biden discussing corruption as a side-burned and fast-talking young senator from Delaware.
In 1974, during his second year in the Senate, Biden appeared on the weekly PBS program “The Advocates.”
He was asked, “As the youngest member of the Senate, the one therefore who may expect the longest career there, I wonder if you’d say to us since it’s clear that you’re not corrupt and you got elected, why should people think that the system produces corrupt results when there you are?”
“Don’t assume I’m not corrupt”
Ha no worry
We KNOW pic.twitter.com/53Au9UVReJ
— ??⚘Mel⚘?? (@Melski1) October 25, 2020
Biden, then young and vibrant, exhibited a pompous grin.
He responded, “I’m not sure you should assume I’m not corrupt, but thank you for that, though.”
“The system does produce corruption, and I think implicit in the system is corruption when in fact, whether or not you can run for public office, and it costs a great deal of money to run for the United States Senate, even for a small state like Delaware, you have to go to those people who have money, and they always want something,” the former senator added.
Podcaster Pat Gray shared the clip in a January 2020 episode of “Pat Gray Unleashed” in which he also predicted Biden would eventually become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.
Ten months later, Biden was that nominee.
Nearly five decades since Biden told PBS, “I’m not sure you should assume I’m not corrupt,” he was being implicated in an unprecedented corruption scandal, thanks to brave reporting from those at the New York Post.
That reporting was largely ignored by the establishment media, censored by Big Tech and blamed on Russia by Democrats such as Rep. Adam Schiff of California.
It must be nice being an elected Democrat.
Biden said on record all the way back in 1974 that people should not assume he’s immune from corruption, and laid out examples for exactly why the system he was part of in the Senate for 36 years encourages such corruption.
Biden is a shell of that young man interviewed by PBS, just beginning his political career; a career that is also an argument for term limits.
But his comments to “The Advocates” are more relevant now than they ever were.
The system Biden has come to represent, in his own words, “does produce corruption.”
At some point, he became extravagantly wealthy in a swamp where, per Biden, those who hold the keys to power “always want something” for their money.
What did they get for it?
More importantly, what has Biden gotten for 48 years as one of the most powerful and influential people in government?
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