By Townhall. In the aftermath of the Mueller report and former Vice President Joe Biden’s announcement Thursday he intends to run for president in 2020, several news outlets began reporting on Biden’s desire during his tenure in the Obama administration to develop closer ties to Russia.
The Washington Free Beacon published a piece Thursday morning reminding readers of Biden’s defense of Russia following then-candidate Mitt Romney’s concern over Russia’s apparent moves toward geopolitical domination in 2012.
In 2012, when Romney expressed concern that President Barack Obama was caught on a hot-mic promising more “flexibility” regarding Russia, Biden took it as an opportunity to herald that administration’s “Russia reset” — an approach championed by Hillary Clinton — and marginalize Romney as a doddering conservative still approaching the U.S./Russia relationship from a Cold War perspective. . .
Biden then went on to insist Russia was working with the Obama administration in everything from Iran to Afghanistan, and insisted, a month later, that Russia was the reason for new relationships with nations such as China and Turkey. (Read more from “From Russia With Love: Biden Pushed Hillary Clinton to Form Closer Ties With Russia” HERE)
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Biden Wanted to Establish a ‘Biden-Putin Commission’ to Cozy up to the Kremlin
By Jordan Schachtel. Two separate emails, disclosed in late 2018 through a State Department Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, show that the Obama administration — and Joe Biden personally — was heavily invested in the idea of cozying up to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Biden officially announced that he was running for president Thursday. During his speech, he articulated several false narratives to take shots at President Trump.
Now that the former Obama VP is in the race, perhaps he will answer questions concerning his past idea to establish a Biden-Putin commission to forge closer ties with the Kremlin.
In an undated email from Strobe Talbott, former deputy secretary of state under Bill Clinton, to Hillary Clinton, using the subject line “Russia,” the then-Brookings Institution president told Clinton that Biden floated the idea of the commission intended to bolster ties to Russia.
“The VP told me on the margins of the big ceremony at State that he was thinking seriously about a Biden-Putin Commission. I have a thought or two on that subject that I’d like to share with you whenever it’s appropriate.”
In another email, this time from the late Sandy Berger (who served as national security adviser to Bill Clinton), it appeared that Clinton was on board with the idea.
“I think your idea of establishing a Biden-Putin Commission — like Gore-Chemomydrin — to coordinate and drive the US-Russian relationship has a lot of merit,” Berger wrote in an email to Hillary Clinton.
“It elevates the relationship after eight years of neglect which has fueled nationalistic resentment in Moscow and provides a mechanism for achieving trade-offs that can produce a larger bargain,” Berger added.
Biden’s infatuation with Russia began during his time serving as a senator, when he made routine trips to the then-Soviet Union to meet with top USSR leaders.
As Trevor Loudon explains in The Epoch Times:
“Throughout the 1980s, Biden consistently opposed President Ronald Reagan’s tough line against the Soviet Union. Biden instead favored détente—which, had that policy remained in place, would have meant more subsidies and trade deals, keeping the Soviet Union alive much longer than necessary.”
“Biden also was a strong opponent of U.S. military opposition to Soviet expansionism,” Loudon adds.
Since the days of the early Soviet Union, the Democratic Party has remained consistently soft on Russia. Democrats’ rhetoric and policies on Moscow, however, suddenly changed when President Trump was implicated in the Russian collusion hoax, which was spawned by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
And in their efforts to label the president as weak on Russia, much of the Left — and virtually every top official in the Obama administration — sought to erase the Obama administration’s incredible capitulation to Russia on almost every major geopolitical issue.
The Obama administration allowed unchecked election interference, promised “more flexibility” after the 2012 election, attempted an infamous botched “reset,” closed a controversial Uranium One deal, oversaw Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, and held Russia responsible for securing Syria’s chemical weapons, and that’s just a handful of the many botched foreign policy decisions vis-a-vis Russia made by the Obama White House.
Biden himself has been objectively dovish and complimentary of post-communist Russia, the Washington Free Beacon reminds us. The publication listed several comments from then-VP Biden making it clear that he saw Russia as a partner rather than an adversary.
“Governor Romney’s answer I thought was incredibly revealing. He acts like he thinks the Cold War is still on, Russia is still our major adversary. I don’t know where he has been,” Biden said in one such quote resurfaced by the Free Beacon, in which he was commenting on a debate between then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney and incumbent President Obama.
In other comments, Biden frequently positioned Russia as a partner against our common adversaries, when in fact, Russia was instead partnering with our adversaries. (For more from the author of “Biden Wanted to Establish a ‘Biden-Putin Commission’ to Cozy up to the Kremlin” please click HERE)
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