This Ukraine thing could help Joe Biden.

[DrFunkenstein]

42. Should Biden Have Recused Himself To Avoid The Impression of Conflict?

While it seems like Rosemont Seneca conducted all kinds of deals that could be construed as unethical given the position of access that the sons of Biden and Kerry possessed while making in numerous international deals, I seriously doubt that anything rose to the level of illegality.

I know that Trump has taken a big leak on governmental ethics, but our leaders are supposed to recuse themselves to avoid even the least possibility of conflict of interest.

I am hardly claiming to know all the facts, but I did find this:

Biden described how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn’t immediately fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

“I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden recalled telling Poroshenko.

“Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time,” Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations event, insisting that President Obama was in on the threat.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/436816-joe-bidens-2020-ukrainian-nightmare-a-closed-probe-is-revived

Given his son was a board member the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings at the center of the wide-ranging corruption probe led by the guy prosecutor who got fired, I'd venture that Biden should have known that a recusal was the right way to go. Someone else could have led the negotiations at a personal level.

My guess is that this conversation elevates Biden to a rival of Trump, which helps him, but it may not leave him smelling very sweetly. Then again, do the American people even notice these sorts of thing?