Walter Shaub, the Obama White House’s former top ethics official, recently railed against the Biden administration’s handling of Hunter Biden’s upcoming art auction.
“They have outsourced government ethics to an art dealer,” Shaub told CNN Newsroom in July.
The comments came in response to the controversial set of ethics guidelines negotiated by the White House with Hunter’s art dealer. The White House claims that the agreement would ensure that sale prices were within the price range set by the gallery and that the ultimate buyers would remain anonymous.
Hunter’s newcomer status makes it harder to evaluate his work in an industry already known for its murkiness. “How are they going to decide what’s unreasonable when they’ve already priced it in the range of $75,000 to $500,000 for a first outing?” Shaub continued.
“What these people are paying for is Hunter Biden’s last name,” Shaub later said in an interview with the Washington Post.
Richard Painter, who worked as an ethics lawyer under the Bush administration, has also called the sale “a really bad idea.”
“The initial reaction a lot of people are going to have is that he’s capitalizing on being the son of a president and wants people to give him a lot of money. I mean, those are awfully high prices,” Painter told the Washington Post.
The supposed anonymity of the buyers has also become a major sticking point for ethics watchdogs like Shaub. “There’s nothing we can do to monitor to make sure that Hunter Biden or anyone in the White House doesn’t find out that the dealer keeps his or her promise, that the buyers don’t call the White House, ask for a meeting, and say ‘Hey, I just bought the president’s son’s art for $500,000,’” Shaub said.
The Biden administration insists that its opacity-as-transparency policy will work. “The galleries will not share information about buyers or prospective buyers, including their identities, with Hunter Biden or the administration, which provides quite a level of protection and transparency,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters on July 9.x.
Days later, however, CBS reported that the George Berget Gallery in New York, which is handling the sale, does, in fact, expect Hunter to meet with prospective buyers.
Still, Psaki then insisted that Hunter’s discussions with potential buyers will not pertain to the sale. Those discussions, she claims, “will be left to the gallerist, as was outlined in the agreement that we announced just a few weeks ago. We believe this is a reasonable system that has been established that allows for Hunter Biden to work in his profession within appropriate safeguards.”
Jacob McLeod is the director of research at Government Accountability Institute.
