When we talk banana republics, it's not just throwing one's political opponents in jail ahead of election time. It's not solely a falling currency and high inflation. It's not purely threats, mobs, and gang warfare on elected leaders. Nor is it the emerging presence of shantytowns, brought on by unregulated human migration. 

It's corruption, massive, massive, corruption, the kind that brings to mind Mobotu, Marcos, Saddam Hussein, Gadhafi, Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, all of whom died with vast fortunes with no explanation as to how they acquired it.

Sadly, as Biden prepares to throw his political opponent, Donald Trump, in jail for 400 years on an unprecedented documents-mishandling charge, we have reports of vast corruption rolling out about his own money activities from Congress.

According to the New York Post:

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer on Thursday teased that new bank records his panel expects to obtain will reveal that the Biden family has accepted as much as $30 million from foreign nationals.

“We have more bank records coming in, we’re going to exceed $10 million this week. And I think we’ll get up to between $20 and 30 million,” Comer (R-Ky.) told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo when asked how much money the committee has identified as being obtained by President Biden’s family members from overseas sources. 

Something is going on. Comer wouldn't say that if he didn't have a pretty good idea about what the records would reveal, having been on the case for months.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is also on the case.

According to Breitbart News:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) demanded President Joe Biden disclose the “mystery source” who paid him and his wife about $10 million in 2017, the year he left the vice presidency.

In the wake of Joe Biden allegedly accepting a $5 million bribe from the founder of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky — who allegedly kept 17 audio recordings of his conversations with Joe and Hunter Biden as an “insurance policy” — Cruz raised concerns about Joe and Jill Biden’s entities that raked in millions in 2017.

“You’re looking at a tax return that has $10 million in cash that came from a mystery source,” Cruz said on his podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.

He continued:

Now let’s look at the timing here. The whistleblower says when he was vice president, a senior executive at Burisma offered him $5 million cash personally in order to make a corrupt deal and make official decisions for Burisma. The year he leaves the vice presidency in 2017, he reported over $10 million of income in two corporations that he and his wife set up, and we know nothing, zero whatsoever about the source of that income.

Cruz said the House should demand transparency from Joe Biden about who exactly paid the entities.

When have we ever heard of figures like $30 million being bruited about in a U.S. corruption case? Most career-ruining corruption cases involve $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 amounts. Characters like Muhammad Nuru of San Francisco, Mark Ridley-Thomas and Jose Huizar of Los Angeles, and Rep. Duncan Hunter of San Diego all went down for these kinds of amounts.

Potential corruption with these kinds of numbers normally only turns up in cases involving tinpot dictators held before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. We've never seen these kinds of numbers associated with a U.S. president, or even the corruptest Chicago ward heeler pol.

If Comer finds what he thinks he's going to find, we will see corruption on a scale never before seen in U.S. politics. 

As the Biden administration likes to say, "a historic first."

And all the while, the media is treating it as a yawner, a non-story.

Not only could Joe Biden govern like a dictator, he could also be stealing like a dictator.

What have we come to?

Image: Pixabay, via Picryl // Pixabay License