Since 2003, Hunter Biden has been registered to lobby for an array of small universities, hospitals, and drug research companies seeking earmarks and other appropriations. Those clients have paid his firm a total of $3.8 million, jumping from $20,000 in 2003 to $1.6 million in 2007, according to lobbying disclosure records.
This year Hunter Biden has lobbied for drug research companies Achaogen and Pulmatrix, Sharp & Barnes on internet gambling, and six universities, Regis University, St. Joseph's University, St. Xavier University, University of Detroit Mercy, Xavier University, and University of Scranton which is located in his father's hometown.
Not all earmarks are bad. Not all earmarks are bridges to nowhere. I don't know about internet gambling, but money to Catholic universities might not be a bad thing.
One example was the University of Delaware, which Oldaker approached in 2002, shortly after founding the firm with Hunter Biden and Robert Belair. Since then, the university has paid Oldaker's firm $1.5 million.
The payoff: as of 2006, $24.8 million in earmarks for defense research, a student-exchange program, and a drug-and-alcohol-studies program.
Again, these don't strike me as bridges to nowhere. Maybe some will question a student-exchange program but defense research and a substance abuse program seem solid unless there is something dubious about these things the article doesn't mention.
