Hiding in Plain Sight: Biden’s Inauguration-Eve Trip to Ukraine
What was Joe Biden doing in Kyiv on January 17, 2017?
By Joseph Duggan • May 11, 2020
It is highly unusual for an outgoing vice president to travel abroad during the days before the beginning of the new administration. An examination of the National Archives reveals no foreign travel on the part of Dick Cheney between the 2008 election and the Obama-Biden inauguration, nor any foreign travel by Vice President Al Gore before the Bush-Cheney inauguration in 2001.
During the time before the inauguration, the outgoing vice president’s duty to the American people is to help the president, the president-elect, and the vice-president-elect with an orderly transition. The closer to inauguration day, the more important it becomes to handle sensitive details diligently.
This was a duty that Joe Biden decided was subordinate to his desire to travel abroad.
Three days before the Trump-Pence inauguration, Biden was halfway around the world meeting with the leaders of a foreign government. Biden’s trip not only took him away from his duties in Washington, it also consumed the attention of many senior presidential, vice-presidential, and State Department staff—for the days before, during, and after the trip—who should have been giving their undivided attention to the transition.
For Biden, the vice president’s absence from the White House during one of the most important weeks of his official responsibilities, and subjecting himself and senior White House staff to jet lag during the inauguration itself, were reasonable costs for the United States to pay in exchange for his presence in a faraway foreign country.
That country was Ukraine.
What was Biden doing in Kyiv on January 17, 2017?
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https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/11/hiding-in-plain-sight-bidens-inauguration-eve-trip-to-ukraine/
