A tale of two presidential sons

When the 30-year-old son of the vice president landed a seat on the board of a Colorado bank, it was of small consequence that he apparently knew little about the industry. His background in oil and gas was not conducive to serving on the board of the Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan Association. “Putting Neil Bush on the Silverado board was all ego … all an attempt to associate with the right circles,” said an expert on financial institutions. The fourth child of then–Vice President George H.W. Bush was cashing in on his golden ticket — his last name.

It was a foregone conclusion that the elder Bush, who in 1985 was serving his second term under President Reagan, would be running for the top job in 1988. Reagan had bested him in the 1980 GOP primary before tapping him as his running mate. Now the spotlight would be on Bush — and on his family.

Does this story sound familiar? It’s similar to that of the son of a former vice president who joined the board of an oil and gas company. Critics said Hunter Biden lacked proper expertise, and “peddled the influence” of his father and his famous last name. Like Bush, Joe Biden had run for president and lost. And like Bush, Biden was expected to launch another campaign for the big gig, though he ultimately opted out of running in 2016.

As George H.W. Bush campaigned for the 1988 GOP nomination, Neil Bush remained on the board of Silverado and was dogged by events that would come to haunt his father. Federal regulators accused Neil of acting improperly on the board by approving loans and lines of credit to his personal business partners and investors in his oil and gas company.

But it wasn’t just conflicts of interest that marred Neil’s reputation — and, in turn, that of his dad. In what became known as the Savings and Loan Crisis, the federal government seized control of 18 Colorado banks, including Silverado. A few days after the Republican National Convention in August 1988, Neil resigned from the board. A few weeks after Neil’s father defeated Michael Dukakis in the general election, Silverado collapsed. It would be one of the most expensive of the nationwide bank rescues, costing taxpayers more than $1 billion.

Federal regulators sued the younger Bush for gross negligence, stopping short of charging him with fraud. The FDIC accused Neil of violating “conflict-of-interest regulations” and failing “to act to stop the institution from making improper loans, and in some cases illegal loans.”

Democrats smelled an opportunity and exploited the troubled financial entanglements of the president’s son when the House banking committee hauled Neil before Congress.

“I for one am not somebody that necessarily likes to see some son of a famous political leader under the gun,” said Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II (D-Mass.), the eldest son of the late Robert F. Kennedy. “The reason why you’re before the committee today has to do with the fact this country is facing hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of losses that are being backed up by the taxpayer.”

Neil believed he and Silverado were being singled out as scapegoats for the crisis writ large. “I honestly believed I was being used as a political, kind of, tool, to get at my father,” Neil said in the 2019 docuseries “The Bush Years: Family. Duty. Power.”

At the time, Bush 41 pledged independence from the investigation of his son. “I have great confidence in the integrity and honor of my son,” he said in a July 1990 news conference. “This is not easy for me as a father. It’s easy for me as a president because the system’s going to work. I will not intervene.”

But Neil’s public humiliation was so painful for his father that the elder Bush questioned whether to run for reelection, according to Barbara Bush biographer Susan Page. Her book “The Matriarch” quotes from Bush’s diary: “For the last few months George has talked privately like a man not running for office. … He is consumed with worry about Neil and a guilty feeling. He knows that Neil never would have been in this trouble if he hadn’t been the son of the President.”

Would the investigation into Hunter Biden have been opened in 2018 were it not for the universal belief that his father would run for president in 2020, becoming former President Trump’s greatest political threat?

“Influence peddling” is nothing new. Jared Kushner, a real estate heir and Trump’s son-in-law, along with his wife Ivanka, Trump’s daughter, served as senior White House advisers, despite having no experience in government or public policy. Kushner, absent any foreign policy or national security credentials, even helmed his father-in-law’s Middle East peace plan. Conveniently, Kushner received a $2 billion investment from the Saudi royal family months after leaving the White House.

Charlotte Pence, Vice President Mike Pence’s daughter, managed to ink several book deals while her father was in office. Presumably, Charlotte was compensated, as were the Trump, Biden, McCain, Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Ford, and Kennedy children, all of whom authored books, obtained television gigs or were offered job opportunities that, were it not for their surname, may not have existed.

Hunter Biden is a Yale-educated lawyer, appointed by a Republican president to serve on the board of our nation’s only high-speed rail network, and a former chair of the World Food Program USA, which helped feed hungry women and children struggling to survive around the world. He also sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, which is hardly illegal or unethical.

Neil Bush was a political target because his professional life coincided with a costly national and public crisis. Hunter Biden has been and continues to be a target because his personal life is being exploited to create a public problem that does not exist.

Neil ultimately settled with the federal government for $50,000, a fine paid by friends of the Bush family. The American taxpayers would recover just 13 percent of the $1.3 billion dollar bailout used to rescue Silverado.

So what has Hunter Biden cost you?

Michael LaRosa is the former press secretary to first lady Jill Biden and special assistant to President Biden in the White House. He was Jill Biden’s chief spokesperson on the 2020 election campaign.