Republicans are notorious for hypocrisy, but Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) takes it to a higher level.
Higher income level, that is. Johnson (photo, left) was owner and CEO of Pacur, a Wisconsin plastics manufacturer that made him a wealthy man.
As the Guardian notes (here), Johnson is “a vocal critic of Beijing who has vowed to launch investigations into the Biden family’s alleged relationships with Chinese businesses.”
The Guardian also notes that Johnson has “declared $57m in income in his first 10 years in office in connection to his ownership stake in a company whose growth has closely been linked to China,” referring to Pacur.
But wait, that’s not all:
“A close examination of Johnson’s financial disclosures and other public filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission, legal filings and other public records reveal that Johnson’s wealth was boosted by his company’s ties to another company that was owned and managed by his family, which in turn grew its business in China, acquired businesses in China, and reported having a loan worth tens of millions of dollars from the Bank of China. In one case, the company run by Johnson’s family sued the US government to try to press for softer trade relations with Beijing, a position that Johnson himself adopted in a rare break with Trump administration policies. Johnson sold his stake in Pacur in 2020, although documents show that an LLC owned by Johnson and his wife, Jane, still receives up to $1m annually through rent and royalties as owners of the building where Pacur operates.”
At this point it should be noted that Pacur’s previous owner, Howard Curler, became CEO of Bemis, and after Johnson took over, Bemis was a major customer of Pacur. Johnson also owned stock in Bemis, which
“had a steady and growing presence in China under the leadership of Jeffrey Curler, Howard Curler’s son and Ron Johnson’s brother-in-law. The company has plants in China and in 2013, records show, appear to have acquired tens of millions of dollars in Chinese debt in connection to a Chinese acquisition. SEC filings show that Bemis also disclosed in 2016 that it had a $50m Bank of China loan.”
Bemis was sold to an Australian company in 2018.
Despite this tangled web, it’s clear that Johnson made his fortune, or a big chunk of it, by doing business with China. Hunter Biden’s Chinese business dealings are paltry by comparison, and there’s no evidence his father was involved in or profited from Hunter’s dealings, but what did Johnson say about that? This:
“Johnson has also made speeches in the Senate that criticized financial transactions by the president’s son Hunter Biden, which he claimed were tied to ‘Communist China’ and meant that Joe Biden was ‘probably’ compromised on China. The Biden family’s ‘vast web of foreign financial entanglements’, Johnson alleged, had serious implications, and Johnson said he and fellow Republican senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa would continue to investigate them.”
Maybe Johnson thought that by doing business with “Communist China” he could turn them into democratic capitalists. Maybe Hunter thought that, too.
And, lest you forget, this is the GOP senator who called the Jan. 6 insurrectionists “tourists.”