A legislator once told me how he traded political favors for campaign contributions: He said, It’s legal but you have to walk a line. He explained when someone asked him to vote for a bill he couldn’t say, ‘Sure, I will, if you’ll contribute to my campaign in return.’ That was a ‘quid pro quo.’ And quid pro quos were illegal.

On the other hand it was legal to say, ‘That sounds like a good bill to me – I think I can help you.’ Then add, ‘By the way, completely unrelated to that bill, I’m having a fundraiser – could you raise $100,000 for my campaign?’ That wasn’t a quid pro quo. So it was legal.

I said:  That’s still smelly…

He shrugged. That’s how politicians wrote the law: Doing favors then asking for contributions is legal – as long as you don’t cross the line and make it an explicit quid pro quo.

Joe Biden lived in that political world in Washington for decades. Did he tell Russian oligarchs, Chinese companies, Hire my son Hunter – you pay him millions and I’ll get you what you want. If he did he crossed the line. That’s a quid pro quo.

And what if Biden didn’t say that? What if there was no quid pro quo? Is he off the hook? Legally, yes. But that leaves Biden facing another problem: Those Chinese companies and Russian oligarchs paid Hunter Biden millions for one reason: They wanted favors. Did Joe Biden get them those favors? If he did, those favors could still be lethal to Biden politically.