10/21/20
Ron Johnson, the senator from Wisconsin who has led the Republican campaign in the Senate of making unfounded claims about Joe Biden’s son Hunter, is facing a host of questions about his own ethics, including whether he personally benefited from a change in tax law that he sought in 2017. A letter sent by Johnson to the Senate ethics committee in May has revealed the senator began the process of selling a company he partly owned in February 2018, just months after he insisted the Trump administration change a portion of the tax law in a way that ultimately benefited the sale. Questions began swirling around Johnson’s sale of stock in Pacur in March, when it was first disclosed. Press reports questioned whether the timing of the sale reflected insider information Johnson had gleaned about the Covid-19 pandemic in his role as head of the Senate homeland security committee. Four months earlier, Johnson became the first Republican senator to announce that he would vote against Trump’s tax bill if it did not give better treatment to so-called “pass-through” entities, or companies that are taxed at rates for individual taxpayers but whose profits are distributed to owners. Johnson’s threat paid off and a change to improve the tax rate for pass-throughs was added to the law, which Johnson supported. The change was recognized at the time as increasing the value of pass-through entities. Johnson sold his stock in his own pass-through company, Pacur, a plastics company he previously ran with is brother-in-law, on 2 March 2020, generating profits of as much as $25m on the sale. In 2017, Johnson said his stake was worth between $1m and $5m. Johnson has led a campaign in the Senate to launch unfounded allegations against Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. On Fox News, Johnson recently accused Biden’s son of using his family name to make “millions” in shady overseas deals. Johnson’s committee has investigated Hunter Biden and found no evidence that Joe Biden, the former vice-president, committed any wrongdoing.