Former vice president Joe Biden’s younger brother Frank said the 2020 frontrunner intervened on behalf of an oil heiress and lobbyist to advance animal cruelty legislation, according to recently unearthed videotaped remarks.
In taped remarks to the 2013 American Equine Summit obtained by Politico, Democratic Florida state legislator Joe Abruzzo and the younger Biden spoke frankly about how the vice president played a key role in the passage of a horse slaughter ban after being lobbied by his brother.
When oil heiress and horse enthusiast Victoria McCullough took up the pet cause of banning horse slaughter operations in the United States in 2008, she hired Abruzzo to lobby Congress on her behalf. Abruzzo enlisted the support of Frank Biden, who was lobbying the Florida legislature on behalf of a charter school project.
“I turned also to Frank and said, ‘We may need a little help from the vice president and the administration talking to some senators,'” Abruzzo said. “And when Frank and the vice president and [Florida Democratic representative Debbie] Wasserman Schultz jumped in, by the morning sunrise, after Victoria’s advocacy as well, we had no opposition and a voice vote and a passage of appropriations.” – READ MORE