Originally Authored at TheFederalist.com
James Biden opened his closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee this week by claiming his older brother President Joe Biden “never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest” in any of his 50 years of business deals.
“In every business venture in which I have been involved, I have relied on my own talent, judgment, skill, and personal relationships — and never my status as Joe Biden’s brother. Those who have said or thought otherwise were either mistake, ill-informed, or flat-out lying,” James Biden said on Wednesday.
The younger Biden brother also denied participating in a foreign business deal with Hunter Biden and several other Biden family associates. When House investigators showed him his signature on a related business agreement, James Biden claimed ignorance.
Copious evidence including WhatsApp messages, emails, bank records, documents, and the testimonies of former Biden business associates show James Biden was not only a key player in the Biden family’s international influence-peddling scheme, but so was Joe Biden.
“He contradicted himself,” Rep. Andy Biggs confirmed as he left the more than eight-hour-long deposition. Rep. Matt Gaetz similarly asserted that “there are a lot of things that Mr. Biden is saying that are directly contradicted by documents.”
Days before James was set to testify, Politico published a story confirming James often invoked his brother’s name while trying to gin up support for his failed rural hospital project, Americore. Previous reports suggested James “introduced Americore’s founder to his older brother.” Politico’s latest article indicates “Joe Biden was a central element of Jim Biden’s pitch to potential partners and investors during this period.”
According to Americore insiders, James Biden allegedly wanted Joe Biden to have Americore equity and even join the company’s board. Shortly after the FBI raided Americore’s offices in January 2020, the medical company’s former CEO Grant White prepared a lawsuit accusing James Biden of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and committing fraud.
“[James Biden told me] there’s not a single door in the country that we can’t open. So if I wanted to meet, you know, the head of Google, it’s a phone call,” White wrote. “He always represented himself as the fundraiser for his brother’s campaigns. … He was the guy raising the money and so he knew everybody.”
Not only did James fundraise and give his family members jobs based on his brother’s political positions, but he sent money he siphoned from Americore to for his brother.
Americore Chapter 11 Trustee Carol Fox told the House Oversight Committee in December that James used his family name to quietly take a $600,000 personal loan from one of his now-bankrupt investment companies on the condition that he would leverage his family’s political influence to increase their funding from the Middle East. Shortly after, in March 2018, Americore handed more than $200,000 of the loan to James Biden without documentation. James Biden then wrote a check for the same amount to Joe Biden for what he dubbed a personal loan repayment.
In his opening statement, James Biden claimed Joe Biden “had no information” where he got the money and had “no reason to believe that he had information or even knew about any of the other loans.”
“The committees have asked me about those loans from my brother. They were short-term loans that I received from Joe when he was a private citizen, and I repaid them within weeks,” James Biden claimed.
Former Biden business associate Tony Bobulinski testified last week that James and Joe both participated in Hunter’s deal with the Chinese Communist Party-linked energy company CEFC. Bank records show James and his wife Sara Biden sent a $40,000 check, which originated from the CEFC’s payments to Biden family associates, to “the big guy” Joe Biden in 2017.
James Biden once again characterized this as a loan repayment and claimed Joe “played no role, was not involved with, and received no benefits from my work with CEFC.”
“To the extent Mr. Bobulinski suggested that I ever sought to, or did involve my brother in any business dealings with CEFC or anyone else for that matter, those allegations are false,” James Biden stated.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.