James Biden says brother Joe had ‘no direct or indirect’ role in his business during House impeachment inquiry testimony
WASHINGTON — James Biden insisted Wednesday to the House impeachment inquiry that his older brother, President Biden, was innocent of corruption claims — despite many documented meetings with family associates.
James, 74, struck a defiant posture during his interview, insisting that two checks he wrote to his powerful sibling were legitimate loan repayments and that “Joe Biden has never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest” in his business dealings.
In about eight hours of testimony, the first brother “changed his story” about when exactly he got involved in business with Chinese state-backed CEFC China Energy and revealed that the firm gave first son Hunter a diamond as a gift during his dad’s vice presidency — before later giving him a second one, a source told The Post.
James Biden said he threw away the first diamond after Hunter asked him to have it appraised.
He also said that he and Joe Biden didn’t have any written loan paperwork that would document $240,000 in allegedly loaned funds that James appeared to repay using foreign-focused business funds in 2017 and 2018 — but added that Joe Biden, 81, didn’t know anything about where those funds were sourced.
James also revealed that he received large personal loans, including from Democratic donors — and some haven’t been paid off.
The first brother immediately drew Republican scrutiny Wednesday because his opening statement appeared to conflict with existing documentation and evidence about his role in CEFC China Energy.
“James Biden initially said he was not part of a deal with Rob Walker, Hunter Biden, James Gilliar, and Tony Bobulinski but when presented with an agreement with his signature on it, he changed his story to say he did not recall signing that agreement,” the source familiar with his testimony said.
James Biden said in an opening statement that he wasn’t initially aware that he was receiving funds from the Chinese company in early 2017 after CEFC transferred $3 miillion to Walker for distribution and only “recently” learned of that fact.
Biden got $360,000 of that haul over five transfers between April 3 and May 18, 2017, according to bank records.
“I received several payments in the spring of 2017 that I understood to come from Hunter. I did not know then — but have learned recently — that the money I received was a portion of Hunter’s share that he directed Mr. Walker to send to me,” the first brother said in his opening statement.
But Walker told the impeachment inquiry on Jan. 26 that he spoke on the phone with James about the transfers — an inconsistency Republicans probed during a grueling day of questions.
“I remember Jim calling me to ask me if I could send him more, and I would clear it with Hunter first. And then Hunter would say yes, and then I would send it to Jim,” Walker said.
Walker testified that an initial tranche of $3 million in CEFC funds flowed to him — with about a third going to the Bidens — shortly after Joe Biden met CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming at DC’s Four Seasons hotel. Walker said the money was a “thank you” for past services in a relationship that began in 2015 while Joe Biden was still vice president.
It was not immediately clear how expensive the initial diamond gifted to Hunter Biden was or when exactly it was given. Ye later gave Hunter a 2.8 carat diamond in February 2017 that could be worth $80,000.
James Biden did not speak with reporters as he arrived at the O’Neill House Office Building for the marathon closed-door interview.
“Because of my intimate knowledge of my brother’s personal integrity and character, as well as my own strong ethics, I have always kept my professional life separate from our close personal relationship,” James insisted in his opening statement.
“I never asked my brother to take any official action on behalf of me, my business associates, or anyone else. 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.”
JOE ‘HAD NO INFORMATION AT ALL’ ON $240K: BROTHER
Republicans grilled James Biden on checks written to Joe Biden for $40,000 in 2017 and $200,000 in 2018 that were described on the subject line as loan repayments, but which Republicans note were close in timing to foreign-focused ventures.
James insisted that the president “had no information at all about the source of the funds I used to repay him.”
James paid $40,000 to Joe Biden on Sept. 3, 2017, which House Republicans say came from “laundered” CEFC funds.
The check was labeled as a “loan repayment,” but Republicans say they have no record of loan paperwork and that the money flow is obscured by the fact that the original funds allegedly being repaid came from a law firm associated with multiple Biden relatives.
James later wrote a second “loan repayment” check to his brother — for $200,000 — on March 1, 2018, after receiving an identical amount that day from rural hospital company Americore.
Corporate bankruptcy documents say that James Biden received $600,000 in loans in 2018, including an initial $400,000 that January and a later $200,000 on March 1, 2018, by pledging to “obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections.”
Politico reported Sunday that “one person on the receiving end of Jim Biden’s health care pitch recalled a phone call in which Jim Biden said he was sitting in a car next to his brother Joe.”
James said in his opening statement that investor Amer Rustom, whose corporate biography describes him as having “strong ties with many of the Middle East and North African leaders and country officials” referred him to another businessman, Michael Lewitt, for a potential $20 million investment in Americore, but that it didn’t materialize in time to save the company financially.
The Securities and Exchange Commission in September charged Lewitt, a Florida resident, with stealing $4.7 million from investors of his own fund.
Lewitt also loaned him money, James Biden revealed Wednesday. The source familiar with his testimony said that the loan was for $225,000 and “Lewitt forgave it all.”
The first brother ultimately repaid $350,000 of the $600,000 to Americore — arguing that he thought at the time the money was compensation rather than a loan.
James Biden sought to pre-empt some questions about the checks with the family’s lengthiest explanation to date about the transfers.
“Because of the episodic nature of the income from my consulting work, there have been a number of occasions when my personal financial obligations have exceeded our available funds. Some of those large expenditures have been predictable. For example, I have three children for whom we had large tuition payments,” he said.
Other expenses were not as foreseeable, such as medical expenses for family members and the hurricane damages to our home in Florida,” James said in his opening statement.
“In those instances, we have turned to financial institutions, friends, business partners, or family for loans. Some of those obligations were reduced to writing; others were not. On each occasion, we did our best to repay the debts in full. Some individuals forgave the outstanding obligations.”
James added, “In no instance did anyone ever ask me or my wife to engage in any inappropriate, unethical or illegal activity as consideration for, or in connection with, any of those loans. And except for the ones from my brother Joe, I have no reason to believe that he had information or even knew about any of the other loans.
“The Committees have asked 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…. The complete explanation is that Joe lent me money, and I repaid him as soon as I had the funds to do so.”
HUNTER AND THE ‘BIG GUY’
The first brother’s best-known international venture involved CEFC — a since-defunct cog in Beijing’s “Belt and Road” foreign influence campaign, in which Hunter Biden also was involved.
Joe Biden at one point was penciled in for a 10% cut in a joint venture with CEFC, according to a May 2017 email from former family associate James Gilliar, who referred to Joe Biden as the “big guy.”
Former business associate Tony Bobulinski testified last week that he met Joe Biden and spoke about the CEFC partnership twice in May 2017 — further contradicting the president’s consistent claim he “never” discussed business with his relatives’ partners and that he “did not” interact with their associates.
James Biden attacked Bobulinski — who sandbagged Joe Biden with his allegations ahead of the presidential debate in 2020 —calling him “tremendously arrogant… often disrespectful and a bad listener” in his opening statement.
As part of the CEFC dealings, the future first brother received a portion of $5.1 million that was transferred to accounts linked to the Biden family within just 10 days of a threatening July 2017 text message from Hunter, now 54, to a Chinese associate, in which he wrote he was “sitting here with my father.”
At one point, CEFC allegedly provided a credit card with a $100,000 limit to James and his wife, Sara, for a “global spending spree,” according to the Senate report, which House investigators say was corroborated by witness testimony.
James did not directly address the “spending spree” claim in his opening statement and it’s unclear if he pushed back on the allegations during the deposition.
James defended his work with CEFC, though his accounting of his duties may draw further questions about possible liability under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires Americans to register before lobbying for certain foreign clients.
“Relying on the extensive network of contacts I had developed over many decades, I quickly identified a number of promising opportunities. For example, I reached out to a number of investors who were friends and who expressed serious interest in working with us,” James said.
“In addition, I connected with Richard Ieyoub, an old friend and the former long-term Attorney General of Louisiana, who by 2017 was the state Commissioner of Conservation. Mr. Ieyoub directed me to a number of projects, including Monkey Island LNH, a property off the coast of Louisiana with opportunities for the onloading and offloading of liquid natural gas.
“Of all the projects, this was the one that proved most attractive to CEFC, whose representatives presented the opportunity to the Chairman [Ye] and gave an informal go-ahead for the project. We even marked the occasion with a celebratory lunch.”
In possible additional fodder for Republicans, James said that he didn’t have confidence in the initial group of partners working with his nephew Hunter.
“Although I had no particular quarrel with Mr. Walker and Mr. Gilliar, I was not impressed by what they brought to the table,” he said.
Hunter and James Biden cut out their partners in summer 2017 and received future payments from a new entity called Hudson West III, which received $5 million from CEFC on Aug. 8, 2017.
Of those funds, $165,000 per month went to Hunter Biden’s Owasco, with the first son then receiving $100,000 a month and James $65,000, the first brother said, in addition to “expenses [that] were reimbursed by Hudson West III.”
“At certain points, when it became clear that I was performing a substantial share of the work, Hunter agreed to increase my monthly share,” James said.
The opening statement did not address the fact that Joe Biden was mentioned in an October 2017 email as a participant in a call about a proposed purchase of 5 million tons of natural gas. Biden family defenders have speculated that the message was supposed to mention “Jim.”
Joe Biden’s alleged interactions with CEFC partners such as Bobulinski and Ye wasn’t a one-off, Republicans leading the inquiry note.
Prior reporting, testimony, and documentation show that Joe Biden interacted with an array of Hunter’s foreign patrons while Vice President — including those from Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as the CEO for a prior Chinese-state-backed business venture called BHR Partners.
‘A LINE OF 747S FILLED WITH CASH’
James Biden’s associations with domestic and Mexican figures also are expected to be probed.
In 2006, when he and Hunter were in the process of taking over a New York City hedge fund, James allegedly said, “Don’t worry about investors, we’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden … We’ve got investors lined up in a line of 747s filled with cash,” Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger wrote in a 2021 book.
Joe Biden was at the time the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Law firm SimmonsCooper — associated with wealthy asbestos lawyer Jeff Cooper — invested $1 million in 2006 to the hedge fund. The same year, Congress considered asbestos reform legislation, in which then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) played a pivotal role in blocking a change that could have limited funding for payouts after lobbying by Cooper’s firm.
A Joe Biden spokesman claimed in 2008 that the money wasn’t linked to the bill and that the Biden family bank repaid the investment.
Cooper later partnered with the Biden family on business pursuits in Mexico during the Obama-Biden administration — including posing for a 2015 group photo with Mexican guests and Joe Biden at the official vice president’s residence and riding aboard Air Force Two for an official 2016 trip to Mexico.
James Biden was wiretapped by the FBI in 2007 — when his brother was still a senator — as part of a bribery investigation of Mississippi lawyer Dickie Scruggs, the Washington Post reported in December.
Biden, who was not charged in the case, was in talks with Scruggs and conspirator Tim Balducci about setting up a law firm that would have employed himself, his nephew Hunter Biden, and James’ wife.
Scruggs at one point flew Joe Biden to a fundraiser on his private plane, the Washington Post reported.
Then-Sen. Biden went from opposing federal legislation to punish tobacco companies for lying about the addictiveness of cigarettes to a supporter after Scruggs — the architect of a multibillion-dollar litigation plan — paid James Biden’s lobbying firm $100,000 in 1998, the Washington Post reported.
“I probably wouldn’t have hired him if he wasn’t the senator’s brother,” Scruggs told the newspaper.
Another disbarred Mississippi attorney, Joey Langston, who was convicted in a different bribery case, told House investigators in testimony made public this month that he loaned James Biden $800,000 in 2016 and 2017 during Joe Biden’s final term in office, but only got $400,000 back.
The troubled attorney, who had hosted fundraisers for Joe Biden, ProPublica reported, was unsuccessfully trying to overturn a bribery conviction in court in 2016 — raising intrigue over whether he was also seeking a federal pardon.
James Biden said in his impeachment inquiry deposition that yet another Democratic donor, John Hynansky, loaned him $900,000 and that he has an outstanding balance of $100,000.
In a further subject area that was expected to be probed, the construction company Hill International allegedly hired James Biden in 2011 to negotiate a secret deal with Saudi Arabia to settle a $140 million dispute over a desalinization plant built by a Hill subsidiary in the 1980s.
James Biden allegedly told Thomas Sullivan, a former Treasury Department official-turned-private investigator hired by a rival firm, that he attended a February 2012 meeting with Saudi officials at which Hill was to receive “final payment” for the desalination plant.
James allegedly told Sullivan that he had attended the meeting “because of his position and relationship” with his older brother, who was then the vice president.
Hill International CEO Irvin Richter allegedly told Sullivan that he retained James Biden because the Saudis “would not dare stiff the brother of the vice president.”
