Impeachment witness says Biden’s brother paid him from predatory loans or cash bilked from seniors
President Biden allegedly profited from his brother’s fraudulent enterprise offers, based on a brand new witness within the House impeachment inquiry.
James Biden, 74, typically leveraged his elder brother, together with a promise of entry to “a future Biden administration” to money in on profitable and typically shady enterprise offers. House investigators now have adopted the cash path into the president’s checking account.
According to new witness testimony, the supply of a $200,000 verify that James Biden paid to his brother in March 2018 may have come solely from predatory loans or senior residents’ cash fraudulently invested by James Biden’s enterprise accomplice Michael Lewitt.
The House impeachment inquiry is homing in on James Biden as investigators dig into whether or not the president pocketed cash from his household’s profitable enterprise offers throughout his time as vice chairman within the Obama administration and after leaving workplace.
The House voted to formalize the impeachment investigation into the president this month and subpoenaed James Biden to seem in December for a closed-door deposition. The two sides are nonetheless negotiating a date for him to testify, Republican aides mentioned.
On Monday, House investigators interviewed Carol Fox, the U.S. trustee for the Chapter 11 chapter proceedings for Americore Health LLC. The struggling rural hospital operator partnered with James Biden particularly to assist broaden the enterprise by means of his political connections.
Ms. Fox sued James Biden in 2022 for failing to “deliver on a promise” he made to Americore to make use of “his last name” to assist the corporate win a big funding from the Middle East.
According to a supply accustomed to her testimony to House investigators, Ms. Fox “identified no services James Biden provided to Americore,” but the corporate paid the president’s brother $600,000, which Americore recognized as a mortgage.
Of that sum, $200,000 ended up in President Biden’s checking account from a verify James Biden despatched to his brother on March 1, 2018.
The president mentioned his brother despatched him the cash to repay a mortgage. James Biden wrote “loan repayment” on the verify.
House investigators have acquired no paperwork backing up the declare.
Ms. Fox “identified only two possible sources” of the cash: predatory loans or senior residents’ cash fraudulently invested by Mr. Lewitt, an Americore investor and James Biden’s enterprise accomplice.
Ms. Fox mentioned Mr. Lewitt “pulled money that elderly Americans had placed in an investment fund” and transmitted it to Americore, which then paid James Biden.
On the identical day Americore despatched $200,000 to James Biden, he wrote a verify to his brother for a similar quantity.
Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican who has spent years investigating Mr. Biden’s involvement in his household’s enterprise offers, suspects the president was concerned in serving to his household revenue stemming from his days as vice chairman.
“It’s not surprising that more evidence is surfacing on a regular basis,” Mr. Johnson informed The Washington Times.
House investigators and court docket paperwork reviewed by The Times present James Biden promised Americore “access to a future Biden administration and the highest levels of government … and that his brother, Joe Biden, had been made aware of the business, which would be made profitable when it could become part of the Biden platform.”
Congressional investigators mentioned a witness within the lawsuit acknowledged that James Biden, in cellphone conversations with Americore executives, would “explain that Joe Biden was in the room with him and James had been explaining the deal to him.”
Americore charged in court docket that James Biden by no means delivered on his promise to usher in massive investments from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the place he allegedly developed relationships throughout his brother’s time as vice chairman.
The firm mentioned James Biden did not repay the $600,000 mortgage they offered at his request. James Biden settled with Americore for $350,000 in September 2022.
Ms. Fox informed House investigators that she noticed no data or documentation displaying Americore had given James Biden a mortgage, because the $600,000 fee was referenced. She mentioned the president’s brother helped procure “an ill-advised bridge loan” that pushed Americore out of business after he failed to return by means of on the guarantees of enormous investments from the Middle East.
David Randolph Smith, a lawyer who represented James Biden within the lawsuit, didn’t reply to a request from The Times. He informed The Wall Street Journal in 2022 that the president’s brother “provided extensive financial and consulting services to Americore” and “had a vision of revitalizing failing rural hospitals.”
The president and congressional Democrats have rejected Republicans’ claims that Mr. Biden performed any position in his household’s enterprise offers, regardless of witness testimony that he phoned in to or stopped by son Hunter Biden’s enterprise conferences courting again to his time as vice chairman. Mr. Biden copied in his son and son’s enterprise companions on White House emails, shielding his personal id with pseudonyms.
White House counsel Richard Sauber, in a letter despatched final month to House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, Kentucky Republican, and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, mentioned the Republicans’ requests for paperwork and subpoenas of Biden relations are unjustified.
Mr. Comer and Mr. Jordan have subpoenaed Hunter Biden, who has refused to seem for closed-door testimony and now faces a contempt of Congress vote within the House. House lawmakers have sought interviews with further Biden relations and their associates. House investigators say Biden relations and their enterprise companions pocketed $24 million from international enterprise offers.
All of the relations, Mr. Sauber mentioned in his letter to Mr. Comer, “are private citizens.” Mr. Sauber mentioned the Republican investigation has refuted “baseless allegations against the president.”
The House impeachment inquiry’s give attention to the president’s brother follows a report by The Washington Post that the FBI had secretly recorded James Biden in an unrelated bribery probe of Mississippi trial lawyer Richard “Dickie” Scruggs in 2008.
The president’s brother was not the topic of the investigation, however the FBI recorded him finalizing plans to create a consulting agency with an affiliate of Mr. Scruggs who concurrently started delivering bribes to judges on Mr. Scruggs’ behalf.
A decade earlier, Mr. Scruggs paid James Biden $100,000 for assist persuading then-Sen. Joseph R. Biden to assist the huge tobacco settlement settlement in 1998.
“I probably wouldn’t have hired him if he wasn’t the senator’s brother,” mentioned Mr. Scruggs, who served six years in federal jail on the bribery scheme.
