Biden’s younger brother James emerges as central figure in family’s big-money deals

President Biden’s younger brother James B. Biden doesn’t appear in the headlines as much as his troubled nephew, the president’s son Hunter Biden.

A House Republican investigation, however, is poised to expose how James Biden and eight other family members may have profited from President Biden’s powerful positions in government and perhaps put national security in danger by compromising the president.

Court documents and congressional reports show that James Biden wasn’t shy about promoting his brother’s influence. He told potential business partners in 2019 that his brother Joe “was in the room with him” as he closed in on a lucrative deal.

Seven years younger than the president, James Biden, 73, never graduated from college but has made a successful living with various business ventures, some of the most lucrative deals secured with Hunter Biden.

The two Bidens recently raked in seven-figure payouts from energy companies connected to the Chinese Communist Party, bank records obtained by congressional Republicans show. The money was wired in 2017 and 2018 to Hunter Biden’s Owasco law firm and then distributed by Hunter Biden to associates and family members. Hunter Biden gave at least $1.4 million to Lion Hall Group, James Biden’s consulting firm based in Merion Station, Pennsylvania. The president’s daughter-in-law, Hallie Biden, also got a cut of the funds.

It’s not clear what services James, Hunter or Hallie Biden provided for the money, but Sen. Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican who has been investigating the Biden business deals for years, said the payout was to compensate for work helping the CCP-backed companies “pursue deals and expand its reach in the energy sector.”

When James Biden’s bank questioned the large deposits, his wife, Sara Biden, told the bank that the money was compensation for assisting Owasco with international clients, according to congressional investigators.

Sara Biden did not respond to an inquiry from The Washington Times, and a spokesman for James Biden had no comment.

In addition to big payments from the Chinese firms, James and Sara Biden were provided a $100,000 shopping spree from Hunter Biden and his business associate Gongwen Dong, a Chinese national. The two opened a line of credit that James and Sara Biden used to pay for travel, hotels, restaurants and Apple devices, according to the bank records obtained by lawmakers.

Congressional investigators are delving into the foreign business deals via Treasury Department suspicious activity reports generated by banks. Last week, the Republican leading the effort, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer of Kentucky, said he had identified six other members of President Biden’s family “who may have benefited from the Biden family’s businesses that we are investigating, bringing the total number of those involved or benefiting to nine.”

The president has repeatedly stated that he knew nothing of his family’s business deals and did not participate in any of them or profit from them.

James Biden, however, has a long history of using his brother’s name to bolster his credentials as an influential business partner and investor, court documents show, and he has used his connection with his brother to obtain lucrative contracts and loans.

“James Biden’s pattern of using his brother’s name and connections to induce business is troubling,” House Oversight and Accountability Committee Republicans said in a report on Biden family business deals. “That his promises of funding were apparently tied to the Middle East, Russia, or China raises further questions.”

The two brothers not only look alike but are also close.

James Biden served as his brother’s campaign fundraiser and was pivotal in launching his political career.

He remains a trusted adviser, according to the president.

In a 2022 speech at the Pacific Northwest Carpenters Institute in Portland, Oregon, President Biden told the crowd that he put his brother in charge of setting up the furniture and historical artifacts in the Oval Office when he entered the White House in 2021.

“I asked my best friend, my buddy, Jimmy — my brother, my younger brother — will he take care of it for me,” Mr. Biden said.

James Biden has often relied on his elder brother, too, or at least his name to help advance business deals, court records show.

In late 2017 and 2018, James Biden promised one prospective health care business partner that his brother, who was then on the cusp of his successful 2020 presidential bid, would help expand their senior care and rehabilitation model nationwide with his connections to labor unions and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

James Biden promised that Joe Biden would use their model “as part of his campaign for president of the United States.”

The promises from James Biden surfaced in a 2019 lawsuit filed by Diverse Medical Management and Azzam Medical Services.

The business partners were seeking investors to expand their model for substance abuse treatment, senior care and other outpatient programs. In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, they claim that James Biden and his associates pitched themselves as investors but then sought to steal their concept and force them out of the business. James Biden countersued, and the matter was later settled.

James Biden has been involved in other lawsuits over the years. In court documents, witnesses report that President Biden’s powerful positions helped his brother land lucrative jobs.

James Biden was at the center of a 2021 lawsuit involving a dispute over a $140 million settlement between a U.S. construction company and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Alexandria, Virginia, law firm Lankford & Reed filed a lawsuit stating that it was cut out of a 2012 settlement with the Saudis it had been working on for years. It said James Biden was hired at the last minute to complete the deal, partly because his brother was the sitting vice president.

In an interview that James Biden gave with a former Treasury official who was working on behalf of the aggrieved law firm, James Biden said he was hired “as a settlement intermediary in order to capitalize on the influence and orchestration of the settlement by the then-vice president.”

Another lawsuit ties President Biden more directly to one of his brother’s business deals.

James Biden was sued in 2022 by Americore Health LLC, which partnered with him in 2019 specifically to help expand the business through his political connections.

According to court documents and House investigators, James Biden promised “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.”

The congressional investigators said a witness in the lawsuit stated that James Biden, in phone 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 that James Biden never delivered on his promise to bring in large investments from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, where he allegedly developed relationships during his brother’s time as vice president.

The company said James Biden failed to repay the $600,000 loan they provided him at his request. James Biden settled with Americore for $350,000.

Congressional Republicans are ramping up their investigation into James Biden’s involvement in the foreign business deals orchestrated with Hunter Biden and are examining how the Biden family profited from Joe Biden’s powerful positions.

Like Hunter Biden, James Biden has drawn scrutiny from Republicans and news media over the appearance of influence peddling involving the president, most recently concerning business deals involving Chinese companies.

James Biden is now one of the main subjects of a House investigation into the foreign business deals of the Biden family and a group of close associates.

Mr. Comer has asked James Biden, along with Hunter Biden and business associate Eric Schwerin, to hand over documents related to any involvement President Biden had in their business deals.

Mr. Schwerin is the only one cooperating with the investigation.

“James Biden is a key witness in our investigation of the Biden family’s influence peddling,” Mr. Comer said. “We’ve requested that he provide documents, records and communications related to the Biden family’s foreign and domestic business transactions and practices. James Biden has not yet produced these records, but the committee’s investigation continues to move forward.”

The panel is focused on determining whether President Biden participated in, helped influence or had knowledge of the business deals his relatives secured with the help of his powerful position and whether it has jeopardized national security.

Mr. Comer asked James Biden to turn over any communication with his elder brother concerning more than two dozen business associates, among them Chinese nationals linked to the Chinese Communist Party, and any communications concerning the now-defunct, communist-backed CEFC China Energy or the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

Burisma was paying Hunter Biden $83,000 a month to sit on its board while his father was serving as vice president.

Senate Republicans, led by Mr. Grassley and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, are also investigating the Biden family’s foreign business deals and have zeroed in on James Biden.

Mr. Grassley said he believes the $1.4 million sent from Hunter Biden to Lion Hall in 2017 and 2018 was part of a $5 million payment from CEFC and another Chinese Communist Party-backed energy company. The money was meant for Hunter, James and other business associates to pay for work that was “intentionally uncompensated” while Joe Biden was vice president, they said.

According to a letter from Mr. Grassley to the FBI and Justice Department, the senators have information that the big payout from the Chinese energy firms was for “assisting them with potential business deals and investments while Joe Biden was vice president.”

Mr. Grassley told FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland: “Based on recent protected disclosures to my office, the FBI has within its possession significant, impactful and voluminous evidence with respect to potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden and James Biden.”

Mr. Grassley said the records show “there can be no doubt that James Biden was financially connected to corporations and individuals with extensive links to communist China and that he and Hunter Biden were in it together, working to help a Chinese government-linked energy company pursue deals and expand its reach in the energy sector.”

Richard Painter, who served as an ethics czar in the administration of George W. Bush, said James Biden isn’t breaking the law by touting his powerful last name.

“But if he’s saying, if you invest, my brother might do you a favor, if he’s going that route, then that needs to be shut down,” Mr. Painter said.

Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative and a senior legal fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, said Congress must thoroughly investigate the Biden family business deals if the U.S. is to preserve its reputation as a government free of rank corruption.

“Not only so that we know exactly how the Biden family may have profited from Joe Biden’s various positions in the government,” Mr. von Spakovsky said, “but because there’s a possibility that federal laws might have been violated, in particular, if his brother was acting on behalf of foreign entities.”