James Biden received $600,000 after promising political favors, witness testifies

A healthcare company gave James Biden more than half a million dollars in 2018 with the expectation that he would, in turn, use his prominent last name to obtain funding from the Middle East for the company, but Biden never delivered on his promise, according to a witness who spoke to Congress on Monday.

The bankruptcy trustee who testified, Carol Fox, also said there were no documents to back up this agreement that James Biden, President Joe Biden’s younger brother, made with Americore Health, according to a source familiar with the closed-door interview Fox gave on Monday.

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Americore filed for bankruptcy a year after it paid James Biden, and Fox sued the younger Biden in July 2022 on behalf of the company over allegations he misled it and helped drive it into financial ruin.

The portions of Fox’s testimony relayed to the Washington Examiner support the allegations she made in court documents at the time.

The court records showed the payments to James Biden comprised two wire transfers that totaled $600,000 and were designated as “loans” despite their lacking paper trail.

Fox’s firsthand knowledge of the payments has made her a relevant witness to House Republicans, who are leading an impeachment inquiry into allegations Joe Biden used his political influence to help his family members profit. The president denies having any involvement in his family’s business dealings.

Republicans have tied the Americore payments to Joe Biden because on March 1, 2018, the same day James Biden received a $200,000 wire transfer from Americore, he wrote a check to Joe Biden for $200,000 with the description “loan repayment.”

The check was one item among thousands of financial records Republicans have obtained through their investigation, and while it could indicate Joe Biden had knowledge of and personally benefited from his brother’s shady dealings with Americore, Democrats have argued that is not the case.

They point to records showing that an account controlled by Joe Biden’s attorneys wired James Biden $200,000 two months before James Biden made the “loan repayment” to his brother using the Americore money he’d received.

That is “clear evidence that this transaction was a short-term, interest-free loan between brothers, which occurred while President Biden was also a private citizen,” House Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said.

Republicans have countered that the origin of the initial $200,000 wire payment to James Biden, which Democrats used as evidence to support claims of a loan, was not actually clear because the attorney-controlled account may not have been solely associated with Joe Biden and could have also been affiliated with other Biden family members. Republicans also noted the reason for the loan remains a mystery.

Fox, for her part, reached a settlement agreement with James Biden last year as part of her lawsuit to recover the funds he had taken from Americore.

Fox testified that she has looked to recipients of money transfers as part of the process of clawing back funds in bankruptcy cases, according to the source familiar with her testimony.

However, Fox said that despite her intimate knowledge of the Americore payments to James Biden, she had never before seen the $200,000 payment he transferred to Joe Biden on the same day the younger Biden received a portion of the Americore funds.

A second source with direct knowledge of Fox’s testimony said she explained that her lack of awareness of that transfer was not a cause for concern in this case.

“Fox explained that James Biden’s use of the funds he received from Americore was not relevant to her work as a trustee given that she was able to negotiate a fair and equitable settlement with James Biden,” the source said.

Throwing cold water on the relevance of the testimony to the impeachment inquiry, the source added that Fox said she had “no evidence of Joe Biden being involved in any of James Biden’s business dealings.”

An attorney for James Biden did not respond to a request for comment.

While Republicans have not uncovered conclusive evidence that Joe Biden leveraged his political influence to help his family members’ business dealings, James Biden has indisputably profited from his proximity to his brother.

The dubious healthcare venture is among James Biden’s most recent string of business endeavors. However, the Washington Post recently reported on an incident from the late ’90s, when James Biden and his wife Sara raked in $100,000 from Richard Scruggs, a renowned trial attorney who was later convicted and sentenced to prison for bribery.

Scruggs hired the Bidens’ consulting firm to help him push high-stakes tobacco legislation through Congress, while, at the same time, Joe Biden was a key senator opposed to the bill. Joe Biden flipped his position during the same months Scruggs was paying James and Sara Biden, the Washington Post reported.

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“I probably wouldn’t have hired him if he wasn’t the senator’s brother,” Scruggs said.

James Biden did not “brag about” or “talk about” his influential position, Scruggs added. “He didn’t have to. He was the man’s brother.”