It was supposed to be a “life changing event” for the Biden family, according to the president’s brother, James Biden, in 2017.
A lucrative deal with a Chinese conglomerate was netting millions for James Biden, his wife, Sara Biden, the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and their business partners. They were eyeing a high-dollar transaction that could “set us free,” according to James Biden.
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The Chinese company, CEFC, already had a cozy relationship with the Biden family. One of its executives appeared to share an office space with Joe Biden, who was then just months removed from his vice presidency, as well as with Jill Biden, James Biden, and Hunter Biden.
The group had discussed the prospect of cutting Joe Biden in on the profits should he remain out of office, according to what Rob Walker, one of the former business partners, told the FBI.
But by 2018, the joint venture with Hunter and James Biden and their Chinese partners had dissolved. In the years since, including in July, the U.S. government has said in multiple court filings that it viewed CEFC as a foreign agent seeking influence for China.
While much of the scrutiny surrounding the Biden family business has focused on Hunter Biden, years of emails, news reports, court filings, and other pieces of evidence suggest James Biden also spent years monetizing his brother’s political power.
That included James Biden’s deep involvement in the now-infamous CEFC deal that prosecutors laid out in their botched attempt to charge Hunter Biden with two misdemeanor tax violations. Notably, by including details of the Chinese business in the now-withdrawn deal, the Justice Department attempted to extend immunity to Hunter Biden for any illegal activity associated with that work.
James Biden does not appear to be a target of the criminal investigation involving his nephew. An IRS whistleblower told Congress this spring that James Biden and his wife, Sara Biden, received records requests from criminal investigators, but Justice Department officials forbade investigators from seeking an interview with James Biden.
Even so, his lengthy history of pursuing business opportunities that intersected with his older brother’s political power raises questions about a key talking point deployed in Joe Biden’s defense: that Hunter Biden’s foreign business activity represented a private, isolated effort in which Joe Biden played no role.
The involvement in that foreign business activity of multiple other Biden family members, who brought vastly different educational and professional backgrounds to the table, suggests more than just Hunter Biden’s expertise drove some of the business.
James Biden has for years courted controversy over using the family name.
One of his first endeavors after his brother won a seat in the U.S. Senate was to open a nightclub in Delaware, which ultimately failed. That nightclub came to fruition thanks to loans from a Delaware bank that later went under and became embroiled in legal drama over alleged corruption.
Joe Biden, then a member of the Senate Banking Committee, intervened on behalf of his brother during at least one business entanglement related to the loans James Biden had received.
As the Delaware bank came calling on James Biden for loan payments related to his unsuccessful nightclub, Joe Biden phoned a banking executive there with a warning, according to a 1977 article in the Wilmington Morning News.
Both Joe and Jim Biden told the paper that the warning came after the bank had suggested to Jim Biden that a failure to repay the loans could result in political embarrassment for Joe Biden; the then-senator warned the bank on the phone not to invoke his name again.
Years later, with his brother still in the Senate, James Biden stirred more controversy over his involvement with an investment firm, Paradigm Global Advisors, that later landed him and Hunter Biden in the center of a lawsuit.
After taking over the firm in 2006, James Biden had its president fired and told the remaining executives that investments would soon come pouring in from foreign sources, according to a 2019 report from Politico. Joe Biden was, at the time, poised to take over the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“We’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden,” James Biden reportedly told Paradigm employees. “We’ve got investors lined up in a line of 747s filled with cash ready to invest in this company.”
James and Hunter Biden’s acquisition of Paradigm was contested in court by two separate lawsuits alleging misconduct. The two later settled.
James Biden has also taken loans from some of Joe Biden’s top donors and allies, a 2020 ProPublica investigation found.
Joe Biden’s team has denied that he arranged the loans for his brother, who nonetheless enjoyed financial lifelines from people connected politically to the now-president.
But perhaps James Biden’s involvement in the CEFC deal, which fell apart as the Chinese company came under scrutiny by the Chinese government in 2018, best illustrates the nexus of Joe Biden’s power and James Biden’s business.
Hunter and James Biden appeared to share in profits from the CEFC deal, which they often routed through a company, Hudson West, that had been formed to handle the Chinese business.
While pursuing the deal with CEFC, which was then run by Chairman Ye Jianming, Hunter Biden issues threats invoking his father’s name to get payments from the company and boasted in correspondence with the company that “the Bidens are the best I know at doing exactly what the Chairman wants from this partnership.”
CEFC was later accused of bribing foreign governments, and one of its officials, Patrick Ho, was convicted of bribery in the United States in 2018. When Ho was arrested in 2017, his first call was reportedly to James Biden, and Ho later paid Hunter Biden $1 million.
But before things began to crumble, James Biden appeared excited by the prospect of the energy deal that he thought would “set them free.”
In an October 2017 email sent just as talks over the major energy deal were set to come to a head, James Biden urgently warned Hunter Biden that he “just got off the phone with your father” and noted that Joe Biden would soon be “meeting with the O,” the meaning of which is unclear.
“Some outrageous acquisitions!!” James Biden wrote. “We have the two biggest days of our business life in front of us!!!!!”
James Biden did not respond to a request for comment about the meaning of the message.
A law firm that appeared to be involved in the deal that was coming together in October 2017, which fell through, had a notice on its website on Wednesday that claimed its internet and phone service are temporarily down.
Once the CEFC partnership soured and Ye’s relationship with the Chinese government changed, Hunter Biden threatened his Chinese business partners with a lawsuit in a Delaware court where, he said, “I am privileged to have worked with and know every judge,” according to emails discovered on his abandoned laptop.
James Biden’s position in another company, Hill International, also appeared beneficial while his brother was vice president.
After joining the company in 2010, Hill International appeared to land lucrative contracts from the federal government; in fact, 2010 appeared to be one of Hill International’s most lucrative years in terms of its income from the federal government.
In his 2020 book, author Peter Schweizer claimed the company landed a multimillion-dollar federal contract to rebuild houses in Iraq that year despite a lack of experience in that field. The company proved unable to deliver.
And Hunter and James Biden were not the only family members to earn income from foreign sources.
Hallie Biden, the widow of the late Beau Biden, collected payments from a Chinese energy company linked to Ye, according to bank records obtained by the House Oversight Committee.
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Sara Biden, James Biden’s wife, also earned income from CEFC and appeared to work as something of an administrative assistant to her husband.
In total, according to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), nine Biden family members appear to have collected payments from companies connected to the foreign deals forged while Joe Biden was vice president. The committee has not yet released evidence to support that many Biden family members received payments from foreign sources.
