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James Biden, son of President Joe Biden, dropped a bombshell during closed-door testimony to a House committee on Friday, according to reports.
The New York Post reported that James Biden confirmed that a $40,000 check made out to the former vice president “in 2017 used funds James received from a Chinese government-linked company — while James also revealed he received overseas income as recently as last year.”
The 74-year-old James insisted that he did not believe the company, CEFC China Energy, was actually controlled by the Chinese government that he “just misspoke” when it told IRS investigators in a 2022 interview that first son Hunter Biden, who was in a partnership with his uncle, described the Chinese company’s chairman, Ye Jianming, as a “protégé” of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Where did you believe the source of the money that was going into [Hunter Biden’s company] Owasco, prior to being sent to you, was coming from?” an IRS investigator asked James during the Feb. 21 interview.
“CEFC,” James said after a lengthy back-and-forth between his attorney, Paul Fishman, and investigators during which the attorney attempted to argue that “money’s fungible” before a House staffer reminded him that James “did not have sufficient funds” to make the alleged $40,000 repayment on his own, “so it is traceable,” according to The Post.
The outlet added:
The interview also established that James Biden received $840,000 over four transfers between November 2022 and July 2023 from Argentinian businessman Jose Luis Manzano, which the first brother said came from selling half of his stake in Manzano’s holding of Argentinian natural gas company Metrogas.
“It was sweat equity, mainly, in dealing with him in terms of his other ventures,” James told the investigators, saying Manzano asked him to woo Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim to invest in 4G in Argentina, an attempt that was unsuccessful.
Manzano was at one point “in discussions” about working with CEFC, James also confirmed.
James also testified that additional international business efforts were unsuccessful, noting that around that time he used a $200,000 loan from a financially-troubled rural hospital company, Americore, to repay funds from another alleged loan to his brother, Joe, in 2018.
“I was looking for investments from Qatar, again, in infrastructure projects. They were building hotels in Miami,” he said, according to The Post.
Democrats have justified the purported loan repayments as merely indicative of Joe Biden’s supportive role as a brother, and James reiterated in his testimony that his brother was not involved in corruption.
However, Republicans argue that the transfers, even if categorized as loan repayments, strongly suggest that the president derived benefits from his family members’ transactions. These transfers coincided with his frequent engagements with their business associates, particularly within the context of ventures like the CEFC, The Post noted.
Bank records obtained through a subpoena revealed that the James Biden bank account, which issued the $40,000 check to Joe Biden, had a balance of only $46.88 prior to receiving a $50,000 deposit just days earlier, on August 28, 2017.
On the same day, the $50,000 originated from funds withdrawn from James’ entity Lion Hall Group, which had received a $150,000 wire transfer from Owasco on August 14 (there was a balance of less than $2,000 at that time), as per a bank record memorandum disclosed by the House Oversight Committee in November.
The Biden family’s association with CEFC was among its most profitable and contentious. It concluded in 2018 when Ye vanished amidst corruption accusations in China. Ye had made a significant impact on international markets with his company, which claimed to be privately owned but was widely believed to be affiliated with Beijing’s “Belt and Road” foreign influence campaign, The Post added.
“James testified that he scouted out natural gas investments for CEFC along the Gulf Coast, but that the major proposals fell through — though he and Hunter Biden still netted millions from the partnership,” The Post reported, adding: “Joe Biden allegedly interacted with multiple CEFC business partners.”
