WASHINGTON — President Biden issued a pardon Monday for his brother James Biden, effectively burying the final details of a more than five-year probe into the first family’s influence peddling to save them from possible repercussions under the incoming Trump administration.
Congressional Republicans subpoenaed James Biden, 75, along with first son Hunter Biden, 54, in 2023 to investigate their involvement in the family’s domestic and foreign business dealings — after evidence emerged that both men repeatedly involved Joe Biden in their lucrative relationships.
Republicans accused James of lying to Congress and requested criminal charges. They also suggested his dealings may have amounts to unregistered foreign lobbying, another crime.
“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me—the worst kind of partisan politics. Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end,” the outgoing president said in a statement minutes before leaving office.
“I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics. But baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety, and financial security of targeted individuals and their families. Even when individuals have done nothing wrong and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage their reputations and finances.”
Biden added: “That is why I am exercising my power under the Constitution to pardon James B. Biden, [his wife] Sara Jones Biden, [first sister] Valerie Biden Owens, [her husband] John T. Owens, and [first brother] Francis W. Biden. The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.”
It’s unclear why Biden pardoned some of his relatives, though Sara Biden was involved with some of her husband’s business relationships, and Biden’s brother Frank allegedly used his brother’s name in business dealings. The timeframe covered by the clemency grants also was not immediately clear.
Biden previously issued an unprecedented pardon on Dec. 1 spanning 11 years of his son’s conduct — stretching back to 2014 when Hunter Biden joined the board of Ukrainian gas giant Burisma Holdings — heading off sentencing on gun and tax evasion convictions and potential additional charges.
James Biden, unlike his nephew, was not charged with committing any federal crimes, though his conduct was actively investigated by House Republicans and the press.
The pardon of James Biden, who struggled to manage his own finances despite earning large sums, indicates the president likely feared the incoming Trump Justice Department would further investigate his family’s dealings, as James was involved in many key initiatives that included the president and Hunter.
The first brother for decades monetized his proximity to power — dating to Joe Biden’s 36-year Senate tenure — and House Republicans turned up records that he sent $240,000 to Joe Biden in 2017 and 2018 from funds linked to alleged influence peddling, which James said were personal loan repayments.
‘A line of 747s filled with cash’
In one of the earliest known instances of his dealings that garnered scrutiny, James in 2006 allegedly crowed, “don’t worry about investors, we’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden” when he and Hunter Biden were in the process of taking over a New York City hedge fund.
“We’ve got investors lined up in a line of 747s filled with cash,” Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger wrote in a 2021 book.
Joe Biden was the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time.
Law firm SimmonsCooper — associated with wealthy asbestos lawyer Jeff Cooper — invested $1 million in 2006 to that hedge fund. The same year, Congress considered asbestos reform legislation, in which then-Sen. Biden (D-Del.) played a pivotal role in blocking a change that could have limited funding for payouts after lobbying by Cooper’s firm.
A Biden spokesman claimed in 2008 that the money was unrelated to the bill and that the investment was later returned.
Cooper subsequently partnered with the Biden family on business pursuits in Mexico during the Obama-Biden administration — and posed for a 2015 group photo with Mexican guests and Joe Biden at the official vice president’s residence and riding aboard Air Force Two for an official 2016 trip to Mexico.
James Biden was wiretapped by the FBI in 2007 — when his brother was still a senator — as part of a bribery investigation of Mississippi lawyer Dickie Scruggs, the Washington Post reported in 2023.
Biden, who was not charged in the case, was in talks with Scruggs and conspirator Tim Balducci about setting up a law firm that would have employed himself, his nephew Hunter Biden, and James’ wife.
Scruggs at one point flew Joe Biden to a fundraiser on his private plane, the Washington Post reported.
Then-Sen. Biden went from opposing federal legislation to punish tobacco companies for lying about the addictiveness of cigarettes to a supporter after Scruggs — the architect of a multibillion-dollar litigation plan — paid James Biden’s lobbying firm $100,000 in 1998, the Washington Post also reported.
“I probably wouldn’t have hired him if he wasn’t the senator’s brother,” Scruggs told the paper.
Another disbarred Mississippi attorney, Joey Langston, who was convicted in a different bribery case, told House impeachment inquiry investigators that he loaned James Biden $800,000 in 2016 and 2017 during Joe Biden’s final term in office, but only got $400,000 back.
The troubled attorney, who had hosted fundraisers for Joe Biden, ProPublica reported, was unsuccessfully trying to overturn a bribery conviction in court in 2016 — raising questions about whether he was also seeking a federal pardon from Obama while Biden was his No. 2.
China funds ‘laundered’ to Joe: GOP
James Biden was involved in an arm’s length of controversial foreign ventures.
Corporate bankruptcy documents say that James Biden received $600,000 in loans in 2018 from rural hospital provider Americore, including an initial $400,000 that January and a later $200,000 on March 1, 2018, by pledging to “obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections.”
Politico reported that “one person on the receiving end of Jim Biden’s health care pitch recalled a phone call in which Jim Biden said he was sitting in a car next to his brother Joe.”
James Biden in 2018 apparently made a pitch to Qatar to invest $30 million into a troubled rural hospital provider and directly mentioned that he was the “brother” of then-former Vice President Biden in 2018 in a presentation, according to documents obtained by Politico.
James told impeachment inquiry investigators that investor Amer Rustom, whose corporate biography describes him as having “strong ties with many of the Middle East and North African leaders and country officials” referred him to another businessman, Michael Lewitt, for a potential $20 million investment in Americore, but that it didn’t materialize in time to save the company financially.
The Securities and Exchange Commission in 2023 charged Lewitt, a Florida resident, with stealing $4.7 million from investors of his own fund.
James Biden wrote his brother a $200,000 check shortly after receiving his final installment from Americore.
The first brother insisted the payment was a legitimate loan reimbursement. Democrats said that bank records showed the Joe Biden had transferred that amount to James previously, Republicans said no loan paperwork existed and questioned whether Joe Biden had actually transferred the initial funds, which flowed from a law firm associated with the family.
James Biden also sent $40,000 to Joe Biden on Sept. 3, 2017, which House Republicans said came from “laundered” funds from CEFC China Energy, a Chinese state-linked firm that paid Hunter and James Biden millions of dollars in a venture that one Biden family associate infamously penciled in a 10% cut for Joe Biden, whom they referred to as the “big guy.”
The source of that $40,000 sent to Joe was trackable due to the near-empty balance of James’ account, investigators pointed out.
James defended his work with CEFC in his impeachment inquiry testimony, though his description of his duties drew questions about his possible liability under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires Americans to register before lobbying for certain foreign clients.
“Relying on the extensive network of contacts I had developed over many decades, I quickly identified a number of promising opportunities. For example, I reached out to a number of investors who were friends and who expressed serious interest in working with us,” James said.
“In addition, I connected with Richard Ieyoub, an old friend and the former long-term Attorney General of Louisiana, who by 2017 was the state Commissioner of Conservation. Mr. Ieyoub directed me to a number of projects, including Monkey Island LNH, a property off the coast of Louisiana with opportunities for the onloading and offloading of liquid natural gas.
“Of all the projects, this was the one that proved most attractive to CEFC, whose representatives presented the opportunity to the Chairman [Ye] and gave an informal go-ahead for the project. We even marked the occasion with a celebratory lunch.”
Joe Biden allegedly met in early 2017 in Washington with CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming shortly before the company opened the spigot of funds flowing to the family, former Biden family associate Rob Walker testified.
James said in his own testimony, said his brother “had no information at all about the source of the funds I used to repay him.”
“I never asked my brother to take any official action on behalf of me, my business associates, or anyone else. In every business venture in which I have been involved, I have relied on my own talent, judgment, skill, and personal relationships — and never my status as Joe Biden’s brother,” he said in the testimony in February.
He insisted that the money he transferred to the president were all short term loans that were for tuition payments for his children, unforeseen medical expenses and storm damage on his house.
“The Committees have asked about those loans from my brother. They were short-term loans that I received from Joe when he was a private citizen, and I repaid them within weeks…. The complete explanation is that Joe lent me money, and I repaid him as soon as I had the funds to do so.”
“What I can say is not that I’m aware of,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Dec. 12 about a James Biden pardon. “But I just don’t have anything else beyond that, and the president certainly is going to as it more broadly speaking, as we move forward to the next couple of weeks, he obviously is going to review with his team about other clemency decisions, and they’re taking additional steps, and so that’s what I can speak to at this time.”
