WASHINGTON — First brother James Biden made a “flawless” pitch for Qatar to invest $30 million in a troubled rural hospital provider, a colleague gushed, after he drafted a presentation that included “Brother” of now-President Biden among his credentials, emails show.
James Biden, 75, pumped Americore Health for $600,000 in what the firm said was loans in 2018 — and wrote a check for $200,000 of that amount to Joe Biden at the same time James was seeking out foreign investors.
The fresh evidence of influence-peddling was first reported Sunday by Politico.
On March 10, 2018, James Biden’s wife Sara emailed a draft investor presentation to the Platinum Group, led by businessman Amer Rustom, with what she called “a few minor revisions by Jim.”
The presentation said Americore was seeking $30 million and described Jim Biden as the “Brother and Campaign Finance Chair of former Vice President Joe Biden.”
Exactly one month later, Platinum Group executive Julie Lander wrote to the future first brother and referred to a meeting with a senior Qatari official.
“I am following up from the meeting we had with the Minister,” Lander wrote, according to Politico.
“Your approach with him was flawless. He requested more information on Americore.”
Lander suggested that the investors seek $200 million from Qatar’s Investment Authority, the Gulf state’s sovereign wealth fund.
Around that time, the QIA was under scrutiny after Brookfield Corporation, in which the Qataris are major investors, bought a partnership in a troubled Manhattan building that threatened to financially ruin the family of then-President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
On May 17, 2018, James Biden wrote to Americore CEO Grant White that he was still working to raise money for the company.
“I agreed to go to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and China (at my own expense),” James allegedly wrote.
The new information emerged in a period of relative quiet from the House Republican impeachment inquiry into alleged Biden family corruption.
The GOP probe has focused on evidence that Joe Biden met with foreign partners of Hunter and James Biden from two Chinese government-backed ventures and their associates from Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia and Ukraine.
Most of those meetings occurred while Joe Biden was the sitting vice president and leading US foreign policy toward the countries involved.
