James Biden addressed in an interview with Congress a pair of high-dollar loans he received from President Joe Biden, his brother, saying they were not memorialized on paper but that they were still aboveboard, innocent financial exchanges between family members.
Joe Biden lent his brother the money in 2017 and 2018, and James Biden testified during a recent interview with the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees that the two loans were for “outstanding bills,” according to a transcript the committees published Friday.
The pair of loans have been a source of scrutiny from House Republicans during their impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, which they launched to examine whether the president used his political influence for his and his family members’ personal profit.
James Biden said he repaid the two loans in the form of checks, one for $40,000 and one for $200,000, weeks after receiving the funds by using money that came from controversial sources.
Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) contended when he initially uncovered the loans through subpoenaed bank records that the $40,000 repayment to Joe Biden had come from “laundered China money.” The $200,000 one was another example of a “direct payment to Joe Biden” that had been sourced from a “financially distressed and failing rural hospital operator,” Comer said.
The $40,000 originated from a joint venture James Biden’s nephew Hunter Biden and an executive of a Chinese energy conglomerate had established in 2017, the bank records showed. Hunter Biden’s personal company Owasco LLC had wired James Biden the money that he then used to repay Joe Biden, but when asked, the president’s brother said he did not discuss with Hunter Biden the origins of the money.
“No, because my relationship was with Owasco that he controlled and owned, and that’s the way I was being paid,” James Biden said, though he said he was still aware the money had come from the Chinese energy company. James Biden said his working relationship with Hunter Biden was that he “basically consulted with and gave advice” to him.
The following year, in 2018, James Biden again repaid his brother, this time in the amount of $200,000, using money he had received from Americore, a rural healthcare company that would later go bankrupt.
James Biden, in total, received more than $600,000 from Americore based on promises that he could use his prominent last name to secure investments for the company from the Middle East, according to Americore’s bankruptcy trustee, who later sued James Biden to claw back the funds. A Politico report found James Biden also invoked his brother’s name repeatedly during his work with Americore. James Biden and the bankruptcy trustee settled the lawsuit for $350,000, James Biden said.
James Biden denied, however, that he invoked his brother’s name during his work with Americore and said he did not realize the company had been financially struggling until roughly six months after it paid him.
He also said that as far as the two loans were concerned, he did not discuss with Joe Biden the origins of the money James Biden used to repay him. He said he first asked Mel Monzack, a longtime attorney who handled financial affairs for Joe Biden, if Joe Biden had the means to loan the money. James Biden said his brother had never been financially well off until he sold a book and that the book sales were the “first time in his life” he had seen Joe Biden with “some disposable income.”
“First, I asked Mel if Joe was in a position to do it. I then thanked Joe and called him and requested that the transaction happen,” James Biden said.
James Biden said he had “no idea” from which account the money he received from Joe Biden came. Bank records showed the funds had come from an “attorney trust account” controlled by Monzack, and Republicans had raised questions about whether the loan money from Monzack, who also did legal work for James Biden and Hunter Biden, was indeed Joe Biden’s.
“But, to be very clear, those were loans from your brother, Joe Biden?” James Biden was asked.
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“Yes. But was being held by Mel Monzack, one of his original law partners,” James Biden replied.
James Biden said the loans were “absolutely not” unethical.
