Joe Biden’s youngest brother, Frank, also referred to the president as a “big man” — and interrupted a meeting with a business associate to take his call.
Frank Biden, 69, repeatedly interrupted a meeting with an executive at an Illinois-based industrial firm to take calls from “big people” while his brother was vice president, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Matthew Brady, who worked at the firm, Federal Signal Corp., from 2006 to 2017 as vice president and then president of safety and security, said Frank told him during several meetings: “I had to hold you, the big guy called me.”
“I thought, ‘OK, great, your brother is the vice president,'” Brady told the Journal of the encounters.
Frank Biden also invoked his brother on his inauguration day in an ad run by his Florida-based law firm, Berman Law Group LLP, drawing rebuke from then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
James Biden and two other business associates of Hunter Biden’s first son — James Gilliar and Tony Bobulinski — have identified President Biden as a “big guy.” AP
“It is White House policy that the president’s name may not be used in connection with any commercial activity to suggest in any way that could reasonably be understood to imply his endorsement or support,” Psaki said at the time.
Joe Biden, 80, has reportedly warned his youngest sister about using the family name for business deals during the 2020 presidential campaign, pulling her aside at one point and saying: “For Christ’s sake, take care of yourself.”
The president has repeatedly told reporters that he has not had discussions with his son Hunter about his business affairs, despite evidence to the contrary.
Brady and Frank Biden did not immediately respond to requests for comment. White House Counsel’s Office spokesman Ian Sams also did not respond to a request for comment.
The Journal report also shows James Biden sought his brother’s union ties after he and his nephew Hunter acquired hedge fund Paradigm Global Advisors in 2006.
“[T]He said that they had connections with different unions and that they would expect to be able to get union funding or union investment into the fund,” Charles Provini, a Wall Street veteran who serves as the fund’s president, told the newspaper.
Frank Biden, 69, repeatedly interrupted a meeting with an executive at an Illinois-based industrial manufacturing firm to take calls from “big people” when his brother was vice president. Tribune News Service via Getty I
“I was a little surprised at the time maybe,” added Provini. “I think most of the things he says are just compliments… It’s probably for credibility.”
Another James Biden venture involved rural hospital chain Americore Health, which spurned investors hoping for returns from the partnership.
“Don’t worry every time someone threatens to sue you,” Michael Lewitt, an associate of James, reportedly texted Michael Frey, both of whom are involved in efforts to expand mental health care and treatment for addiction.
“You’re with us now nobody’s going to touch you,” Lewitt added.
Frey also said he believed his firm’s involvement was “‘protected’ because of the Jim Biden connection,” according to messages made public in a 2019 lawsuit filed by investors.
Americore Health filed for bankruptcy that same year, and investor claims were settled the following year — but court filings show a dispute over potential fraud by James Biden.
The indictment hinged on an alleged conversation involving one of those investors, who said James Biden had used his brother’s political status during negotiations and promised that the “Biden family name” would support business growth.
James Biden disputed that characterization and said his remarks were misrepresented during the negotiations.
“Jim Biden has been an entrepreneur and executive for more than five decades and it is clear that he has always conducted himself ethically and honorably in all of his business dealings,” a spokesperson for the first brother told the Journal.
Along with Frank Biden, two other business associates of Hunter Biden’s eldest son — James Gilliar and Tony Bobulinski — have identified Joe Biden as a “big man.”
Devon Archer, Hunter’s partner at their investment firm Rosemont Seneca, testified to Congress this year that the first son referred to his father as “my man” — and put his father on speaker phone at least 20 times with associates to promote “the brand Biden. “
In a later interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Archer said it was “absolutely disingenuous” for the president to say he had no role in Hunter’s business dealings.
The June 2020 FBI whistleblower file released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) earlier this year also pointed out Burisma Holdings owner Mykola Zlochevsky used a pseudonym for the president.
Asked by The Post in June why the file referred to him as a “big man,” Biden snapped: “Why are you asking that stupid question?”
An unclassified FD-1023 form reveals a confidential human resource paid by the bureau spoke to Zlochevsky about the president and his son receiving $10 million in bribes from the owner of Burisma.
The president has repeatedly told reporters that he does not have discussions with his son about business matters. WHITE HOUSE/AFP via Getty Images
Burisma appointed Hunter Biden to its board in 2014, when his father oversaw US policy on Ukraine as vice president in the Obama White House, and he served in that position until 2019, earning up to $1 million annually.
House Republicans on Thursday began their impeachment inquiry into the president over allegations that he may have profited from James and Hunter Biden’s lucrative business dealings with foreigners.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) subpoenaed bank records showing the Biden family received more than $24 million from entities in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Romania and China between 2014 and 2019.
Hunter and James Biden earned $4.8 million alone from a deal with Chinese energy firm CEFC in 2017.
The amount was independently verified by Senate Republicans and the Washington Post and began flowing into their accounts just 10 days after Hunter threatened one of their friends by calling his father.
“I am sitting here with my father and we want to understand why the commitments made were not fulfilled,” Hunter Biden wrote to the translator for the firm, Raymond Zhao, on July 30 of that year.
He added that he would “make sure that between the man sitting next to me and everyone he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my orders.”
The Post’s bombshell October 2020 report also found emails on the first son’s laptop left behind that indicated Hunter would hold a 10% stake in CEFC “for the big guy.”
The 2017 exchange on WhatsApp was discovered by IRS tax investigators during their five-year investigation into the eldest son’s finances.
The House Ways and Means Committee has released hundreds of documents from two whistleblowers assigned to the case, who allege the Justice Department interfered in their investigation.
Comer also revealed on Tuesday that the president’s Wilmington, Del., residence was also the recipient address for two wire transfers totaling $260,000 sent by a Chinese state-backed investment firm, BHR Partners, to Hunter Biden in July and August 2019.
The first son revealed in a federal court filing earlier this year that he lived in California in the summer of 2019 while preparing to write his memoirs, although he spent time at his father’s Delaware mansion in 2017 and 2018 after his divorce from wife Kathleen Buhle.
Biden, 80, has reportedly warned his younger sister about using the family name for business deals during his 2020 campaign, pulling her aside and saying: “For Christ’s sake, take care of yourself.” AP
Hunter’s attorney Abbe Lowell claimed to the Wall Street Journal that the money came from a loan Hunter obtained from his stock and that the president’s Delaware address was “his only permanent address at the time.”
He also said Hunter was not involved in business with his father and that any discussion between the president and his son in the presence of business associates would be “small talk.”
White House counsel spokesman Ian Sams has dismissed an impeachment inquiry into the president, saying Republicans have “no evidence of wrongdoing” and have resorted to “uncredited personal attacks on him and his family.”
Not all of James’ efforts were successful.
Someone is trying to build 100,000 homes in Iraq with a potential $1.5 billion contract while Joe Biden as vice president oversees US policy toward the country in 2010.
The first brother was called by construction firm Hill International to serve as executive vice president of a joint venture, HillStone International, which will build low-cost homes in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
The effort touted James Biden’s work for his brother’s successful 1972 campaign for the US Senate in Delaware, and the former president of Hill International said, “Jim was very good at setting up meetings and getting people to return his phone calls.”
But construction never began and the firm wound up taking a $1 million charge.
“If the question is, ‘What has Jim Biden accomplished for us?,'” former Hill International president David Richter told the Journal, “the answer is nothing.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
