James Biden, the president’s younger brother, testified during his impeachment inquiry that a $40,000 check made out to Joe Biden in 2017 used funds that came from a company with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
During his testimony to House investigators, James Biden said he did not believe the company, CEFC China Energy, was controlled by China’s government.
Instead, he claimed he had “misspoken” when he told an IRS agent that Hunter Biden had described CEFC executive Ye Jianming as a “protégé” of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Where did you believe the source of the money going into [Hunter Biden’s company] Owasco, before being sent to you, was coming from?” one House investigator asked James Biden during the interview.
James Biden’s attorney, Paul Fishman, argued that “money’s fungible” before he was reminded by a House staffer that the president’s brother “did not have sufficient funds” to make the $40,000 payment to his brother, described as a “loan repayment” by the White House.
It was also confirmed during the interview that James Biden received $840,000 in four separate wire transactions between November 2022 and July 2023.
Those payments came from Argentinian businessman Jose Luis Manzano, who sold half 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 Biden told investigators.
The younger Biden said Manzano asked him to approach Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim about 4G in Argentina. Manzano was also allegedly in discussions about working with CEFC.
The “lucrative” relationship between the Biden family and the h CEFC has been the subject of scrutiny since the explosive emails from Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” were released by the New York Post.
The partnership abruptly ended when CEFC chairman Ye Jianming went missing in 2018 after being accused of corruption.
Ye’s firm is tied to China’s “Belt and Road” initiative, which builds infrastructure and manipulates markets in developing nations for “political control.”
Biden’s brother also detailed other business ventures involving foreign nationals.
He told the committee he used a $200,000 loan from struggling rural hospital chain Americore to repay funds from another loan to Joe Biden in 2018.
“I was looking for investments from Qatar, again, in infrastructure projects. They were building hotels in Miami,” he said.
The loan repayment from James Biden to “the big guy” has now become a central focal point in the House impeachment inquiry, with Republicans citing it as major evidence that Biden benefited from the overseas business ventures of his relatives,
According to bank records, James Biden’s bank account had just $46.88 in it before receiving a $50,000 deposit on August 28, 2017.$40,000 alleged loan repayment
The $50,000 had come from funds withdrawn from the Lion Hall Group, owned by James Biden, which received $150,000 wire from Owasco on August 14. Before the payment, that account had just 2,000 in it
Joe Biden is accused of having benefited from his family’s business dealings.
According to Rob Walker, a former Biden family business associate, he netted roughly $3 million from the CEFC partnership, with a third going to the Bidens.
