Biden's $200K payment from brother receives renewed scrutiny after report detailing failed hospital venture
A heavily scrutinized $200,000 check that President Biden received from his brother, James Biden, in 2018 has resurfaced in a new report detailing how the latter leaned heavily on his family's influence to promote a now-defunct hospital chain targeted by the Department of Justice for fraud.
According to the report published Sunday by Politico, James centered his consulting work for Americore, a company that operated rural hospitals, on his leverage as a member of the Biden family, but those connections never materialized into more financing for the company before it ultimately collapsed.
Fox News Digital reported last year that Americore loaned James approximately $600,000 on the promise that his name could bring in funding from the Middle East. On the same day, $200,000 of the $600,000 was transferred to James' personal bank account, prompting him to write Biden a $200,000 check from that same account.
Politico said that its investigation of James' work for Americore "did not find that Joe Biden involved himself in the firm or took actions on its behalf," but that the president "did benefit indirectly from his brother's work with the firm," citing the $200,000 payment.
The White House has consistently denied that the money was anything other than repayment for a loan Biden previously gave James as a private citizen, and redacted bank records appear to show a $200,000 payment made to James just weeks earlier from a bank account belonging to Biden.
However, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have emphasized the payment, whether a loan or not, "aptly demonstrates one way [Biden] personally benefited from his family’s shady influence peddling of his name and their access to him."
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"Even if the transaction in question was part of a loan agreement, we are troubled that Joe Biden’s ability to recoup funds depends on his brother’s cashing-in on the Biden brand," Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told Fox News Digital in October.
James is expected to be interviewed as part of the committee's impeachment inquiry against Biden on Feb. 21.
According to Politico, a number of former Americore executives said James, at the time, wanted to give Biden equity in the company, put him on its board, and promote its success in a future presidential campaign, none of which ever occurred due to the company's failure.
Americore is facing an ongoing $100 million federal prosecution after the DOJ found one of its hospitals allegedly undertook a scheme to defraud Medicare by billing the government for medically unnecessary lab tests. However, James has not been accused of any crime.
In December, a Chapter 11 trustee for Americore testified before the Oversight Committee that the $600,000 loan was provided to James with no documentation in return for the promise of funding from the Middle East that never came.
Carol Fox told the committee she filed a lawsuit against James, saying he made "representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors’ and that he could obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections."
The suit was ultimately settled with James required to pay back $350,000 of the loan.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House and representatives of James Biden for comment.