WASHINGTON — First brother James Biden confirmed during his impeachment inquiry testimony that a $40,000 check made out to former Vice President Joe Biden in 2017 used funds James received from a Chinese government-linked company — while James also revealed he received overseas income as recently as last year.
James, 74, insisted that he didn’t believe the company, CEFC China Energy, was controlled by Beijing — claiming that “I just misspoke” when telling the IRS in a 2022 interview that first son Hunter Biden, who was partnering with his uncle, had described CEFC chairman Ye Jianming as a “protégé” of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Where did you believe the source of the money that was going into [Hunter Biden’s company] Owasco, prior to being sent to you, was coming from?” an investigator asked James during the Feb. 21 interview, according to an official transcript released Friday.
“CEFC,” James conceded — following an extended back-and-forth in which the first brother’s attorney Paul Fishman tried to argue that “money’s fungible” before being reminded by a House staffer that James “did not have sufficient funds” to make the $40,000 alleged loan repayment on his own, “so it is traceable.”
The interview also established that James Biden received $840,000 over four transfers between November 2022 and July 2023 from Argentinian businessman Jose Luis Manzano, which the first brother said came from selling half of 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 told the investigators, saying Manzano asked him to woo Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim to invest in 4G in Argentina, an attempt that was unsuccessful.
Manzano was at one point “in discussions” about working with CEFC, James also confirmed.
The first brother revealed other international business efforts that he said were futile, saying that around the time he used a $200,000 loan from financially distressed rural hospital company Americore to repay funds from another alleged loan to Joe Biden in 2018, “I was looking for investments from Qatar, again, in infrastructure projects. They were building hotels in Miami.”
Democrats have defended the alleged loan repayments as evidence of nothing more than Joe Biden being a supportive brother and James insisted in his testimony that his brother was not corrupt.
But Republicans say the transfers, even if they were loan repayments, make clear that the president benefited from his relatives’ dealings and occurred as he repeatedly interacted with their business associates, including in the CEFC venture.
Subpoenaed bank records showed that the James Biden bank account from which the $40,000 check to Joe Biden came had a balance of just $46.88 before receiving a $50,000 infusion days beforehand, on Aug. 28, 2017.
The $50,000 had come the same day from funds withdrawn from James’ entity Lion Hall Group, which had received a $150,000 wire from Owasco on Aug. 14 (having had a balance below $2,000 at the time), according to a bank record memo released by the House Oversight Committee in November.
“Remember when Joe Biden told the American people that his son didn’t make money in China?” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) asked at the time in a video posted to X. “Well, not only did he lie about his son Hunter making money in China, but it also turns out that $40,000 in laundered China money landed in Joe Biden’s bank account in the form of a personal check.”
“Even if this $40,000 check was a loan repayment from James Biden, it still shows how Joe benefited from his family cashing in on his name,” Comer added, “with money from China no less.”
The Biden family’s relationship with CEFC was one of its most lucrative and controversial — ending in 2018 when Ye disappeared amid corruption allegations in China after making a splash in international markets with his firm, which purported to be privately held but was widely considered part of Beijing’s “Belt and Road” foreign influence initiative.
James testified that he scouted out natural gas investments for CEFC along the Gulf Coast, but that the major proposals fell through — though he and Hunter Biden still netted millions from the partnership.
The first brother said he was repaying a personal loan to Joe when James’ wife, Sara Biden, cut the $40,000 check to the future president on Sept. 3, 2017. He said there was no loan paperwork or interest.
Republicans note the initial transfer of funds to James weeks earlier was from a law firm that worked with multiple Biden family members and business associates, which they say clouds the picture.
Joe Biden allegedly interacted with multiple CEFC business partners.
Former Biden family business partner Rob Walker testified Jan. 26 that $3 million in funds from CEFC flowed to him in March 2017 — with about a third going to the Bidens — shortly after Joe Biden met Ye at DC’s Four Seasons hotel.
Hunter Biden testified Wednesday he could not recall the date in question.
Walker said the money dispatched just weeks after Joe Biden left office as vice president was a “thank you” for preliminary services sourcing business opportunities in a relationship that began in 2015.
A May 2017 email written by Biden family associate James Gilliar penciled in the “big guy” — Joe Biden — for a 10% cut in a proposed joint venture with CEFC.
The future president was later invoked by his son in July 2017 in a threatening text message to a China-based associate warning that he was “sitting here with my father,” according to records provided to Congress by IRS case agent Joseph Ziegler — a self-identified Democrat who alleged his team was repeatedly blocked from following leads regarding President Biden.
Within 10 days of the message, $5.1 million flowed to accounts linked to Hunter and James Biden, according to information in a 2020 report by Republican-led Senate committees.
