Biden insists he’s not involved in his family’s business dealings. But his aides are a different story. | Politico
The overlapping roles are under scrutiny as the president distances himself from his family’s dealings.
For years, Joe Biden shared a bookkeeper with his son, Hunter. He also shared a personal lawyer with his brother, Jim. And when Jim Biden wanted to know more about one of Hunter Biden’s associates, he hired the former head of Joe Biden’s Secret Service detail to investigate.
Since 2019, Joe Biden has repeatedly distanced himself from his family’s business dealings, saying that he has never so much as discussed them with his relatives or with anyone else. But House impeachment inquiry interviews, public records and emails reviewed by POLITICO show that members of his inner circle were regularly enmeshed in those dealings: Many of the president’s closest staffers and advisers have doubled as his relatives’ business associates, both during and after their stints working for the man at the center of the Biden family orbit.
Those overlaps reflect an all-in-the family approach to business and politicking that dates back a half-century to the president’s first Senate bid, run primarily by his parents and siblings. Since then, his political patrons have at times forged business ties with his relatives, who in turn have converted some of their business partners into campaign supporters. And over a lifetime in public life, some of the president’s aides have taken on roles as surrogate members of the tight-knit Biden clan.
The Bidens’ approach complicates their efforts to distance the president from his family’s http://ventures.As Jim and Hunter Biden’s foreign dealings have caused controversy and several of their business partners have been convicted of federal fraud and corruption crimes in recent years, any potential links between their business dealings and the president have come in for renewed http://scrutiny.To allay concerns about any intermingling of their affairs, the Bidens have said that they observe strict interpersonal firewalls to avoid discussing business among themselves.But with so many former and current aides in the mix — and with the surfacing of private communications in which Jim and Hunter Biden suggest they represent their powerful relative in business matters — onlookers are forced to take family members at their word that those firewalls always held.
In one instance, Jim Biden testified that he hired the former head of his brother’s Secret Service detail, Dale Pupillo, to investigate a Chinese executive that Hunter Biden was doing business with in 2017.
Jim Biden said during his February impeachment inquiry interview that he commissioned Pupillo in advance of accompanying Hunter Biden to Hong Kong so that his nephew could meet with the executive, Patrick Ho.
Despite hiring a private investigator and traveling halfway around the world for the meeting, Jim Biden said he never asked Hunter Biden what Ho — then on the cusp of being arrested, and later convicted, on federal corruption charges — and his nephew were meeting about. He said the decision not to inquire about the meeting came down to a desire to quarantine his affairs from those of his nephew’s.
“That may be hard for you to believe,” he told an incredulous Republican staffer. “But that’s the way we operate in my family.”
It is unclear whether the president’s current or former staffers are presently involved in his relatives’ business affairs. Neither the White House, representatives for Jim and Hunter Biden, nor the president’s current or former aides responded to requests for comment.
In a three-decade career in the Secret Service, Pupillo climbed the ranks and eventually oversaw vice presidential protection for both Dick Cheney and Joe Biden.
A series of scandals at the agency led to a high-profile shakeup that saw Pupillo — by then assistant director for protective operations — demoted in 2015 along with other top Secret Service leaders.
After retiring from government, Pupillo remained friendly with Jim Biden, the president’s brother testified at his impeachment inquiry interview.
Then, in 2017, Hunter Biden asked his uncle to accompany him to Hong Kong for a meeting with Ho, an executive working on behalf of the Chinese energy firm CEFC, according to the interview transcript.
At the time, Jim and Hunter Biden had been working with CEFC to help the company source potential energy projects.
In the course of those dealings, hundreds of thousands of dollars flowed from accounts associated with CEFC and its then-chairman, Ye Jianming, to accounts associated with Jim and Hunter Biden, according to findings, based on subpoenaed bank records, released in recent years by congressional Republicans.
Hunter Biden has testified that his dealings with CEFC were “completely legitimate and completely, 100 percent in line with my experience and my abilities,” and Jim Biden has described the episode as “a straightforward business venture.”
In advance of the trip, Jim Biden testified, he hired Pupillo to investigate Ho. “I wanted to know who I was meeting with and if there were any complications at all,” he said.
Pupillo’s background check came back clean, Jim Biden testified.
At the time, Ho was under Justice Department investigation for bribing African officials to advance CEFC’s interests, a fact that came to light soon after the Hong Kong meeting when Ho was arrested upon arrival in New York, and later convicted, on corruption charges.
The hiring of Pupillo and the purpose of the Hong Kong meeting was subjected to extended scrutiny in Jim Biden’s congressional interview.
A Republican staffer voiced a suspicion that the real reason Pupillo was hired was to provide intelligence about the Justice Department’s probe that could then be communicated to Ho face-to-face.
“Was this person used to investigate Patrick Ho to try and identify whether or not there was a federal investigation before you and Hunter Biden went out to go visit Patrick Ho so that you could inform Patrick Ho if there was an indictment or a federal investigation, maybe, that was under seal?” the staffer asked.
“Absolutely not,” Jim Biden responded. “This was for my personal edification, because I do not like to walk into blind buildings, okay?”
Jim Biden also volunteered his belief that Pupillo did not exploit any access to sensitive sources in his investigation. “He didn’t use any special, you know, relationships,” Jim Biden testified. “To the best of my knowledge, he was a very ethical guy.”
He added, though, that he did not know how Pupillo vetted Ho. “What means did he use to gain this knowledge? I have no idea,” Jim Biden testified. “He’s a professional. He’s a friend.”
Jim Biden, though, said he did not know what the purpose of the Hong Kong meeting was. He said he participated in the trip only to provide support for his troubled nephew and that he never asked about the substance of his meeting with Ho.
“It’s odd,” suggested a Republican staffer, “that you would go to such lengths to hire a private investigator to look into Patrick Ho, but then you wouldn’t even just ask Hunter Biden, your relative, like, ‘why are we going and who is this guy?’”
“The way that we deal in my family, it wasn’t odd,” Jim Biden responded. “To others it might be.”
(post is archived)