Trial attorney at center of FBI investigation paid James Biden’s firm $100,000 in a bid to sway then-Democrat senator Joe Biden to support tobacco legislation he was spearheading in the 1990s.
The FBI secretly recorded Joe Biden’s brother James Biden during a bribery investigation into a trial lawyer who paid $100,000 to his consulting firm in the 1990s.
The trial attorney called Richard Scruggs hired James and Sara Biden’s DC consulting firm Lion Hall while seeking support for tobacco legislation being weighed by Congress in 1998, according to the Washington Post.
Scruggs said he chose James Biden’s firm because of his relation to then-Senator Joe Biden, who sat on the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time.
“I probably wouldn’t have hired him if he wasn’t the senator’s brother,” Scruggs told WaPo about why he sent cash to James Biden’s firm.
FBI secretly taped James Biden in bribery probe concerning his DC consulting firm: report https://t.co/9f9cY3En3Y pic.twitter.com/OQ7Csy7QwF
— New York Post (@nypost) December 17, 2023
“Jim was never untoward about his influence,” he added. “He didn’t brag about it or talk about it. He didn’t have to. He was the man’s brother.”
Joe Biden notably became one of the main backers of Scrugg’s proposed legislation as Delaware senator.
From the New York Post:
Scruggs, who was later sent to prison over a separate bribery scheme, had been closing in on a deal to push the tobacco companies to cough up billions of dollars in a lawsuit alleging they withheld information that their products were addictive.
Seeking some $368 billion, Scruggs needed Congress to waive antitrust provisions as part of a settlement deal. Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) in 1997 initially said he was “not yet convinced that this settlement is a good deal.”
Despite initially being reluctant, Joe Biden, who sat on the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee as the ranking member, ultimately became one of its most significant backers.
Ultimately, the bill failed to clear Congress. Biden, at the time, cited an intense campaign by the tobacco industry that he claimed swayed Republicans.
Though Scruggs was unsure if James convinced his brother to back the bill, he told the Washington Post, “I hope he did.”
James Biden’s Lion Hall firm has come into renewed focus by the House Oversight Committee amid its ongoing investigation into the Biden family’s influence-peddling schemes first uncovered in Hunter Biden’s laptop.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) alleged in November that Lion Hall was used to launder money through to Joe and Hunter Biden, citing a $40,000 check marked as a “loan repayment” from James to Joe in 2017.
🚨 BREAKING 🚨
We’ve followed the money and identified how Joe Biden received $40,000 in laundered 🇨🇳 China money.
@RepJamesComer lays out the money trail. 👇 pic.twitter.com/lH69OUOHid
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) November 1, 2023
Comer alleges that the payment was “laundered” from the Chinese energy company CEFC.
$5 million originally given by CEFC-linked Northern International Capital to Hudson West III, a joint business venture between Hunter Biden and CEFC head Ye Jianming.
$400,000 of that was then sent to Hunter Biden-owned Owasco P.C.
Of that, $150,000 was sent to Lion Hall Group, who took $50,000 and sent Joe Biden a personal check for $40,000.
Despite the paper trail of bank statements, texts, and emails, Joe Biden has maintained that he never accepted foreign payments through Hunter’s business dealings.
