The President’s Next Scandal? Biden Brothers Business Dealings

With the press sensing blood in the water over President Biden’s documents scandal, expect to see more critical articles — in particular ones focusing on Francis and James Biden, who could become the latest first brothers to prove to be weaknesses for their relative in the White House.“I can take care of my enemies in a fight,” President Harding said, “but my friends, my g—damned friends, they’re the ones who keep me walking the floor at night!” Presidents can’t choose their family like they can friends, but they court disaster when they allow relatives to cash in on their names.In October, CNN reported that doctors gathered for a BioSig Technologies event at Venice, Italy. The keynote speech was on “the future of global health care,” but “the speaker was not a doctor. Nor did he have an extensive background in health care, global or otherwise.”Francis “Frank” Biden “did have something else: A brother in the White House.” Last week, CNN broadcast a clip of his BioSig speech, showing an example of how the Biden brothers have leveraged their access.“The bully pulpit that I have,” Francis Biden told the group, “is a result of the privilege of being associated with my brother Joey, and I’ll do everything in my power to support you to get the job done, to get federal dollars to your research.”CNN reports that Francis Biden told them he had consulted for BioSig but now denies it, and that he also reversed his claim that the company had paid for his trip, citing an unnamed “someone” who footed the bill. He then said that “there has been ‘zero interaction’ between his brother’s public office and his private business.”In documents filed in a Kentucky bankruptcy court, Americore Health said it had loaned the president’s other brother, James, $600,000 in 2021 after he cited “his brother’s connections.” A trustee later sued to recover the money, saying it had been taken “based upon representations that his last name, ‘Biden’ could ‘open doors’ and that he could get ‘a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections.’”James Biden settled the lawsuit for $350,000 in September, a case the Knoxville News Sentinel reported was “painting him as a con artist who uses his ties to his brother … to lure his victims.” At a meeting with Hill International in 2015, an attendee quoted company’s president, David Richter, describing a similar story of purchasing nepotism to Fox Business.According to the source, Mr. Richter said it really helped to have “the brother of the vice president as a partner.” How had Hill’s subsidiary, “a newcomer in the business of home building, landed a massive and potentially lucrative contract to build 100,000 homes in war-torn Iraq?”“For Christ’s sake, watch yourself,” Politico quotes President Biden telling Francis of corporate entanglements during the 2020 campaign. “Don’t get sucked into something that would, first of all, hurt you.” However, the much ballyhooed “appearance of impropriety” already exists, as detailed in the Politico investigative report, “Biden Inc.”Presidential brothers have often caused trouble for the White House with less overt entanglements. As President Carter faced re-election in 1980, his brother William “Billy” Carter was forced to register as a foreign agent after taking $220,000 — almost $800,000 today — as well as thousands more in gifts and travel from the Libyan dictator, Muammar Gadhafi.Roger Clinton kept quiet during President Clinton’s eight years in office, but was pardoned for convictions on cocaine possession and drug-trafficking, one of several scandals that tainted his brother’s final days in office. Both Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and John Quincy Adams had scandalous brothers, but they died before the White House years.President Eisenhower had four brothers and they stand out as an exception. When a reporter asked his mother, Ida, after World War II, “Aren’t you proud of your son?” she replied, “Which one?” as each was successful in his own right.A president can’t pick his brothers, but he can make clear that it’s he, not them, who has the power of the bully pulpit. As questions mount about Mr. Biden’s failure to do so, it looks like Francis and James will be giving this president some Harding-style sleepless nights.

The President’s Next Scandal? Biden Brothers Business Dealings

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