Some have warned about billions of dollars in Qatari money flooding American campuses as a means to radicalize students. Perhaps we should worry more about the campus at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Politico reported yesterday that the bankruptcy proceeding in Kentucky for Joe Biden’s brother has exposed Qatar’s financial connections to Joe Biden’s brother.
Jim Biden got funds from two regime-linked Qatari businesses in an effort to float his Americore health-care business, according to his former business partner, in the period between Joe Biden’s vice-presidency and his presidential election. And he used Joe Biden as an enticement to make those connections, too:
The sworn testimony by fund manager Michael Lewitt, a former business partner of Jim Biden’s, attests that two companies that facilitated the efforts were part-owned by “members of the Qatari government.”
One company named in the testimony partnered directly with Jim Biden in the multi-year fundraising efforts.
The second company provided financial backing for a series of loans that a hospital chain paid Jim Biden to arrange, according to documents and testimony Lewitt submitted in the course of the federal bankruptcy proceedings.
If substantiated, the alleged arrangements would constitute some of the closest known financial links between a relative of President Joe Biden and a foreign government.
The first question this raises would be this: Did James Biden register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act? Until a few years ago, this was more or less a technicality, at least until Robert Mueller and the Department of Justice began putting people in prison for violations. According to the testimony Politico highlights, that was about the same time as Jim Biden was selling his access to his brother Joe and Joe’s influence on policy-making.
And the answer to the question is … no, he didn’t. At least, a search of FARA’s records turns up no registration data for James Biden. It does turn up the same question relating to James and Hunter in connection to firms connected to the regime in China, however.
And it’s not as if Jim Biden didn’t know where the money originated in the tiny emirate, either. Politico’s Ben Schreckinger had reported two months ago that Jim Biden had at least planned to pitch Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund in August 2017 to rescue Americore. The draft of that pitch — found on Hunter Biden’s laptop — explicitly offered to use Joe Biden’s influence on behalf of the Qataris in American business and foreign policy:
In this draft, which was among the documents found on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, Jim Biden writes that, though the Bidens are not lobbyists, “My family could provide a wealth of introductions and business opportunities at the highest levels that I believe would be worthy of the interest of His Excellency.”
“On behalf of the Biden family, I welcome your interest here,” the letter states. Jim Biden’s representatives declined to respond to questions about his efforts to raise overseas capital, and the Qatar Investment Authority did not respond to a request for comment.
Whatever happened with the Qataris, months went by without an investment arriving. By January 2018, Americore was insolvent, according to the SEC’s complaint against Lewitt.
Now we know from Lewitt’s testimony that Jim Biden did get financing. Rather than get it directly from the sovereign fund, though, it appears that the money came through a couple of regime-linked businesses to get enough support for Americore’s loans. That support apparently operated under the same understanding: an investment in Americore was really an investment in influence, courtesy of Jim and Joe Biden.
Now the question is whether that influence continued into the Biden presidency. Schreckinger notes that the pitch came at a very curious time; in 2017, the other Sunni nations cut ties with Qatar over its support for Iran-backed terrorism. The regime in Doha needed to forge ties with the West and embarked on a series of ultimately disastrous influence operations in Europe:
In response, the country’s rulers began showering well-connected Westerners with gifts and financial benefits, sometimes in the form of investment funding. The Qatari influence offensive strengthened the country’s ties to the U.S. and Europe but has also led to corruption scandals, including the European Parliament’s sprawling Qatargate fiasco.
Around the time of the blockade, Jim Biden was embarking on a foray into the health care business in which he worked closely with troubled hospital chain Americore.
Clearly, the Qataris expected to gain influence at that time. Do they still have influence over Biden? Let’s point out that Biden has demanded that the Israelis negotiate with Doha-based Hamas over the hostages rather than just finish the war that the Gazans started. Before that, Biden took the Iranian-proxy Houthis off the State Department terror list, only to have to make an embarrassing reversal when the Houthis began their piracy campaign in the Red Sea. That is explainable with Biden’s overall policy of appeasement toward Tehran, a policy reinstated by Barack Obama’s foreign-policy team that has run that area since the start of Biden’s turn. But it doesn’t mean that the Qatari influence through Biden Inc hasn’t been part of those decisions, either.
This will certainly breathe new life into the House impeachment probe:
🚨The Bidens don’t sell a product, service, or a set of skills.
It’s simple: the Biden family is selling access for millions of dollars to those around the world willing to pay for it.
And Joe Biden continues to lie about the role he played in the influence peddling schemes. https://t.co/WZGv8HXTsK
— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) April 28, 2024
So far, not too many other media outlets are covering this development. That tends to suggest that there’s more to dig up … and the Protection Racket Media knows it.