- Frank Biden Cashes in Shortly After Joe Visits Costa Rica
- James Biden’s Construction Company Bags Contract to Build Homes in Iraq
- Joe Biden’s Son-in-Law’s New Health Care Company Scored White House Support After Visit With Obama
In the latest episode, Peter Schweizer unveils research from his new best-seller that exposes how the numerous Bidens cashed in while Joe was Vice President.
Full Transcript:
Hunter Biden’s scandalous international business dealings are generating investigations. And led to the impeachment of a president. But Hunter is not the only Biden cashing in on Joe’s political career.
I’m Peter Schweizer, and this is The Drill Down.
By now, many have been made aware of Hunter Biden’s questionable business dealings in Ukraine and China, with Hunter reaching deals that would have been impossible without his famous last name.
But, what if I told you Hunter may not be the only Biden using Joe’s name and position to fatten his wallet?
Joe is the oldest of four children, and while he was Vice President, both of his younger brothers enjoyed perks and access to the White House.
Just months into his role as Vice President, Joe Biden arrived in Costa Rica in March of 2009. [1]He was the Obama administration’s point man in Latin America.[2] That would prove to be a stroke of good luck for Joe’s brother Frank. Frank Biden was working on a development deal in the country. Months after Vice President Biden’s visit, the Costa Rican News announced an ambitious new real estate project involving Frank. [3]
The development required cooperation from Costa Rican officials at the highest levels, and Frank Biden secured it, despite his lack of experience building developments of this kind. Frank met with numerous Costa Rican ministers, even the country’s President.[4]
Frank Biden also created an energy company called Sun Fund Americas. He had no energy background. But that didn’t stop Frank’s company from becoming part of a Costa Rican solar project that the Obama administration had helped fund for the year before.[5]
But Frank wasn’t the only Biden brother to do business in foreign countries while Joe was Vice President.
Joe Biden’s other brother James has been an integral part of Joe’s political career.[6] He’d served as Joe’s finance chair for a senate run and attended State Dinners once Joe became Vice President.[7] In November of 2010, despite a lack of construction experience, James joined an international construction company called HillStone International.[8] Just three weeks earlier, Kevin Justice, the CEO of Hillstone and longtime Biden family friend, had visited Joe’s White House office.[9]
What was discussed?
It’s impossible to know. But what we do know is that six months after James Biden joined HillStone, the company was awarded a contract to build 100,000 homes in Iraq. Hillstone also landed a twenty two-million dollar federal contract managing a construction project for the State Department.
For their part, HillStone was quite candid about how they landed the deal. A company official told a private meeting of investors that it really helped having “the brother of the vice president as a partner”.[10]
So, Joe Biden’s brothers both scored deals in foreign countries while Joe was Vice President. But the Biden family was able to cash in even closer to home.
In June 2011, two executives at a new investment consultancy called StartUp Health met with President Obama and Vice President Biden in the Oval Office. The company at the time had just started and barely even had a website. But the next day, it was featured at a health care conference run by the Department of Health and Human Services.[11]
How did this new company get such high level White House access? Well, I’m sure it didn’t hurt that Howard Krein, the company’s Chief Medical Officer, was dating, and later married, Joe Biden’s youngest daughter Ashley. As Krein would later recall, he was talking to his father in law about the business, and Joe said “I have to get them up here to talk with Barack.”[12]
Howard Krein would go on to attend multiple White House events, while his brother Steven, the company’s CEO and co-founder, scheduled half a dozen other meetings with White House officials.[13]
Throughout the rest of his tenure as vice president, Joe Biden consistently helped to promote his son-in-law’s company. He even spoke at closed-door corporate investor briefings.[14]
Joe Biden insists that he has never spoken to any of his family members about any of their business dealings. As he put it, “I never talked with my son or my brother or anyone else—even distant family—about their business interests. Period.”[15]
But when you look at the pattern of Biden family conduct, that claim seems just a bit dubious.
Sources
- “Biden gets warm welcome in Chile, Costa Rica; Vice President Joe Biden scored points with his ‘nice guy’ image during his Latin America trip,” Miami Herald, April 2, 2009.
- Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose (New York: Flatiron Books, 2017), p. 74
- Andrew Conte, “Biden Name Drives Costa Rican Golf Dream,” Trib Live, April 26, 2014, https://archive.triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-allegheny /biden-name-drives-costa-rican-golf-dream/; “New Partnership Seeks to Schweizer_EMBARGO_9780062897909_3P_dix35579.indd 277 11/19/19 10:21 AM NOTES 278 Reform Real Estate in Latin America,” Costa Rica News, September 2, 2009, https://thecostaricanews.com/new-partnership-seeks-to-reform -real-estate-in-latin-america/; “Board of Directors,” crgbc.org, on Internet Archive, n.d., https://web.archive.org/web/20101115150837/http://www .crgbc.org/About/BoardofDirectors.aspx (captured November 15, 2010)
- Conte, “Biden Name Drives Costa Rican Golf Dream.” “Guanacaste County Club Sponsors,” JD Realty Enterprise Inc., https:// www.jdrealtyenterprise.com/custom5/.
- Conte, “Biden Name Drives Costa Rican Golf Dream”; “About,” Sun Fund Americas, on Internet Archive, n.d., https://web.archive.org/web/2015022 4043102/http://www.sunfundamericas.com/en-us/about.aspx (captured February 24, 2015); “Projects,” Sun Fund Americas, on Internet Archive, n.d., https://web.archive.org/web/20150224062647/http://www.sunfund americas.com/en-us/projects.aspx (captured February 24, 2015). Republica De Costa Rica Ministerio De Educacion Publica, Circular DVM -PICR-0028–07–2017, https://www.mep.go.cr/sites/default/files/descargas _etica/circular-dvm-picr-0028–07–2017.pdf; “Loan Summary: Overseas Private Investment Corporation to GoSolar Energy Efficiency S.R.L.,” USASpending .gov, September 17, 2015, https://www.usaspending.gov/#/award/47340034; GoSolar “Information Summary for the Public,” accessed September 3, 2019, GoSolar Energy Efficiency S.R.L., https://www.opic.gov/sites/default/files /files/GoSolar_INFORMATION-SUMMARY-FOR-THE-PUBLIC.pdf.
- “Codel Biden,” Wikileaks, November 6, 1974, https://wikileaks.org/plusd /cables/1974STATE243883_b.html; “Codel to AAI Conference in Maseru,” Wikileaks, November 18, 1976, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1976 STATE283152_b.html
- . “James B. Biden Joins Hill International Subsidiary As Executive Vice President,” Hill International, November 23, 2010, http://www.globenewswire .com/news-release/2010/11/23/434923/207583/en/James-B-Biden -Joins-Hill-International-Subsidiary-as-Executive-Vice-President.html. White House Visitors’ Logs; “Stately Fashion: Outfits from the State Dinner,” CBS, https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/stately-fashion-outfits-from -the-state-dinner/21/
- “James B. Biden Joins Hill International Subsidiary as Executive Vice President.”
- White House visitors’ logs; “Michele Gioffre Smith,” LinkedIn Profile, n.d., https://www.linkedin.com/in/michele-gioffre-smith-b3880872/
- Gasparino, “The Ties that Biden.”
- George, “StartUp Health: We Want the Best of the Best”; “Our Journey to Transform Health,” StartUp Health, on Internet Archive, accessed on September 19, 2019, https://web.archive.org/web/20190403173320/https:/www .startuphealth.com/journey (captured April 3, 2019).
- George, “StartUp Health: We want to be the best.” Sara Nathan, “Joe Biden’s Newlywed Daughter Hits the Campaign Trail—in a Smock Shirt (Something to Tell Us, Ashley?),” Daily Mail, October 19, 2012, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2220356/Joe-Bidens-new lywed-daughter-hits-campaign-trail—smock-shirt-tell-Ashley.html; “Here Is Everything You Need to Know About Joe Biden’s Daughter Ashley Biden’s Husband Howard Krein,” ecelebritymirror.com, March 15, 2019, https:// ecelebritymirror.com/entertainment/know-joe-biden-daughter-ashley -biden-husband-howard-krein/; Lucia Blackwell, “Beau Biden Funeral: How the Day Unfolded,” News Journal (Delaware), June 6, 2015, https://www .delawareonline.com/story/news/2015/06/06/beau-biden-funeral-saturday -wilmington-delaware/28594017/.
- John George, “StartUp Health: We Want the Best of the Best,” Philadelphia Business Journal, August 21, 2015, https://philadelphiapact.com/startup -health-we-want-the-best-of-the-best/; “Meet the Team Transforming Health,” StartUp Health, https://www.startuphealth.com/team. White House Visitors Logs.
- Maria Lenhart, “Nimble Planning,” Meeting Professional, May 2017, http:// www.themeetingprofessionaldigital.org/themeetingprofessional/may_2017 /MobilePagedArticle.action?articleId=1106259#articleId1106259. 127. “Words of Hope: Vice President Joe Biden’s Keynote at the StartUp Health Festival,” StartUp Health, February 14, 2018, https://hq.startuphealth.com /posts/words-of-hope-vice-president-joe-bidens-keynote-at-the-startup -health-festival-startup-health-now-169; “Together We Can End Cancer: A Keynote Conversation with Dr. Jill Biden,” StartUp Health, event on January 7, 2019, https://hq.startuphealth.com/posts/together-we-can-end -cancer-a-keynote-conversation-with-dr-jill-biden
- Patrick Svitek, “Biden Makes First Texas Trip as a 2020 Presidential Candidate, Pitching New Education Plan,” Texas Tribune, May 28, 2019, https:// www.texastribune.org/2019/05/28/joe-biden-first-texas-trip-2020-candi date-pitches-education-plan/