Who Is James Biden? President’s Brother Faces GOP Showdown

James Biden, the younger brother of Joe Biden, is due to face questions from the House Oversight and Accountability Committee as Republicans try to revitalize their attempt to impeach the president over corruption claims.

The president’s brother will testify at a behind-closed-doors hearing in Washington D.C. on Wednesday morning, with the president’s son Hunter Biden also set to answer questions later this month.

Both testimonies could be crucial as Republicans attempt to persuade members of the House that the already disputed impeachment attempt against Biden is warranted.

This week, a former FBI informant was charged with making false bribery claims that Joe and Hunter Biden were paid $5 million by Ukrainian energy company Burisma—a key line of enquiry in the impeachment attempts. Prosecutors then alleged that the informant, Alexander Smirnov, was fed the apparent lie after meeting with Russian intelligence officials.

The allegations that Joe Biden personally benefited from his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings while vice president have long been denied by the White House and Hunter Biden’s lawyers. The GOP has also frequently failed to produce any meaningful evidence to back up its claims against the president.

Who Is James Biden?

James Biden, 74, is a long time consultant who previously worked as a fundraiser for his brother’s original Senate campaign in 1972.

After Joe Biden became a senator, James Biden moved into owning nightclubs and other businesses.

James Biden has remained close with his brother, including being brought in to redecorate the Oval Office when Joe Biden became president, according a 2022 profile in The Washington Post.

The profile also suggested that James Biden has a “complicated trail of business dealings and angry lawsuits” and was a “potential liability” for the president because of how he operates his companies, suggestions which James Biden denied.

“I’m the guy who assists in everything. When it comes to my family I try to be as supportive as I can,” he said. “But this notion of ‘the fixer,’ or any reference that has a negative connotation, is offensive.”

“The notion I am some underworld figure and I am a fixer or the cleaner or I’m this or that — I’m a very concerned family member who tries to protect my family in every way I can, in what is a very ethical way.”

The congressional committees are set to focus on whether the president ever involved himself in James Biden’s business dealings, and whether this could amount to corruption.

The line of questioning looks likely to focus on two checks that James Biden made to his brother in 2017 and 2018—one for $200,000 and the other for $40,000—which were labeled “loan repayment.”

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said that the $200,000 check to the president was made out on the same day that James Biden received a $200,000 wire transfer from Americore Health, a company he had a relationship with that eventually went bankrupt.

Democrats accused Republicans of ignoring that bank records also showed a $200,000 payment from Joe Biden to James Biden six weeks prior.

“These records actually show that President Biden was the one who stepped in to help family members when they needed support, including by providing short term loans to his brother,” Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement last October.

Comer added that another check James Biden sent his brother for $40,000 is proof the president had “laundered” money from James Biden’s business deals, including one with a Chinese energy firm connected to Hunter Biden.

Democrats have long hit out at the claim that the checks between the Biden brothers were anything other than actual loan repayments between two private citizens.

In a statement last year, James Biden’s attorney, Paul Fishman, said there is “nothing more to those transactions, and there is nothing wrong with them.”

In October 2023 Raskin also wrote to Comer to say that there is “clear evidence” that the $200,000 transaction was a short-term, interest-free loan between brothers.

“Despite this clear evidence that James Biden received a loan from his brother on January 12, 2018, and paid him back 48 days later with a check for the same amount marked ‘loan repayment,’ you continue to misrepresent the facts,” Raskin said.