Bank records released Friday show Joe Biden received $200,000 from funds his brother Jim Biden siphoned from the failing health care company Americore. Beyond providing more proof that President Biden directly profited from the family influencing-selling business, this new evidence raises serious questions concerning whether Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys ignored Jim Biden’s involvement in the Americore scandal.
On Friday, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability released a copy of a $200,000 check Jim Biden wrote to Joe Biden on March 1, 2018 — the same day Americore wired $200,000 to Jim and his wife Sara’s personal bank account. As I detailed Monday at The Federalist, evidence indicates Jim Biden pushed the former CEO of Americore, Grant White, to lend him those funds, along with another $400,000, promising to repay the loans after he delivered tens of millions of dollars in foreign investments to Americore.
Not only did Jim never deliver, but Americore would later file for bankruptcy, with Jim Biden stiffing the health care provider until the bankruptcy trustee filed a complaint seeking to recover the loan balance. Jim Biden then agreed to settle his $600,000 debt to Americore for $350,000, meaning Joe Biden ended up with $200,000 cash that should have belonged to Americore’s creditors.
But just as Joe Biden’s involvement in Hunter Biden’s foreign influence-peddling is only half the scandal, the same applies here to the $200,000 transfer. Equally scandalous in both cases is the DOJ and FBI’s handling of investigations that might reach the White House.
In the case of Hunter Biden, thanks to whistleblowers and a failed sweetheart plea agreement, we know the DOJ and FBI interfered in the normal investigative process to protect the president’s son. What we don’t know is whether Jim Biden received similarly favored treatment — and, if so, the extent of it.
The House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, however, should find out. They should start by questioning the Biden-appointed U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Eric Olshan.
Before President Biden named him U.S. attorney, Olshan served as the lead attorney in prosecuting the health care fraud and money-laundering case against Daniel Hurt. In addition to bilking Medicare out of some $25 million, Hurt was charged with paying Ellwood City Medical Center kickbacks. Significantly, the Biden-connected Americore Health Center owned Ellwood City Medical Center.
The DOJ’s focus on Americore dates back further, though, to at least Jan. 30, 2020, when the FBI raided the hospital. Soon after the raid, a former Americore executive, Tom Pritchard, publicly blamed Jim Biden’s involvement with the Pennsylvania-based health care center for exacerbating Americore’s financial problems. Pritchard told Politico Jim Biden held “out the promise of a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections,” but that after receiving “a six-figure personal loan out of Americore’s coffers,” the “cash infusion from the Middle East never arrived…”
Michael Frey, the president and CEO of the Tennessee-based Diverse Medical Management, also fingered Jim Biden and his business partners as complicit in a scheme to defraud him that connected to Americore. As The Federalist previously reported, Frey claims Jim Biden represented himself as a “principal” for Americore — even giving him a business card: “According to Frey, Jim Biden and his business partners promised to provide capital to implement Frey’s business model for rejuvenating failing rural hospitals.”
Frey claims Jim Biden and his partners later reneged on their agreement, leaving him liable for costs of about $1 million. The Tennessee business executive later sued Jim Biden and the others allegedly involved in the scheme. Frey entered into a confidential settlement agreement with the defendants, but according to Frey, he never received the payment promised.
“I spoke with Olshan both before and after Joe Biden became president,” Frey told The Federalist in a March 2023 interview. This weekend, Frey confirmed to The Federalist that he specifically discussed Jim Biden’s role in the alleged scheme to defraud him with Olshan, the DOJ, and the FBI.
In short, then, Jim Biden’s involvement with Americore and the accusations against him necessitated a decision by the DOJ and FBI on whether to launch an assessment, preliminary investigation, or a full investigation of the president’s brother. The timing was such that those making that decision would be Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys — first Cindy Chung, whom President Biden later awarded a lifetime appointment to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and then Olshan, who replaced Chung.
But how can we possibly trust the Biden-appointed prosecutors to objectively assess a case against the president’s brother when, according to whistleblowers, the DOJ and FBI obstructed the investigation into Hunter Biden, even though that probe was being run out of Delaware under the leadership of Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney David Weiss?
And now that we know Jim Biden funneled money directly from Americore to Joe Biden, that concern pales in comparison to the bigger question: How can the executive branch handle any investigation that implicates the sitting president?
It can’t — which is why the House impeachment inquiry proves so necessary.
