{"id":158678,"date":"2025-01-22T09:03:33","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T17:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=158678"},"modified":"2025-01-22T11:49:34","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T19:49:34","slug":"will-we-get-investigative-journalism-into-the-biden-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=158678","title":{"rendered":"Will We Get Investigative Journalism Into The Biden Family?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Joe Biden gave oddly specific dates for his pardons for family members.<\/p>\n<p>A woman asked Mark Halperin this morning if we&#8217;ll get investigative journalism into the Biden family.<\/p>\n<p>Halperin noted that most investigative journalism is the result of gifts of information from investigators, so if the House of Representatives chooses to investigate the Biden family, then it is likely that investigators will bestow favored journalists with stories.<\/p>\n<p>Dan Turrentine said that Joe Biden was warned by Democratic activists in 2015 that his family would be fair game if he ran for president.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2LfTft9rZ6c?si=y0HYhhWhTOjV18wJ\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Until we get further developments, Peter Schweizer&#8217;s 2020 book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Profiles-Corruption-Peter-Schweizer\/dp\/006289790X\">Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America&#8217;s Progressive Elite<\/A> is the best we&#8217;ve got:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;his family\u2019s complex and obscured international deals, leveraged on Joe\u2019s political status and power, have rarely been explored. The Biden family partners are often foreign governments, where the deals occur in the dark corners of international finance like Kazakhstan, China, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Ukraine, and Russia. Some deals have even involved U.S. taxpayer money. The cast of characters includes sketchy companies, violent convicted felons, foreign oligarchs, and other people who typically expect favors in return. Joe\u2019s public power positions Biden family members for highly lucrative deals they likely would not otherwise get. These deals also often occur with the appearance that Joe Biden has done favors for the partners who welcome such family members. These are not a few disparate enterprises, but rather moneymaking ventures that appear to be part of a well &#8211; organized family business.<br \/>\n Joe Biden has insisted in absolute terms that he never discusses family members\u2019 business activities.<br \/>\n The Biden family\u2019s apparent self &#8211; enrichment depends on Joe Biden\u2019s political influence and involves no less than five family members: members: Joe\u2019s son Hunter, daughter Ashley, brothers James and Frank, and sister Valerie.<br \/>\n When this subject came up in 2019 he declared, \u201cI never talked with my son or my brother or anyone else \u2014 even distant family \u2014 about their business interests. Period.\u201d 6 As we will see, this is an impossibility&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>For the next three decades, Senator Joe Biden became a Washington fixture, accumulating a progressive voting record on a wide variety of issues. 28 Other aspects of his voting record suggest the pull of his family\u2019s commercial interests. Senator Biden pushed for the passage of a new bankruptcy law that put him out of step with most of his Democratic Party colleagues. 29 He voted against a bill that would require credit card companies to provide better warnings about the perils of making only minimum monthly payments. He was only one of five Democrats to do so. 30 During the same period (between 2001 and 2005), son Hunter was receiving consulting fees from the MBNA Corporation, a major Delaware bank and credit card company. 31 While sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Biden also worked hard on legislation to deal with asbestos &#8211; damage lawsuits. 32 It just so happened that son Beau was working for a Wilmington, Delaware, law firm that was handling asbestos litigation cases. 33<br \/>\n In 2001, son Hunter jumped in with both feet when he became a lobbyist with the firm Oldaker, Biden &#038; Belair LLP, with offices on Connecticut Avenue just blocks from the White House. 34 Their founder, William Oldaker, also served as a legal advisor to Joe Biden. The boutique firm specialized in \u201cappropriations\u201d lobbying, which meant shaking money loose from the federal government for their clients. They represented lawyers, American Indians, as well as the health care industry. It was located in the same office was the National Group lobbying firm, also run by Oldaker, whose clients included the University of Delaware. Part of their job was submitting \u201ctargeted spending items called \u2018earmarks\u2019 to Biden\u2019s office.\u201d The arrangement seemed to work quite well until 2006, when the Senate passed an ethics bill requiring senators to verify in writing that they or their families would not benefit from spending items or earmarks that they were pushing. Hunter had to shift gears and leave the appropriations lobbying game. 35<br \/>\n However, Hunter was not done with other types of lobbying.<br \/>\n An online gambling company run out of Gibraltar named PartyGaming was under federal scrutiny. The Department of Justice had issued subpoenas to more than a dozen banks working with the company. The company needed help in Washington and hired Hunter Biden to lobby on their behalf. It probably did not hurt that his father was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, with oversight of the Department of Justice. In 2008, Hunter eventually dropped his lobbying clients when his dad was announced as Obama\u2019s running mate. Months later, a cofounder of PartyGaming pleaded guilty to violating the Wire Act and agreed to pay a $300 million fine to the U.S. government.<br \/>\nDuring his years in the Senate, Biden\u2019s family benefited financially in other ways as he leveraged political power. Joe\u2019s sister Valerie ran all of his senate campaigns, as well as his presidential runs in 1988 and 2008. But she was also a senior partner in a political messaging firm named Joe Slade White &#038; Company; the only two executives listed at the firm were Joe Slade White and Valerie. 37 The firm received large fees from the Biden campaigns that Valerie was running. Two and a half million dollars in consulting fees flowed to her firm from Citizens for Biden and Biden For President Inc. during the 2008 presidential bid alone. 38 Keep in mind that Joe Slade White &#038; Company worked for Biden campaigns over eighteen years. 39<br \/>\n When Barack Obama selected Joe Biden as his running mate in 2008, it boosted the Biden family fortunes to another level. Now suddenly there were opportunities on a global scale. The executive branch offered an abundance of power to leverage, and the value of the Biden family\u2019s commercial deals, especially those of Hunter, James, and Frank, would skyrocket.<br \/>\n * * *<br \/>\n With the election of his father as vice president, Hunter Biden launched businesses fused to his father\u2019s power that led him to lucrative deals with a rogue\u2019s gallery of governments and oligarchs around the world. Sometimes he would hitch a prominent ride with his father aboard Air Force Two to visit a country where he was courting business. Other times, the deals would be done more discreetly. Always they involved foreign entities that appeared to be seeking something from his father. Often, the countries in question, including Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan, had highly corrupt political cultures. In short, Hunter Biden was not cutting business deals in Japan or Great Britain, where disclosure rules and corporate governance might require greater scrutiny. 40 These were deals in the truly dark corners of the world.<br \/>\n In 2009, Hunter established a series of small investment vehicles with his friend and business partner Devon Archer. Biden and Archer had been at Yale University together. They launched Rosemont Seneca Partners in partnership with Rosemont Capital, an investment vehicle backed by the Heinz family. Chris Heinz, stepson of then &#8211; senator John Kerry, had been roommates with Archer at Yale. 41 Clearly, this would be an extremely well &#8211; connected firm in Washington, D.C.<br \/>\n As I recounted in my previous book, Secret Empires, on December 4, 2013, Hunter was riding on Air Force Two with his father to Beijing, China. For Vice President Joe Biden, effective diplomacy was about forming personal relationships with foreign leaders. \u201cIt all gets down to the conduct of foreign policy being personal.\u201d 42 The vice president had a series of important and tense meetings with Chinese officials on a variety of critical matters in the bilateral relationship. The trip coincided with an enormous financial deal that Hunter Biden\u2019s firm, Rosemont Seneca, was arranging with the state &#8211; owned Bank of China. What Hunter did during the official visit to Beijing we cannot know for sure. Other than a few photo ops with his father, he was nowhere to be seen. 43 After the publication of Secret Empires , Hunter Biden, through an attorney, claimed to ABC News that he did no business during his visit to Beijing aboard Air Force Two. 44 However, a Beijing &#8211; based company representative later claimed that Hunter had introduced his Chinese business partner, Jonathan Li, to his father during the visit. 45<br \/>\n Approximately ten days after the Beijing trip, Hunter Biden\u2019s Rosemont Seneca Partners finalized a deal with the Chinese government worth a whopping $1 billion. The deal was later expanded to $1.5 billion. 46 As of this writing, the fund\u2019s website says its investments amount to more than $2 billion. 47<br \/>\n It is important to note that this deal was with the Chinese government \u2014 not with a Chinese company, which means that the Chinese government and the son of the vice president were now business partners.<br \/>\n What they created was a joint venture called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). The name reflected who was involved: the \u201cRS\u201d was a reference to Rosemont Seneca; the \u201cT\u201d was the Thornton Group, a small U.S. investment firm that did business in China. It was a very unusual arrangement: the most powerful financial institution in China, the Bank of China, was setting up a joint venture with Rosemont Seneca Partners. BHR touted its \u201cunique Sino &#8211; U.S. shareholding structure\u201d as well as the fact that it was backed by the Chinese government. 48<br \/>\n Hunter Biden actively cultivated these deals. He had visited China twice before, in 2010 and 2011, to meet with senior Chinese government officials in finance. 49 But he had no background in China, and other than a very brief and unsuccessful attempt to run a hedge fund with his uncle, no background in private equity. 50<br \/>\n When the Chinese government\u2019s BHR was established, Hunter Biden was given a slot on the board of directors \u2014 supposedly unpaid while his father was vice president. 51 His actual compensation cannot be known; it is confidential.<br \/>\n Since Secret Empires was released in 2018, Hunter has claimed that he only received compensation from the Chinese after his father left the vice presidency in January 2017. He further claimed it came in the form of a 10 percent equity stake in the Bohai Harvest Financial Management Company. 52 Whether his claim is accurate or not is impossible to know \u2014 it cannot be independently verified. Furthermore, he has misled reporters about the Chinese deal in the past. Even if his account is accurate \u2014 that his compensation was deferred \u2014 it does not really make a difference. Deferred compensation from a Chinese government entity is still direct compensation from a Chinese government entity. He has never explained why he got this great opportunity from them in the first place.<br \/>\n BHR, with Hunter Biden on the board of directors and Devon Archer as the vice chairman and Investment Committee member, engaged in a series of financial deals that served the strategic interests of Beijing. In one of their first deals, the firm took an ownership stake in China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), a nuclear nuclear energy company. The company was charged in 2016 with espionage against the United States. Also charged was an engineer who stole nuclear secrets from the United States. BHR also helped buy out the American precision machining company Henniges. They bought the company in a joint deal with Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), a military contractor owned by the Chinese government. Because Henniges\u2019s technology has military application, and therefore national security implications, the deal had to be approved by an interagency committee made up of Obama &#8211; Biden administration officials. 53 BHR also invested in military &#8211; related technology companies closer to home: they bought a stake in Face++, a major developer of facial recognition software commonly used in a phone application made by the Chinese government for surveillance of its own population. 54<br \/>\n BHR was the first of a series of business relationships that Hunter Biden established with the Chinese government or Chinese government \u2013 connected entities. Another Hunter Biden \u2013 linked firm called Rosemont Realty struck a deal with a Chinese government \u2013 connected company in 2014. Hunter was an advisor and the \u201ccofounder\u201d of the company, which owned commercial real estate properties around the United States. 55<br \/>\n Just as he had little or no background in private equity, Hunter also had no background in real estate. 56 Rosemont Realty openly touted its ties to Vice President Joe Biden. In a Rosemont Realty company prospectus for investors watermarked \u201cCONFIDENTIAL,\u201d there was the \u201ckey consideration\u201d that \u201cHunter Biden (son of Vice President Biden) is on the advisory board.\u201d 57<br \/>\n Better yet, Rosemont Realty had other political connections beyond Hunter Biden.<br \/>\n Rosemont Realty was headed by Daniel Burrell, a Yale grad who had worked on the John Kerry 2004 presidential campaign. A major investor in Rosemont Realty was an entity called Rosemont Real Estate GP, LLC. 58 Who exactly owns Rosemont Real Estate GP is unclear; however, in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, the firm lists its address as that of the Heinz family office in Pittsburgh and shares a phone number with Rosemont Capital in New York City. 59 At the time of Rosemont Realty\u2019s arrangement with the Chinese firm, John Kerry, married to Heinz heir Teresa Heinz Kerry, was the U.S. secretary of state.<br \/>\n Just about a year after the massive deal with the Chinese government\u2019s Bohai Harvest, another Hunter Biden firm struck a pact with another Chinese government \u2013 linked firm called Gemini Investments. This deal involved a multibillion &#8211; dollar investment with Rosemont Realty. 60<br \/>\n Who exactly is Gemini Investments? While Gemini is a publicly traded stock in Hong Kong, it is ultimately an \u201cindirect subsidiary\u201d under the control of a Chinese conglomerate called Sino &#8211; Ocean Group (formerly Sino &#8211; Ocean Land). Gemini Investments\u2019 director and honorary chairman is Li Ming. His corporate and political ties in Beijing go to the highest levels of the Communist Party. Indeed, he served several terms running as a member of the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s elite People\u2019s Political Consultative Conference.<br \/>\nBefore the name change, Sino &#8211; Ocean Land was \u201cone of the largest real estate companies in Beijing,\u201d and it is directly connected to a company called China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO). Formed in 1961, COSCO is a state &#8211; owned company with strong organizational links to the Chinese navy. 61<br \/>\n By December 2014, Gemini Investments inked the new partnership with Rosemont Realty, under which they would acquire an interest in the company and its underlying properties. 62 Eight months later, the newly christened Gemini &#8211; Rosemont announced its plans for $3 billion worth of new acquisitions. 63<br \/>\n In short, Hunter Biden was involved in two billion &#8211; dollar deals with Chinese government \u2013 connected firms in a twenty &#8211; month period while his dad was vice president of the United States. Hunter was apparently eager to strike other deals with the Chinese \u2014 business implicitly leveraged on who his father was.<br \/>\n Consider the case of Patrick Ho, who was arrested in late 2017 by federal agents in New York for money laundering and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Ho was an assistant to Chinese oil tycoon Ye Jianming, who ran the energy company CEFC. The company has strong ties to the Chinese military. 64 Hunter Biden would later admit Ye sent him a \u201clarge diamond\u201d after one of their meetings. Biden says that he did not keep it. 65 Ho was also the secretary &#8211; general of the nonprofit China Energy Fund Committee, which many observers view as a government &#8211; directed entity. 66 In March 2019, Ho was jailed in the U.S. on bribery charges stemming from oil deals in Africa. 67 According to the New York Times , it appears that Ho\u2019s first phone call while in the custody of U.S. officials was an attempt to reach Hunter Biden. 68<br \/>\n CEFC officials had met multiple times with Hunter Biden beginning back in 2015. In May 2017, Hunter met with Ho in Miami, where they reportedly discussed joint energy and infrastructure deals in the United States. The night of his arrest, Ho called James Biden, Joe\u2019s brother. Why Ho had James Biden\u2019s number is not clear. According to James Biden, the call was a surprise; he believed Ho was trying to contact Hunter so he gave him his nephew\u2019s number. 69<br \/>\n During Ho\u2019s trial, prosecutors presented evidence that he was an arms dealer on the side, running guns to conflict zones around the world. 70 He was sentenced to three years in jail. If in fact Ho did intend for his first call while in custody to reach the son of the former vice president, it speaks volumes about how juiced in Hunter Biden was with some Chinese officials.<br \/>\n With Hunter\u2019s deals in China, Joe Biden\u2019s attitude toward China seemed to soften. In 2011, the Obama administration announced a strategic shift called the Asia Pivot. 71 Based on the idea that the main military and strategic challenges facing the United States are emanating from China, the Obama administration shifted military resources toward Asia. 72 Yet Biden continued to strike a relatively soft posture toward Beijing, much to the chagrin of U.S. allies in the region. 73 He continued to minimize the challenges posed by China in the spring of 2019 while on the campaign trail. \u201cCome on, man,\u201d Biden said. \u201cThey\u2019re not bad folks, folks, but guess what. They\u2019re not competition for us.\u201d 74<br \/>\n * * *<br \/>\n Hunter Biden\u2019s foreign deals were not limited to China, as strategically generous as that country was to the vice president\u2019s son. Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and even Russia offered him other wealth opportunities.<br \/>\n Ukraine boasts an abundance of energy resources, especially oil and natural gas. Burisma, a top Ukrainian natural gas producer, has deep political ties in the country. It was created in 2006 by Mykola Zlochevsky and has a Cypriot registration. He became the ecology and natural resources minister under the pro &#8211; Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych. As natural resources minister, Zlochevsky conveniently gave himself licenses to develop abundant natural gas fields. His oversight allowed Burisma to become the second &#8211; largest private natural gas company in the country. They currently rank first. 75<br \/>\n As previously noted in Secret Empires , on April 16, 2014, Devon Archer made a private visit to the White House for a meeting with Joe Biden. The day prior, Burisma had deposited more than $112,000 into a Rosemont bank account marked \u201cC\/O Devon Archer.\u201d Six days later, on April 22, it was announced that Archer was joining the board of directors of Burisma. In short succession, on May 13, it was announced that Hunter Biden would join the Burisma board, too. Neither one had any background or experience in the energy sector, or in Ukraine for that matter. 76<br \/>\n We now know based on financial records that each man appears to have been paid $83,333.33 per month by Burisma, or a total of $1 million a year. 77<br \/>\n The timing of their appointment to the Burisma board and the payments is more than interesting. The day before Archer\u2019s official appointment, on April 21, Vice President Biden landed in Kyiv for meetings with Ukrainian officials, bringing with him terms for a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) program to assist the Ukrainian natural gas industry. 78<br \/>\n Even in a country abounding with corruption, Burisma stands out. Burisma founder Zlochevsky was in legal crosshairs when Biden and Archer joined the company board. By February 2016, Ukrainian authorities seized Zlochevsky\u2019s property on suspicion that he was engaged in \u201cillicit enrichment.\u201d 79 Zlochevsky found himself on Ukraine\u2019s wanted list and fled the country. 80 The Ukrainian prosecutor general\u2019s office seized Burisma\u2019s gas wells. Tax authorities began investigating him for suspicion of tax evasion. 81<br \/>\n Hunter Biden used his contacts in Washington to help Zlochevsky in his corruption case. Burisma hired a former Obama Department of Justice lawyer named John Buretta and Blue Star Strategies, a consulting firm run by former Clinton administration officials, to help. 82<br \/>\n Buretta would later recount how he interacted directly with Ukrainian prosecutors with the expressed purpose of getting the charges dropped. According to Buretta, the charges were dismissed in September 2016. 83<br \/>\n Under pressure from Joe Biden, Ukrainian officials fired the Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Burisma. Joe Biden later bragged that he had the prosecutor fired by threatening to withhold one billion dollars in U.S. aid assistance to Ukraine. 84<br \/>\n On January 16, 2017, Air Force Two descended toward Boryspil International Airport, just southeast of Kyiv. It was Joe Biden\u2019s last foreign trip as vice president. Under Biden\u2019s direction, the Obama administration had poured some $3 billion into the country. 85 Four days before Biden arrived, Burisma announced that the Ukrainian government prosecutors had ended the criminal investigations into the company and its founder Zlochevsky. 86<br \/>\n There is no complete public record of Hunter Biden\u2019s foreign financial deals while his father was vice president, because neither he nor any other members of the Biden family, beyond Joe and Jill, had any federal disclosure requirements of their finances. However, court documents, including financial records from a trial involving Hunter\u2019s business partner Devon Archer, offer some tantalizing clues involving other deals Hunter Biden made around the world during the time his father was vice president.<br \/>\n A Morgan Stanley investment account from which Hunter regularly received funds shows money arriving from mysterious sources around the world. There is a $142,300 deposit in April 2014 from Kazakh oligarch \u2013 controlled Novatus Holdings. Kenges Rakishev, whose father &#8211; in &#8211; law is the former vice prime minister of Kazakhstan and a close ally of Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev, runs the offshore firm. 87 In August 2014, $1.2 million arrived into the account from an anonymous LLC via a small Swiss bank called BSI S.A. In 2016, BSI was one of several companies that were part of an embezzlement and money &#8211; laundering investigation spanning ten countries and at least $4.2 billion in irregular transactions. 88<br \/>\n The financial documents also demonstrate that someone in the Biden family has other LLCs set up to receive payments. In August 2015, for example, $150,000 was transferred into an account controlled by something called MFTCG Holdings LLC Biden. It is unclear what that account is or who controls it. 89<br \/>\n In another corporate record released as part of the court trial, Devon Archer describes a financial relationship with Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina. A billionaire with extensive political connections in Moscow and notorious links to Russian organized crime, Archer said Baturina invested $200 million into \u201cvarious investment funds\u201d with which he was involved. 90<br \/>\n * * *<br \/>\n Not all of Hunter Biden\u2019s wealth accumulation during his father\u2019s vice presidency was international. Some deals occurred within the United States and benefited from taxpayer dollars steered by his father\u2019s closest aides.<br \/>\n Consider the case of something called mbloom, a joint venture that Hunter Biden and Devon Archer set up in Hawaii. Mbloom was a \u201cpublic &#8211; private partnership\u201d in which Hunter\u2019s firm invested $5 million and the other half came from the Hawaii Strategic Development Corporation (HSDC). 91 But where did HSDC get its money for mbloom? It came from a program back in Washington, D.C., called the Treasury Department State Small Business Credit Initiative. Three million dollars of the HSDC money came from the program, which was run by a longtime Biden aide named Don Graves. 92<br \/>\n It is hard to find someone tighter in the Biden orbit than Graves. Over the course of his career, he has served as counselor to Vice President Biden, his domestic and economic policy director, and as his traveling chief of staff. After Joe Biden left the White House, he appointed Graves to the policy advisory board of the Biden Institute. 93<br \/>\n The bottom line is that Hunter Biden\u2019s joint venture with mbloom was partly funded by taxpayer dollars through a program run by his father\u2019s longtime aide.<br \/>\n Things ultimately did not go well for mbloom. Almost immediately, the company became embroiled in an ethics scandal when it was revealed that the two men running the fund were steering dollars to their own companies. 94<br \/>\n * * *<br \/>\n Beyond his numerous Rosemont &#8211; branded entities and ventures like mbloom, Hunter was also deeply involved with a troubling entity called Burnham Financial Group, where his business partner Devon Archer also sat on the board of directors. 95<br \/>\n As they had with Rosemont, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer used Burnham to make foreign deals with governments and oligarchs, including Nurlan Abduov, an associate of Kazakh oligarch Kenges Rakishev. 96 As mentioned, Rakishev is the son &#8211; in &#8211; law of the former vice prime minister of Kazakhstan. His father &#8211; in &#8211; law, Imangali Tasmagambetov, was also formerly the defense minister of the country and is now the Kazakh ambassador to Russia. 97 Kazakhstan is an important country not only for its vast energy resources but also because of its geostrategic position.<br \/>\n The financial ties between this foreign government and Biden appear to go deeper than just the investment in Burnham. As one business associate put it in an email released at the court trial, \u201cRosemont is deeply involved in Kazakhstan. The SWF [Sovereign Wealth Fund] of Kazakhstan is involved with Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners, Rosemont\u2019s technology investment vehicle.\u201d 98<br \/>\n Between the Rosemont entities and Burnham, Biden and Archer\u2019s business dealings in Kazakhstan were extensive, although specific financial data remains undisclosed. What can be discerned from emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is that there was back &#8211; channel communication between Kazakh officials and then \u2013 secretary of state John Kerry via Devon Archer. Recall that Kerry\u2019s stepson Chris Heinz was a business partner with Biden and Archer in some of their ventures. In an email from July 11, 2013, Kerry chief of staff David Wade writes to Devon Archer, \u201cDevon: understand you spoke to the Secretary re having him call [Kazakh] Foreign Minister Idrisov today, can you let me know topics Idrisov wants to talk about\/any requests he\u2019ll have of the boss, so we can get paper prepared for a call. Hopefully, the situation on the home front will leave him time to do it.\u201d 99 This email alone makes clear that Archer had direct access to the secretary of state, without the knowledge of his chief of staff, and that Archer acted as a liaison for the Kazakh foreign minister with the secretary of state, all the while receiving funds for his and Hunter\u2019s private deals.<br \/>\n In addition, two Chinese companies also became involved with Burnham. Kirin Global Enterprise Limited, a mysterious investment vehicle run by Xiangyao (or Yaojun) \u201cLarry\u201d Liu and Guo Jianfeng, was one that invested in Biden\u2019s company. Very little is known about Kirin or its two principals, other than the fact that they invest heavily in mainland Chinese real estate. 100 Another firm, Harvest Global Investors, a Chinese investment firm linked to the government in Beijing, also worked with Burnham, although it is unclear whether they invested money. 101<br \/>\n Kazakhstan and China aside, Burnham Asset Management became the center of a federal investigation involving a $60 million fraud scheme against one of the poorest Indian tribes in America, the Oglala Sioux. Devon Archer was arrested in New York in May 2016 and charged with \u201corchestrating a scheme to defraud investors and a Native American tribal entity of tens of millions of dollars.\u201d Other victims of the fraud included several public and union pension plans. 102 Although Hunter Biden was not charged in the case, his fingerprints were all over Burnham. The \u201clegitimacy\u201d that his name and political status as the vice president\u2019s son lent to the plan was brought up repeatedly in the trial. 103<br \/>\n The scheme was explicitly designed to target pension funds that had \u201csocially responsible investing\u201d clauses, including pension funds of labor union organizations that had publicly supported Joe Biden\u2019s political campaigns in the past. Indeed, eight of the eleven pension funds that lost their money were either government employee or labor union pension funds. 104 Joe Biden has \u201ca long &#8211; standing alliance with labor.\u201d He closely identifies with organized labor. \u201cI make no apologies,\u201d he has said. \u201cI am a union man, period.\u201d 105 And many public unions have endorsed him over the years.<br \/>\n The defrauded pension funds included:<br \/>\n \u2022  Birmingham (Alabama) Water Works Pension Plan<br \/>\n \u2022  Chicago Transit Authority<br \/>\n \u2022  Management International Longshoreman\u2019s Association<br \/>\n \u2022  Milk Drivers Local 246 (an affiliate of the Teamsters)<br \/>\n \u2022  Omaha, Nebraska, School Employees\u2019 Retirement Fund<br \/>\n \u2022  Philadelphia Housing Authority<br \/>\n \u2022  City of Richmond (Virginia) Retirement System<br \/>\n \u2022  Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission 106<br \/>\n Transcripts from Devon Archer\u2019s trial offer a clearer picture of the fact that he used his father\u2019s name and political status as a means of both recruiting pension money into the scheme and alleviating investors\u2019 concerns. 107<br \/>\n Hunter Biden had an office at Burnham\u2019s New York City offices on Fifty &#8211; Seventh Street. 108 During the trial, numerous witnesses came forward describing Hunter\u2019s involvement with the firm. Tim Anderson, a lawyer who did legal work on the issuance of the tribal bonds, recounts seeing Hunter while visiting the Burnham office in New York City to meet with Bevan Cooney, who was later convicted in the case. 109<br \/>\n The political ties that Biden and Archer had were considered key to the Burnham brand. As stated in an August 2014 email, Jason Galanis, who was convicted in the bond scheme, agreed with an unidentified associate who also thought the company had \u201cvalue beyond capital\u201d because of their political connections. 110<br \/>\n In the closing arguments at the trial, one of Devon Archer\u2019s defense attorneys, Matthew Schwartz, explained to the jury that it was impossible to talk about the bond scheme without mentioning Hunter Biden\u2019s name. \u201cMr. Archer responded to further questions. They wanted to know about this too, and one of the reasons \u2014 by the way, it was perfectly sensible \u2014 was because Hunter Biden was part of the Burnham team. You remember that. You saw on that Teneo slide deck he was going to be the vice chairman. You heard testimony that he was in the office. Mary Moynihan from the BIT board told you they had questions about his commissions and how much he was going to bring in in terms of clients. He was part of this deal. It was sensible to talk about him.\u201d Beyond son Hunter, other family members saw their commercial fortunes rise as they leveraged Joe Biden\u2019s position for their personal benefit. 111<br \/>\n * * *<br \/>\n It would be a dream for any new company to announce their launch in the Oval Office at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.<br \/>\n StartUp Health is an investment consultancy based out of New York City, and in June 2011 the company barely had a website. The firm was the brainchild of three siblings from Philadelphia. Steven Krein is CEO and co &#8211; founder, while his brother, Dr. Howard Krein, serves as chief medical officer. Sister Bari serves as the firm\u2019s chief strategy officer. A friend named Unity Stoakes is a co &#8211; founder and serves as president. 112<br \/>\n StartUp Health was barely up and running when, in June 2011, two of the company\u2019s executives were ushered into the Oval Office of the White House. They met with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. 113<br \/>\n It was an \u201camazing moment,\u201d recalled Unity Stoakes. \u201cWe were pinching ourselves.\u201d The following day the new company would be featured at a large health care tech conference being run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The meetings at the White House were crucial. Afterward, according to Stoakes, they felt \u201cthe wind to our backs.\u201d 114<br \/>\nStartUp Health would continue to enjoy access to the highest levels of the White House as they worked to build up the business. Indeed, StartUp Health executives became regular visitors to the White House. According to 2011 White House visitors\u2019 logs, Howard Krein attended the China State Dinner, a White House Staff barbecue, and President Obama\u2019s Motown event. His brother, Steven, had half a dozen other meetings with White House officials. 115 Executives were back in June 2014 for a meeting with sixty \u201chealth transformers.\u201d 116 Howard even had another visit with President Obama on September 25, 2015. 117<br \/>\n That first White House meeting in the Oval Office would remain an important touchstone for the company and was a key component in the way they presented themselves to potential investors and partners. In 2019, they were still touting it publicly as part of the company\u2019s mythology. 118<br \/>\n How did StartUp Health gain access to the highest levels of power in Washington? Their status as a health care incubator was hardly unique. In fact, there were thirty &#8211; one similar companies operating in the state of California alone, and another eleven in the state of New York. 119<br \/>\n So how did the hookup actually happen? At this point, it is important to point out that the chief medical officer of StartUp Health, Howard Krein, is married to Joe Biden\u2019s youngest daughter, Ashley.<br \/>\n \u201cI happened to be talking to my father &#8211; in &#8211; law that day and I mentioned Steve and Unity were down there [in Washington, D.C.],\u201d recalled Howard Krein. \u201cHe knew about StartUp Health and was a big fan of it. He asked for Steve\u2019s number and said, \u2018I have to get them up here to talk with Barack.\u2019 The Secret Service came and got Steve and Unity and brought them to the Oval Office.\u201d 120<br \/>\n Advancing the commercial interests of StartUp Health using the Oval Office and Air Force Two would continue over the next half &#8211; decade while Biden was in office. Dr. Krein, who started dating Ashley in 2010 and married her in 2012, joined the Biden inner circle, even serving as a pallbearer at Beau Biden\u2019s funeral in 2015. 121<br \/>\n StartUp Health describes itself as an investor in health care companies and an incubator. This is no charity. The firm offers to provide new companies technical and relationship advice in exchange for a stake in the business. Newly launched health &#8211; technology companies that want help from StartUp Health are expected to offer the firm 2 to 10 percent equity in their company. 122 Demonstrating and highlighting the fact that you can score a meeting with the president of the United States certainly helps prove a strategic company asset: high &#8211; level contacts.<br \/>\n Vice President Joe Biden continued to help Krein promote his company through his last months in the White House. In 2016, the vice president took his son &#8211; in &#8211; law to the Vatican for a conference on regenerative medicine attended by Pope Francis. Hunter Biden was also on the trip. After arriving on Air Force Two, Vice President Biden gave a keynote speech. Pope Francis also offered his thoughts on the challenges of health care and decried profit &#8211; driven research. Conference attendees included a who\u2019s who of scientific researchers in medicine from around the world.<br \/>\nThe vice president was still not finished helping to boost his son &#8211; in &#8211; law\u2019s business.<br \/>\n The following month, Krein was given the honor of introducing Vice President Biden at a major data conference first organized by the Obama administration in 2016 called Health Datapalooza. 124 Then, in October 2016, Biden made a joint appearance with StartUp Health\u2019s Steve Krein at the Cleveland Clinic\u2019s Medical Innovation Summit. 125 In January 2017, in his final days in the Obama administration, Biden made a surprise appearance at the StartUp Health Festival in San Francisco. The corporate event, which is open only to StartUp Health members, included the vice president chatting in a closed session with the 250 people in attendance. 126<br \/>\n Once Biden left the vice presidency, he continued to speak for his son &#8211; in &#8211; law\u2019s company. In January 2018, the now &#8211; former vice president delivered the keynote at the StartUp Health Festival. The following year it was Jill Biden\u2019s turn to deliver a speech there. 127<br \/>\n * * *<br \/>\n Joe Biden\u2019s younger brother, James, has been an integral part of the family political machine from the earliest days when he served as finance chair of his 1972 Senate campaign. Joe and James have remained close. After Joe joined the U.S. Senate, he would bring his brother James along on congressional delegation trips to places like Ireland, Rome, and Africa. 128<br \/>\n James Biden\u2019s beach house on Keewaydin Island, Florida, was a Biden gathering place during the vice presidential years. An exclusive island off the coast of Naples, Florida, the five &#8211; acre property became known locally as the Biden Bungalow. During the Christmas 2013 holiday, for example, the vice president and the Biden family gathered there. 129 As might generally be expected, James was welcome as well to the White House, including attending the visit of Pope Francis in September 2015. How many times James Biden visited the White House is not clear even by examining the White House visitors\u2019 logs. In 2011, for example, he was photographed attending a state dinner at the White House, but his name did not appear in visitors\u2019 logs for the event. 130<br \/>\n Where James Biden\u2019s visits to the White House become pertinent to this analysis is where Joe secured James\u2019s inclusion at important White House functions that dovetailed with James\u2019s overseas business dealings. As we will see, James Biden\u2019s commercial opportunities flourished when his brother became vice president, continuing to show a pattern of Joe\u2019s public power being leveraged for his family\u2019s material gain. As with Hunter and Ashley, James profited handsomely during Joe\u2019s tenure as vice president.<br \/>\n Consider the case of HillStone International, a construction firm created in 2010 as a subsidiary of Hill International. Hill International began losing money in 2011. It had been launched back in 1976, and founder Irv Richter quickly became a major campaign contributor to the New Jersey Democratic Party. He was not shy about the fact that political connections had built his construction business. As he once told the Philadelphia Inquirer : \u201cIf your competition has access because they\u2019ve been political contributors, and you don\u2019t, you\u2019re going to be at a serious disadvantage.\u201d 131<br \/>\n The president of HillStone International was Kevin Justice, who grew up in Delaware and was a longtime Biden family friend. He was friends with lots of Bidens, especially Joe\u2019s sons Hunter and Beau. On November 4, 2010, according to White House visitors\u2019 logs, Justice visited the White House and met with Michele Smith in the Office of the Vice President. Smith was an advisor to the vice president. 132 Less than three weeks later, HillStone announced that the vice president\u2019s brother James would be joining the firm as an executive vice president. James appeared to have little or no background in housing construction, but that did not seem to matter to HillStone. His bio on the company\u2019s website noted his \u201c40 years of experience dealing with principals in business, political, legal and financial circles across the nation and internationally\u201d that \u201cenable him to understand the needs and perspectives of government, financial and development leaders to effectively negotiate and implement low &#8211; cost housing objectives both domestically and abroad.\u201d His company bio added that at \u201cthe age of 22, [James] Biden was the finance chairman of his then 29 &#8211; year &#8211; old brother\u2019s bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Delaware and successfully enlisted the support of national unions, political leaders and financiers across the country.\u201d 133<br \/>\n James Biden was joining HillStone just as the firm was starting negotiations to win a massive contract in war &#8211; torn Iraq. Six months later, they announced a contract to build 100,000 homes. It was part of a $35 billion, 500,000 &#8211; unit project deal won by TRAC Development, a South Korean company. HillStone also received a $22 million U.S. federal government contract to manage a construction project for the State Department. 134<br \/>\n David Richter, founder Irv\u2019s son, was not shy in explaining HillStone\u2019s success in securing government contracts. It really helps, he told investors at a private meeting, to have \u201cthe brother of the vice president as a partner,\u201d according to someone who was there. 135<br \/>\n David Richter talked about having James Biden on the payroll and what it meant. \u201cHe knows how to deal with government officials; that\u2019s his skill,\u201d he said. \u201cHe makes people from foreign countries comfortable we\u2019re not going to steal their money. After all, he\u2019s also been with his brother a long time.\u201d 136<br \/>\n The Iraq project was massive, perhaps the single most lucrative project for the firm ever. In 2012, Charlie Gasparino of Fox Business reported that HillStone officials said that the Iraq project was expected to \u201cgenerate $1.5 billion in revenues over the next three years.\u201d That amounted to more than three times the revenue the company produced in 2011. 137<br \/>\n A group of minority partners, including James Biden, would split about $735 million. \u201cThere\u2019s plenty of money for everyone if this project goes through,\u201d said Irv Richter. 138<br \/>\n A South Korean construction company won the contract on which Hill and HillStone would work. Only months after the deal\u2019s announcement, James Biden and his wife, Sara, showed up at the White House as guests for an official state dinner. It just happened to be a state dinner honoring the then &#8211; president of South Korea, Lee Myung &#8211; bak. 139<br \/>\n The deal was all set, but HillStone made a crucial error. In 2013, the firm was forced to back out of the contract because of a series of problems, including a lack of experience by Hill and TRAC Development, according to Irv Richter. But it continued doing significant contract work in the embattled country, including a six &#8211; year contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 140<br \/>\n James Biden remained with Hill International, which accumulated contracts from the federal government for dozens of projects, including projects in the United States, Puerto Rico, Mozambique, and elsewhere. 141<br \/>\n The Bidens leverage political power not only for generating deals, but also for the opportunities to quietly develop the financial resources of wealthy friends for the benefit of the family. Friends that help the Bidens can count on Joe to grant them governmental favors. Consider the case of a businessman named John Hynansky.<br \/>\n A car dealer from Delaware, Hynansky and his family have officially poured tens of thousands of dollars into Joe Biden\u2019s campaign coffers over the years. More than just a donor, he is a Biden friend and has helped the Biden family out financially as well.<br \/>\n On July 22, 2009, Vice President Biden was in Kyiv, Ukraine, as part of his first visit to the country during the Obama administration. A large crowd of citizens and businessmen gathered on a beautiful warm summer morning to hear him speak. During his speech, Biden singled out John Hynansky as \u201cmy very good friend,\u201d describing him before the large crowd as \u201ca very prominent businessman from Delaware . . . I had breakfast with him the other day.\u201d 142<br \/>\n Hynansky is well known in Ukraine. Shortly after the fall of communism, he moved into the country as an automobile importer and car dealer. 143<br \/>\n Hynansky had ambitions to expand his business in Ukraine and the Obama &#8211; Biden administration was willing to help. Three years after that speech, in July 2012, the federal government\u2019s Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) announced that it was providing Hynansky\u2019s company with a $20 million loan so that he could grow his import dealership in Ukraine. According to OPIC, the loan was to \u201cexpand Winner Import Ukraine\u2019s automobile business, [and] construct and operate \u2018Winner Autocity,\u2019 which will have two new, state &#8211; of &#8211; the &#8211; art dealership facilities for Porsche and Land Rover\/Jaguar Automobiles.\u201d What is unusual, and as OPIC made clear, is that the loan would not actually create any American jobs; the cars to be sold in Ukraine were European luxury vehicles built in other countries. The best it could claim was that the taxpayer &#8211; backed loan would not cost any American jobs. 144<br \/>\n The Biden family friend benefited from taxpayer &#8211; backed loans provided by the Obama &#8211; Biden administration. Why Hynansky needed the loans is unclear, given his vast business empire. Indeed, in 2015, Hynansky told reporters, \u201cI have a ton of companies in the Ukraine.\u201d 145 Why OPIC granted a taxpayer &#8211; backed loan for a business that would not create jobs in the United States and would simply sell expensive European &#8211; made vehicles to the Ukrainian elite is also unclear.<br \/>\n What is clear is that Joe Biden helped a friend who would later help another Biden.<br \/>\n In June 2015, James Biden had a federal tax lien placed on the Biden Bungalow on Keewaydin Island, Florida, by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). According to tax filings, he owed nearly $590,000 to the federal government in back taxes. In late 2014, there was also a $74,700 lien placed on the home by a contractor called Gator Pressure Cleaning &#038; Custom Painting. 146 In mid &#8211; 2015, help arrived when James received two mortgages totaling $900,000. The mortgages came from an obscure Delaware entity called 1018 PL LLC. According to corporate records, John Hynansky controls that company. 147<br \/>\n The mortgages Hynansky provided seemed to do the trick. The amount James owed to the IRS dropped to just $30,000 by the end of 2015. 148 Six days after he received the mortgages from Hynansky, Gator was paid, too. 149<br \/>\n Even after Joe left office, James Biden continued to tout his ties to his brother. At a meeting in 2018, James told a group of potential business partners that the Biden Cancer Initiative, a nonprofit launched in 2017 by Joe and Jill Biden, would help promote their new business. 150<br \/>\n * * *<br \/>\n In July 1999, Joe\u2019s other younger brother, Frank Biden, was living in San Diego and driving \u2014 with a suspended Florida license \u2014 a rented Jaguar XK8 sedan. On August 14, 1999, Frank drove the Jag to a friend\u2019s house and later, around 11:15 p.m., they decided to go to a concert at the Belly Up Tavern in Cardiff, California. According to court documents, he gave the keys to his young friend Jason Turton; three others piled into the backseat. Frank rode shotgun, handled the stick shift, and provided instructions as they cruised down the highway. At one point, Frank shifted into high gear and told Turton \u201cpunch the car and leave it in third gear\u201d until told otherwise. Frank then gave the command for fourth gear and the Jaguar picked up speed. Soon they were humming along between 70 and 80 mph in a 35 &#8211; mph zone. Michael Albano, a thirty &#8211; seven &#8211; year &#8211; old single father, was crossing the street, having just left a beachside bar, when the Jaguar slammed into him. Albano was first struck by the right headlamp, which sent him crashing into the windshield, over the top of the car, into a backseat passenger\u2019s face, and then onto the Jaguar\u2019s trunk before landing on the asphalt. In depositions two of the witnesses sitting in the backseat recall Frank Biden telling Turton to \u201ckeep driving\u201d after Albano hit the ground. 151<br \/>\n Albano died at the scene. He left behind two young daughters, who would later describe him as a \u201cperfect\u201d father. 152<br \/>\n Turton pleaded guilty to felony hit and run. 153 The guardians for Albano\u2019s daughters sued Frank Biden in court in a \u201cwrongful death\u201d civil lawsuit on August 14, 2000, but Frank never showed up at the courthouse. Nor did he reply to any legal correspondence from the court, including a court final judgment in September 2002 that Frank owed each of the girls $275,000 for his role in the tragedy. 154<br \/>\n In October 1999, the guardians for the two Albano girls had hired a private investigator to find Frank. They spoke to his ex &#8211; wife, the broader Biden family, and eventually the Biden family attorney, who refused to provide any information about Frank\u2019s whereabouts or to accept service of documents. Investigators also noted that they had \u201creceived information indicating that the Subject appears to stay with his brother, Joseph, occasionally,\u201d and that people nearby claimed to have seen him at Joe\u2019s house in Delaware. 155<br \/>\n The quest for paying the judgments began. Investigators could not find any bank accounts connected to Frank \u201cbecause of his apparent evasive actions\u201d; they suspected that perhaps he had accounts \u201cin another name or DBA.\u201d 156<br \/>\n Eight years after the court\u2019s ruling, in September 2008, an attorney for the girls reached out to Senator Joe Biden in Washington, asking for assistance in locating his brother and getting him to pay the debt. Joe Biden, of course, had lost his own wife and daughter in an automobile accident so perhaps there was the hope that he would be sympathetic. Joe Biden did not respond. Instead, his chief of staff at the time wrote back in what can only be described as a businesslike \u2014 even cold \u2014 letter, revealed publicly here for the first time. \u201cSenator Biden has received your letter of September 16 regarding a judgment by your clients against his brother Frank,\u201d he wrote on Biden\u2019s official Senate stationery. \u201cThe Senator wishes to express his deep sympathy with the Albano daughters over their loss. While it is correct, as you state, that Senator Biden was not involved in the accident and bears no legal liability for the judgment, the Senator would certainly encourage his brother to pay the judgment if his personal financial circumstances made that at all possible. As you are aware, however, Frank has no assets with which to satisfy the judgment. The Senator regrets that this is where matters stand and that he cannot be more helpful.\u201d 157<br \/>\n But Frank Biden was earning money. Indeed, seven days before Joe Biden\u2019s office sent that letter, his brother was slapped with a tax lien from the IRS for $23,638.59 in unpaid taxes. In total he owed more than $32,000 at the time, a clear indication that Frank had income. In 2013, he paid off the tax lien in full. 158<br \/>\n As of the time of this writing, in September 2019, the Albano daughters have still not collected their money from Frank Biden. With interest, that judgment debt is now more than $900,000. 159<br \/>\n As we have already observed, loyalty to family is a virtue until it becomes an excuse for unethical use of public power. Here, we also note the irony that loyalty to his family would become an excuse to disregard someone else\u2019s family \u2014 despite having the power to take compassionate action for a just cause.<br \/>\n Although Joe appears unwilling to help the Albano sisters collect a legitimate debt from Frank, as we will see, he has been busy helping Frank accumulate wealth through far &#8211; flung business deals.<br \/>\n In late March 2009, Vice President Joe Biden was headed to Costa Rica aboard Air Force Two. He went for a series of meetings with officials as a preamble to the Fifth Summit of the Americas Conference.<br \/>\nConference. Biden went to the Costa Rican presidential palace for a one &#8211; on &#8211; one with President Oscar Arias. Daniel Ortega, the strongman leader of neighboring Nicaragua, criticized Biden for being \u201ctoo chummy\u201d with Arias. The Biden visit had symbolic significance. The last time a high &#8211; ranking American official had visited the country was back in 1997, when Bill Clinton had come. 160<br \/>\n Biden and Arias met with a number of associates present. Biden invited \u201cArias to work with him personally to develop\u201d education policy for Central America, but also underscored that \u201cforeign direct investment would help Costa Rica\u2019s economy more in the short term.\u201d During the meeting, Arias gave Biden a letter to pass on to President Obama requesting additional U.S. aid dollars to assist with Costa Rica\u2019s education system. 161 Later, the Arias administration declared that it was \u201ca clear recognition of the trajectory of Costa Rica as the United States\u2019 strategic partner in the region.\u201d 162<br \/>\n Joe Biden\u2019s trip to Costa Rica came at a fortuitous time for his brother Frank, who was busy working deals in the country. Conveniently, any assets Frank might hold in Costa Rica would be out of reach of U.S. courts and the Albano family. Frank, who had studied law and practiced real estate in Florida, had ambitions in Costa Rica. In the months that followed, the opportunities for Frank Biden arose courtesy of the Costa Rican government. Just months after Vice President Biden\u2019s visit, in August, Costa Rica News announced a new multilateral partnership \u201cto reform Real Estate in Latin America\u201d between Frank Biden, a developer named Craig Williamson, and the Guanacaste Country Club, a newly planned resort. The partnership, which appears to be ongoing, was wrapped in a beautiful package as a \u201ccall on resources available to the companies and individuals to reform the social, economic and environmental practices of real estate developers across the world by example.\u201d Frank Biden declared, \u201cPrioritizing the health and wellbeing of employees, members of the local community and protecting the breathtaking beauty that is Costa Rica is a money maker.\u201d 163<br \/>\n In real terms, Frank\u2019s dream was to build in the jungles of Costa Rica thousands of homes, a world &#8211; class golf course, casinos, and an antiaging center. The Costa Rican government was eager to cooperate with the vice president\u2019s brother. 164<br \/>\n As Joe Biden would later recount in his book Promise Me, Dad , he was a central player in Obama administration policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean. \u201cThe President asked me to take over the job of repairing our wobbly relations across the entirety of the Americas \u2014 the Northern Triangle, Brazil, the Caribbean, everything.\u201d He was the go &#8211; to guy in the White House for Latin America policy. 165<br \/>\n The Costa Rican National Power and Light Company (CNFL) unveiled the conceptual design for what would later become the Guanacaste Solar Park. The new facility would provide energy for Frank\u2019s plans for a massive resort being built just north of the town of Liberia. CNFL picked Frank\u2019s company, Sun Fund Americas, as their partner for the solar park. Frank did not have any background in solar energy, but it was quite clear who he was when he pitched the project to investors. His brother Joe\u2019s name figured prominently<br \/>\nin his biography. 166<br \/>\n Frank\u2019s partner in the deal, as in the Guanacaste Country Club, was a real estate investor in Costa Rica named Craig S. Williamson, an American army veteran who now lived in the country. 167 Williamson was arrested in 2014 for failing to appear in court related to a fraud charge. 168 Long active in selling real estate to Americans in Central America, Williamson describes himself as a \u201cCentral American Real Estate Investment Advisor for many North American based Institutional Real Estate Investors as well as hundreds of Private Investors, including the family of US Vice President Joseph Biden.\u201d 169<br \/>\n Frank\u2019s vision for a country club in Costa Rica received support from the highest levels of the Costa Rican government \u2014 despite his lack of experience in building such developments. He met with the Costa Rican ministers of education and energy and environment, as well as the president of the country. Costa Rican president Luis Guillermo Solis Rivera even penned a letter to Frank Biden praising the project. The letter found its way onto the internet seeking presales for the project to investors back in the United States. 170<br \/>\n On October 4, 2016, the Costa Rican Ministry of Public Education signed a letter of intent with Frank\u2019s company, Sun Fund Americas. The project involved allowing a company called GoSolar to operate solar power facilities in Costa Rica. The previous year, the Obama &#8211; Biden administration\u2019s OPIC had authorized a $6.5 million taxpayer &#8211; backed loan for the project. 171<br \/>\n Despite Frank\u2019s MIA status concerning the Albano debt, Joe and Frank Biden have remained close over the years. As Frank explains in his bio, \u201cThroughout his career Mr. Biden worked as an unpaid senior advisor on all of his brother Joe Biden\u2019s senatorial campaigns, culminating in the Presidential election of 2012. He is currently senior advisor to the former VP\u2019s 2020 political action committee.\u201d 172 During Joe\u2019s tenure as vice president, Frank frequently visited the White House. On May 1, 2014, Frank sat in on a small meeting with Barack Obama in the Oval Office. 173 In 2016, Frank was a guest at the Singapore State Dinner in the White House. 174<br \/>\n Frank\u2019s company, Sun Fund Americas, had ambitions beyond Costa Rica. The company states that it \u201cteams with governments and local partners and provides debt and equity financing, as well as world &#8211; class brands, operators and equipment suppliers\u201d for projects. 175 Here, too, Joe could help.<br \/>\n In June 2014, Vice President Joe Biden announced the launch of the Caribbean Energy Security Initiative (CESI). The program called for increasing access to financing for Caribbean energy projects that he strongly supported. American taxpayer dollars were dedicated to facilitating deals that matched U.S. government financing with local energy projects in Caribbean countries, including Jamaica. 176 In January 2015, Biden hosted CESI in Washington, D.C., bringing together leaders from across the region to discuss energy issues and in particular, renewable energy. 177 One primary focus of the conference was local and international dealmakers needing help to bring renewable energy projects to the Caribbean region. USAID announced that it would be spending $10 million to boost renewable energy projects in Jamaica over the next five years. 178<br \/>\n After Joe Biden brought together leaders for CESI, brother Frank\u2019s firm Sun Fund Americas announced that it was \u201cengaged in projects and is in negotiations with governments of other countries in the [Caribbean] region for both its Solar and Waste to Energy development services.\u201d 179 As if to push the idea along, the Obama administration\u2019s OPIC provided a $47.5 million loan to support the construction of a 20 &#8211; megawatt solar facility in Clarendon, Jamaica. When the deal was announced, U.S. ambassador to Jamaica Luis G. Moreno noted that the project \u201cwouldn\u2019t be possible without OPIC financing.\u201d 180<br \/>\n Frank Biden\u2019s Sun Fund Americas later announced that it had signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) to build a 20 &#8211; megawatt solar facility in Jamaica. 181<br \/>\n * * *<br \/>\n Many of Frank\u2019s commercial ventures sidecar with government initiatives driven by his famous brother, and so far, those described have been international.<br \/>\n Closer to home, one of Frank\u2019s largest business ventures involves education. Just as the lack of a background in large &#8211; scale real estate developments did not deter him in Costa Rica, and lack of a background in renewable energy did not deter him in Jamaica, lack of a professional background in education was no roadblock in Florida. In 2008, with his brother on the verge of becoming vice president, Frank became involved in the lucrative commercial real estate side of the charter school movement.<br \/>\n His older brother had a history of supporting charter schools in the U.S. Senate. Back in 2001, for example, he cosponsored the \u201cCharters and Choice\u201d bill, one of only eight Democrats to do so. 182 In the 2008 campaign, the Obama &#8211; Biden ticket had vowed to double funding for charter schools. 183 Charter schools are public schools established with taxpayer funding but, unlike traditional public schools, have greater flexibility in experimenting with different teaching models. Charter school methods have shown significant success in turning around some troubled public schools. 184<br \/>\n Beginning in 2009, there was a lot of taxpayer money available for starting charter schools. As part of the federal stimulus, the Obama &#8211; Biden administration made $5 billion available for \u201ceducation innovations,\u201d which opened the door to more charter schools. 185<br \/>\n Frank\u2019s interest was in the business side of the schools, in particular, the underlying real estate associated with them. He discovered early on that charter schools pay rent using taxpayer dollars. Managed correctly and with the right connections, this created profitable opportunities.<br \/>\n In Joe Biden\u2019s first year as vice president, Frank became involved with a for &#8211; profit management company for charter schools called Mavericks in Education Florida LLC. Frank says that his involvement grew out of a chance encounter in a coffee shop when he bumped into a South Florida businessman named Mark Rodberg.<br \/>\nMavericks built schools for at &#8211; risk students who had trouble in class. The schools themselves would be nonprofits, but Mavericks in Education Florida LLC would be a for &#8211; profit company that charged the schools management fees, while the related School Property Development LLC owned and charged high rents for their buildings. The funds would come from taxpayer money and federal grants. Whether the school failed or succeeded, the for &#8211; profit company owned the real estate assets. 186<br \/>\n It was not long before Frank was flying around Florida in a private jet, lobbying local politicians and school officials to allow Mavericks to manage charter schools in their communities. Eventually, he became president and director of development for the company. Whenever the company shared his biography for a business proposal, the fact that he was the brother of the vice president of the United States was in the first or second sentence. 187<br \/>\n \u201cI\u2019m a salesman,\u201d Frank said. \u201cI\u2019m nothing but a P. T. Barnum for these kids.\u201d 188<br \/>\n From 2009 to 2011, Mavericks opened eight schools in Florida. 189 When Mavericks set up a school in Fort Lauderdale, they acquired the building from a controversial Broward County power broker named Jesse P. Gaddis.<br \/>\n Known as \u201cFort Lauderdale\u2019s Taxi King,\u201d Gaddis \u201chad ties to mobsters and major drug smugglers.\u201d As a young man, Gaddis was charged and convicted of armed robbery, and went to jail. In a later case, he was charged with kidnapping and robbery, although the charges were eventually dropped. Authorities also investigated Gaddis in connection with a drug &#8211; smuggling operation in which his brother and business partner, Donald Gaddis, was killed. His brother was found in a shallow grave in southwest Florida. 190<br \/>\n The deal between Mavericks and Gaddis had extraordinarily lucrative terms for Gaddis: Gaddis exchanged the building for a $2 million promissory note attached to the mortgage at an initial interest rate of 12 percent (lowered to 10 percent in 2014). The term was originally for five years and was twice extended, in 2014 and 2017. The first extension reveals that the interest &#8211; only monthly payments for the note\u2019s second term were nearly $16,700. 191<br \/>\n Mavericks LLC was a business. \u201cAre there people making money in charter schools? Absolutely,\u201d Frank Biden explained in one interview. \u201cI don\u2019t apologize for them at all. Just run good schools for kids who need them.\u201d 192<br \/>\n Mavericks ran with its own unusual teaching model: students would interact with teachers for only a few hours a day. The rest of the time, they would sit in front of computers as part of self &#8211; directed learning. 193<br \/>\n According to the Florida Department of Education, the performance record of Mavericks Schools in Florida was abysmal. These were not what one would regard as \u201cgood schools for kids.\u201d The best &#8211; performing Mavericks school was in Kissimmee, near Disney World. The graduation rate at that school was just 43 percent in 2011. Things were worse at Mavericks\u2019 other Florida locations: in Largo, the graduation rate was an astonishing 7.2 percent; in Homestead, it was an incredible 4.5 percent. 194<br \/>\nThe schools continued to receive poor marks from state regulators. From 2009 to 2014, individual schools received \u201c \u2018declining\u2019 ratings three times and one F.\u201d 195<br \/>\n The graduation rates also did not really improve over time. In 2019, the Miami Herald reported continued basement &#8211; level performance. Mavericks High of North Miami Dade had a 9 percent graduation rate; Mavericks High of South Miami Dade was 13 percent. 196<br \/>\n Mavericks was also accused by state auditors in Florida of inflating their enrollment numbers. As the South Florida Sun Sentinel noted, \u201cIn South Florida, three probes released by the state Auditor General\u2019s office in 2013 and 2014 found Mavericks schools in Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, Palm Springs and Homestead were collecting dollars for students who did not attend the school and not teaching enough hours to meet state requirements.\u201d 197 Why inflate the enrollment numbers? The more students enrolled, the more taxpayer funding collected.<br \/>\n The key to understanding Frank Biden\u2019s business is that the real money was not in the operation of the schools themselves \u2014 but in the underlying real estate for charter schools. \u201cIt\u2019s all about the buildings we buy,\u201d he explained in another interview. \u201cCertainly the operation of the schools isn\u2019t profitable.\u201d 198<br \/>\n In addition to Mavericks in Education, Frank also became a partner in School Property Development, which provided \u201cbuilding services\u201d to charter schools and owned buildings connected to Mavericks. They were soon building charter schools in West Palm Beach, Royal Palm Beach, Glen Ridge, Pembroke Pines, and elsewhere in Florida. 199 He also lists himself as a partner in DelMarva LLC, based in Washington, D.C. \u201cThese entities are responsible for over 12 billion dollars in school financing placed with over 200 schools built and operated in Florida,\u201d reads his account. \u201cHis companies provide a turnkey, single source of responsibility to acquire, finance, design, build and lease K &#8211; 12 public schools.\u201d 200<br \/>\n The strategy was charging the schools high enough rent to pay off the mortgage on the property. In Homestead, Florida, for example, Mavericks\u2019 school building had a market value of just $1.2 million. The school was scheduled to pay $1.75 million in rent over just five years. 201 In short, the schools were a vehicle for School Property Development LLC to profit from buying or leasing real estate for rental by Mavericks in Education LLC. Because the schools were using taxpayer money and receiving grants to pay for the buildings, they were probably less concerned with the cost of rent.<br \/>\n By 2014, the Mavericks schools had received more than $70 million in state money. Nine million of that went to the management company. 202 As we will see, the Obama administration also lavished the failing Mavericks schools with federal grants.<br \/>\n During this time, Frank enjoyed access to the highest levels of the White House. Indeed, on May 1, 2014, he attended an education event at the White House with top education officials from the National Education Association. That day he was also in a small meeting of just ten people with President Barack Obama in the White House to talk about charter schools. Other participants included Stephen Bittel, a Florida real estate developer who would later become the chairman of the Florida Democratic Party. 203<br \/>\n Getting a charter school approved can be a tricky political feat. There is clearly going to be opposition from local teachers\u2019 unions, and some politicians are going to be suspicious of who is actually going to be running the school. Frank Biden had an advantage that other competitors did not have: a powerful and famous brother whose name he could leverage.<br \/>\n Frank dropped his brother\u2019s name and position to vouch for his honesty. When he appeared before the city commission of Sunrise, Florida, in 2015 to pitch a school, he casually explained who he was. According to the official minutes of the meeting, the recorder tells of Frank\u2019s testimony, saying, \u201cWhatever he [Frank] does, because of the honor of being the Vice President\u2019s brother, he has to watch himself. Whomever he was involved with was fully vetted.\u201d 204 He never explained exactly how his business activities were vetted and by whom. Was he simply making it up? It is impossible to know. Regardless of what explanation he might provide, he was capitalizing on his relationship as the vice president\u2019s brother to confer integrity to his company. In an instance several years earlier, he told skeptical local politicians that his school would work by \u201cinvoking his family\u2019s political power.\u201d \u201cI give you my word of honor, on my family name, that this system is sustainable,\u201d Frank said. \u201cThis school will be sustainable.\u201d Local officials approved the deal. 205<br \/>\n During the Obama presidency, Frank Biden\u2019s charter schools received millions of dollars in federal grants. These were \u201cdiscretionary grants\u201d given through the U.S. Department of Education\u2019s (DOE) State Educational Agencies (SEA) grant program. 206 Applications were filed with Education Department headquarters in Washington. 207 As of 2012, the department was sending each Mavericks school approximately $250,000 a year in taxpayer money. 208 In 2015, Mavericks schools received just under $2.7 million in grants from the DOE \u2014 an average of almost $300,000 per school. 209<br \/>\n Shortly after he announced his 2020 campaign for president, Joe Biden was on the campaign trail in Texas. He told a crowd, \u201cI do not support any federal money . . . for for &#8211; profit charter schools \u2014 period,\u201d Biden said to the crowd\u2019s approval. \u201cThe bottom line is it siphons off money from public schools, which are already in enough trouble.\u201d 210 He never mentioned Frank\u2019s profitable charter school businesses and, ironically, the legitimacy that his own name gave them.<br \/>\nOn June 4, 2019, presidential candidate Joe Biden released a campaign video announcing his views on how to deal with climate change. Joe explained that his plan provided for \u201can enormous opportunity to hold polluters accountable for the damage they\u2019ve caused, particularly in low &#8211; income communities and communities of color.\u201d 211<br \/>\n On the same day, about 1,600 miles from Joe, who was campaigning in New Hampshire, brother Frank stood before the assembled media in South Florida with a similar message. He, too, was making an announcement concerning pollution and \u201ccommunities of color.\u201d But Frank was part of a legal team that was suing twelve sugar growers in a class &#8211; action lawsuit. 212 The tenor was remarkably similar to what his brother had spoken about in his campaign video.<br \/>\n The Berman Law Group in South Florida hired Frank in 2018 to serve as a \u201cSenior Advisor.\u201d \u201cHe brings a prestigious combination of accomplishments and experience,\u201d the firm noted in a press release. They said of Frank, he is \u201chighly regarded in the business and government sectors\u201d and boasts \u201cone of the most respected names in the U.S. and abroad.\u201d 213<br \/>\n The Berman Law Group features as its director of government relations former Democratic Florida state senator Joseph Abruzzo, who had worked with then \u2013 vice president Joe Biden on legislation. 214<br \/>\n Frank had never filed a legal case before. On that day, the Berman firm filed a class &#8211; action lawsuit against the United States Sugar Corporation and eleven other defendants on behalf of poor minority residents in Belle Glade, Pahokee, and South Bay, Florida, who claimed that they had suffered health problems related to the burning of sugarcane fields. 215 To help make their case, the law firm released a six &#8211; and &#8211; a &#8211; half &#8211; minute video\/infomercial about the lawsuit. Frank figured prominently throughout and finished it off by walking with the group in slow motion, wearing black sunglasses, through a ring of fire while dramatic music played. 216<br \/>\n Biden\u2019s campaign video appeared to be perfectly synchronized with his brother\u2019s lawsuit.<br \/>\n When asked by a reporter at his press conference whether he had coordinated his announcement with that of his brother, Frank explained, \u201cThere was absolutely no coordination. It was serendipitous that Joe\u2019s environmental policy came out today. . . . Our thoughts are the same, but there was no coordination.\u201d 217<br \/>\n The environmental plan that Joe Biden unfurled in his campaign video had policy nuggets that would help Frank\u2019s businesses in very specific ways. Joe Biden\u2019s plan calls for strengthening international collaboration and investment in clean energy infrastructure in the Americas, and supplying clean energy across the entire Central American energy grid and in the Caribbean, which is of course what Frank was doing in the region. 218<br \/>\n Coordinated in this case or not, the overall pattern here is that the Biden family members see that Joe\u2019s vested public power is convenient for the creation of business opportunities for personal wealth.<br \/>\n It would be easier to dismiss these entanglements if they only involved one of the Bidens. The fact that it involves five family members indicates that there is a culture within the Biden family that trades off Joe\u2019s power. And Joe appears willing to act on their behalf whenever he can.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joe Biden gave oddly specific dates for his pardons for family members. A woman asked Mark Halperin this morning if we&#8217;ll get investigative journalism into the Biden family. Halperin noted that most investigative journalism is the result of gifts of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=158678\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42985,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biden","category-journalism"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t<!-- All in One SEO 4.9.10 - aioseo.com -->\n\t<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Joe Biden gave oddly specific dates for his pardons for family members. 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A woman asked Mark Halperin this morning if we'll get investigative journalism into the Biden family. Halperin noted that most investigative journalism is the result of gifts of information from investigators, so if the House of Representatives chooses to investigate the Biden family,","og:url":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=158678","og:image":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/lukesanta.jpg","og:image:secure_url":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/lukesanta.jpg","og:image:width":800,"og:image:height":600,"article:published_time":"2025-01-22T17:03:33+00:00","article:modified_time":"2025-01-22T19:49:34+00:00","article:publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/lukecford","twitter:card":"summary_large_image","twitter:site":"@lukeford","twitter:title":"Will We Get Investigative Journalism Into The Biden Family? - Luke Ford","twitter:description":"Joe Biden gave oddly specific dates for his pardons for family members. A woman asked Mark Halperin this morning if we'll get investigative journalism into the Biden family. Halperin noted that most investigative journalism is the result of gifts of information from investigators, so if the House of Representatives chooses to investigate the Biden family,","twitter:creator":"@lukeford","twitter:image":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/lukesanta.jpg"},"aioseo_meta_data":{"post_id":"158678","title":null,"description":null,"keywords":null,"keyphrases":{"focus":{"keyphrase":"","score":0,"analysis":{"keyphraseInTitle":{"score":0,"maxScore":9,"error":1}}},"additional":[]},"primary_term":null,"canonical_url":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"og_object_type":"default","og_image_type":"default","og_image_url":null,"og_image_width":null,"og_image_height":null,"og_image_custom_url":null,"og_image_custom_fields":null,"og_video":"","og_custom_url":null,"og_article_section":null,"og_article_tags":null,"twitter_use_og":false,"twitter_card":"default","twitter_image_type":"default","twitter_image_url":null,"twitter_image_custom_url":null,"twitter_image_custom_fields":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"schema":{"blockGraphs":[],"customGraphs":[],"default":{"data":{"Article":[],"Course":[],"Dataset":[],"FAQPage":[],"Movie":[],"Person":[],"Product":[],"ProductReview":[],"Car":[],"Recipe":[],"Service":[],"SoftwareApplication":[],"WebPage":[]},"graphName":"BlogPosting","isEnabled":true},"graphs":[]},"schema_type":"default","schema_type_options":null,"pillar_content":false,"robots_default":true,"robots_noindex":false,"robots_noarchive":false,"robots_nosnippet":false,"robots_nofollow":false,"robots_noimageindex":false,"robots_noodp":false,"robots_notranslate":false,"robots_max_snippet":"-1","robots_max_videopreview":"-1","robots_max_imagepreview":"large","priority":null,"frequency":"default","local_seo":null,"breadcrumb_settings":null,"limit_modified_date":false,"ai":null,"created":"2025-01-22 17:03:33","updated":"2025-06-06 01:51:18","seo_analyzer_scan_date":null},"aioseo_breadcrumb":"<div class=\"aioseo-breadcrumbs\"><span class=\"aioseo-breadcrumb\">\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\" title=\"Home\">Home<\/a>\n\t\t<\/span><span class=\"aioseo-breadcrumb-separator\">&raquo;<\/span><span class=\"aioseo-breadcrumb\">\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?cat=20\" title=\"Journalism\">Journalism<\/a>\n\t\t<\/span><span class=\"aioseo-breadcrumb-separator\">&raquo;<\/span><span class=\"aioseo-breadcrumb\">\n\t\t\tWill We Get Investigative Journalism Into The Biden Family?\n\t\t<\/span><\/div>","aioseo_breadcrumb_json":[{"label":"Home","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog"},{"label":"Journalism","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?cat=20"},{"label":"Will We Get Investigative Journalism Into The Biden Family?","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=158678"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=158678"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158689,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158678\/revisions\/158689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=158678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=158678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=158678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}