James Biden said Joe was on call with now-bankrupt hospital firm: report

President Biden’s younger brother James said the future president was sitting right next to him during a business call about a now-bankrupt hospital business James allegedly fleeced, according to a new report — mirroring first son Hunter Biden’s infamous assertion to a Chinese businessman in July 2017 that he was “sitting here with my father” in a shakedown text message. 

Joe Biden also met with the founder of Americore Health Enterprises before it went belly-up — harming its rural patients in the process — and he was at one point penciled in for an equity stake, according to a new report from Politico.

Current presidential physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor even participated in a business meeting at a Pennsylvania hospital with James Biden after the facility was acquired by Americore.

James Biden, 74, is expected to be grilled on details of his dealings and Joe Biden’s potential involvement during a Wednesday deposition before the House impeachment inquiry, which is also likely to probe Joe Biden’s role in his brother’s business ventures in countries including China, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) revealed bank records in October showing James Biden paid $200,000 to brother Joe on March 1, 2018, the same day he received a matching amount from Americore in exchange for working his political connections to help secure the hospital chain a Middle Eastern investor.

An earlier $400,000 payment was made to James Biden by Americore on Jan. 12, 2018.

US Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.), who served as the state’s revenue secretary from 2011 to 2015, has asked the IRS to investigate the loan repayment.

In total, James Biden received $600,000 in loans from the company the year before it folded, according to a July 2022 bankruptcy filing, with the first brother’s taking the money “based upon representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors.’”

The first brother’s wife, Sara, prepared investor presentations and his son, James, produced a video pitch for Americore — while the president’s son Hunter met with its CEO, according to the testimony of a former executive and emails reported by Politico.

James Biden also reportedly fired Americore’s CFO, Tony Sudduth, shortly after the March 2018 payment for not putting together financial statements ahead of a pitch to investors.

Sudduth had declined to finalize any report in the belief that he lacked sufficient information about the company’s debts and revenues — and the firm’s business model was based on upcharges for lab testing, one person familiar with the ousting told Politico.

The ex-CFO later threatened James Biden in an email demanding severance, which read: “I am pretty sure Americore’s partners would not welcome a public battle that will ultimately disclose and expose the complete workings of the organization.”

Founded by the Canadian entrepreneur Grant White, Americore was presented as a venture to help rural hospitals in Kentucky and Pennsylvania with drug rehabilitation, lab testing and even cancer treatments — a focus of Biden during his latter years at the Obama White House, particularly following the death of his son Beau in May 2015.

Other former executives who spoke with Politico mentioned that James had wanted to place his brother Joe on the board of the company — and promote its success in a potential 2020 presidential run.

“This would help his brother get elected if it were to take off and go,” one former executive said.

A 2019 lawsuit filed by some of its disgruntled investors, which was later settled, also disclosed text messages between associates of James Biden who believed the firm was “protected” because of his “connections.”

As a presidential candidate that year, Joe Biden said, “I have never discussed with my son, or my brother, or anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses, period.”

It’s unclear from what Middle Eastern nation James Biden sought investments, but he had pursued other business in Saudi Arabia during the same time period.

Emails found on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop show that for a period in August 2017, James Biden had sought backing from the Qatar Investment Authority and shared a draft of a letter to one of its officials, Khaled Sultan Al Rabban, with Hunter Biden.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has since alleged that one of the first brother’s business partners engaged in a fraudulent loan scheme in relation to Americore.

An ongoing Justice Department probe into the Pennsylvania hospital also alleges that it was involved in a conspiracy to defraud Medicare of $100 million by billing unnecessary lab tests, a source familiar with the case told Politico.

At least one defendant, who received kickback money as a part of that scheme, has since pleaded guilty.

The US Department of Labor, then-Pennsylvania attorney general Josh Shapiro and a local prosecutor also opened investigations into the Ellwood City medical center.

James Biden was considered one of the leaders of the Pennsylvania hospital and secured regulatory approval to acquire it from Shapiro, now the state’s Democratic governor and a prominent campaign surrogate for Joe Biden, according to emails reported by Politico.

The effort was bolstered by the involvement of O’Connor, a retired US Army colonel who served as Joe’s physician during his vice presidency and treated Beau during his final illness.

James Biden also believed that Americore could win future contracts from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, executives told Politico, given that “his brother was very interested in rural health care and very interested in veterans’ health care and it was something he really wanted to get behind.”

The first brother has disputed the characterization made by former associates and said his remarks were misrepresented during negotiations about the venture.

But a new email quoted in Politico’s report matches his opportunistic tone.

“This would be a perfect platform to expose my Brothers [sic] team to [your] protocol,” James Biden wrote to a Tampa-based CEO of a firm with licensing rights to an experimental cancer treatment that Americore sought. “Could provide a great opportunity for some real exposure.”

Paul Fishman, an attorney for James Biden, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement to Politico, Fishman said his client “conducted himself ethically and honorably in all his business dealings.”

The White House, which has maintained the $200,000 payment from the president’s brother was a personal loan, did not respond to a request for comment.

“I was sold that Americore was going to be the salvation of rural hospitals,” one former executive told Politico. “The whole thing was a scam, and it didn’t take that long to figure it out.”