President Biden has long attempted to distance himself from his family’s business dealings as he ran for and eventually became president, but a new report details just how involved those in the president’s inner circle have been in Biden family ventures.
Biden has shared a personal bookkeeper with this son, Hunter Biden, a personal lawyer with this brother, Jim Biden, and the former head of then-Vice President Biden’s Secret Service detail helped Jim Biden investigate a potential Chinese business partner, according to a report from Politico.
While the Bidens have long said they observe strict "firewalls" when it comes to discussing business with each other, the Politico report details just how involved those in the president’s orbit have been in dealings with Hunter and Jim Biden.
In one case, the president’s brother, Jim Biden, hired the head of the former vice president’s Secret Service detail, Dale Pupillo, to investigate a Chinese executive the president’s son, Hunter Biden, was traveling to meet in 2017.
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The president’s brother stressed during the February impeachment inquiry that he personally commissioned the investigation into the executive so that he was not going into the situation blind, but insisted he did not know the details of the potential venture being led by his nephew.
"I wanted to know who I was meeting with and if there were any complications at all," he said at the impeachment interview, noting that it was common in the Biden family to keep the details of business dealings away from each other.
The executive, Patrick Ho, was later arrested and convicted on federal corruption charges.
The Politico report notes that Jim Biden had a long habit of tapping those connected to his powerful older brother. In one case, in 1975, during Joe Biden’s first Senate term, Jim Biden secured a loan from the senator’s old law firm, Walsh, Monzack & Owens, to help fund his nightclub business.
One of those partners, Mel Monzack, has gone on to serve as the president’s personal attorney and campaign treasurer. Monzack’s current firm has also served as the registered agent for the president’s personal S Corporation, CelticCapri, which handles income from activities such as writing and speaking fees.
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Monzack has also served as Jim Biden’s personal attorney, helping to negotiate a proposed deal that would have given the president’s brother’s company a 35% stake in the Americore hospital chain.
While the deal fell through, Monzack’s involvement raised questions, though Jim Biden has insisted he does not have knowledge of the attorney’s arrangement with President Biden.
"I don’t have the full depth of what he does or doesn’t do," he said in February. "But I know that he’s intricately involved and has been, you know, for the last 40 or 50 years."
Another close associate of President Biden, body man Fran Person, stayed involved with Hunter Biden after leaving government in 2014. Emails showed that Person, who the Bidens have said became like a son to them over the course of Joe Biden’s service in the Senate and as vice president, pitched Hunter Biden on a plan to develop SeaWorld parks in China in a deal between Person’s business and the state-owned Chinese Development Bank in 2015.
WhatsApp messages that were revealed as part of an IRS investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax matters also showed conversations between Person and Hunter Biden, including conversations in which Person told Hunter Biden his Chinese business partner, Bo Zhang, was eager to help the president’s son overcome his growing financial troubles.
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The Politico report also detailed the role another Hunter Biden business partner, personal bookkeeper Eric Schwerin, played in the family, with President Biden leaning on the bookkeeper to handle his own finances.
Nevertheless, Schwerin testified during the impeachment inquiry that there was no intermingling between the president and his son’s finances.
The connection between the president’s orbit and his family even extended to President Biden’s personal physician, Army doctor Kevin O’Connor. O’Connor served as then-Vice President Biden’s personal physician and grew close to Biden throughout his time in the Biden administration. The doctor now serves as Biden’s White House physician, the report notes.
In between those two roles, the president’s brother, Jim Biden, sought O’Connor’s help as part of his proposed Americore deal. According to the report, the president’s brother wanted to partner with the Veterans Affairs Department "to use vacant space at rural hospitals to treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder."
The White House did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.
