— First brother James Biden confirmed during his impeachment inquiry testimony that a $40,000 check made out to former Vice President Joe Biden in 2017 used funds James received from a Chinese government-linked company — while James also revealed he received overseas income as recently as last year.
James, 74, insisted that he didn’t believe the company, CEFC China Energy, was controlled by Beijing — claiming that “I just misspoke” when telling the IRS in a 2022 interview that first son Hunter Biden, who was partnering with his uncle, had described CEFC chairman Ye Jianming as a “protégé” of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Where did you believe the source of the money that was going into [Hunter Biden’s company] Owasco, prior to being sent to you, was coming from?” an investigator asked James during the Feb. 21 interview.
“CEFC,” James conceded — following an extended back-and-forth in which the first brother’s attorney Paul Fishman tried to argue that “money’s fungible” before being reminded by a House staffer that James “did not have sufficient funds” to make the $40,000 alleged loan repayment on his own, “so it is traceable.”
The interview also established that James Biden received $840,000 over four transfers between November 2022 and July 2023 from Argentinian businessman Jose Luis Manzano, which the first brother said came from selling half of his stake in Manzano’s holding of Argentinian natural gas company Metrogas.
“It was sweat equity, mainly, in dealing with him in terms of his other ventures,” James told the investigators, saying Manzano asked him to woo Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim to invest in 4G in Argentina, an attempt that was unsuccessful.
Read the full story at the New York Post.
