Report: Jim Biden Was in Business with Qatari Officials, According to Testimony

Hunter Biden was not the only family member who leveraged ties to President Joe Biden to win business deals with business partners linked to foreign governments, a Politico report details.

According to the outlet, Jim Biden, President Joe Biden’s brother, was in business with Qatari officials to fund his health care ventures in what would be “some of the closest known links between a Biden relative and a foreign government.”

Furthermore, according to public records and emails obtained by Politico, Jim Biden invoked his ties to his older brother and sought workarounds to restrictions on international money movements during these fundraising efforts.

Politico cited recent testimony by fund manager Michael Lewitt, a former business partner of Jim Biden’s, in a Kentucky bankruptcy court. Lewitt reportedly said in sworn testimony that two companies that facilitated Jim Biden’s efforts were part-owned by “members of the Qatari government.”

One company partnered directly with Jim Biden in multi-year fundraising efforts, and the second company provided financial backing for a series of loans that a hospital chain paid Jim Biden to arrange, according to documents and testimony submitted by Lewitt during the federal bankruptcy proceedings.

Jim Biden’s efforts to raise money from Qatari sources for ventures in the U.S. began “in the months” after his older brother left the vice presidency, the report said. Transactions related to the fundraising efforts are also “at the heart” of a recently-settled fraud case brought by the Securities Exchange Commission and are “being scrutinized as part of a federal criminal investigation in South Florida,” the report said.

Jim Biden had suggested to congressional investigations in February that his fundraising efforts “stalled for lack of viable projects to back,” but previously unreported testimony by Lewitt “indicates that Jim Biden forged closer ties to Qatar’s government than previously understood.” Lewitt is expected to testify to House impeachment inquiry investigators, Politico reported.

Joe Biden’s relationship with Qatar began around June 2017, when the country’s neighbors, led by Saudi Arabia, cut diplomatic ties with the country over its alleged support for terrorism, the report said. Qatar then began “showering well-connected Westerners with gifts and financial benefits, sometimes in the form of investment funding,” the report said.

File/ James Biden (R), brother of U.S. President Joe Biden, leaves the Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Federal Building after being deposed by the House Oversight Committee behind closed doors for more than eight hours on February 21, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty)

Jim Biden was working with troubled hospital chain Americore, and to raise money for the company, he teamed up with a company named Platinum Group, whose CEO was a Florida businessman named Amer Rustom who bragged about his ties to officials in the Middle East and Lewitt, a hedge fund manager, the report said.

“Together, Jim Biden, Rustom and Lewitt sought investment funding sources in the Middle East for Americore and other ventures,” Politico reported, citing federal court filings in Tennessee and emails. A former Americore executive said the fundraising efforts came to focus largely on Qatar. In August 2017, Biden and Rustom “workshopped a draft letter” to an official at Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, that read in part:

My family could provide a wealth of introductions and business opportunities at the highest levels that I believe would be worthy of the interest of His Excellency.

It also reportedly said, “On behalf of the Biden family, I welcome your interest here.”

Lewitt and a group of Platinum-related companies committed to raising $30 million for Americore, according to a SEC complaint later filed against Lewitt. Lewitt’s investment fund, Third Friday, then began making a series of bridge loans to Americore, to keep the company afloat until then, the report said.

Lewitt’s first bridge loan to Americore coincided with a payment from Americore to Jim Biden, the report said.

Biden said in testimony in February that the roughly $600,000 payments he received from Americore around that time were for his role in arranging the loans, and “many other services.”

In March 2018, Jim Biden transferred $200,000 of the payments in question to then-former Vice President Joe Biden. The White House has said it was a repayment of an unrelated loan.

Around that time, Jim Biden’s fundraising efforts gained steam, the report said. On March 10, Jim Biden’s wife Sara Biden emailed a draft investor presentation to Platinum Group executive Julie Lander that contained a “few minor revisions by Jim.” The presentation said America was seeking $30 million in financing to acquire hospitals, and described Jim Biden as ‘Brother and Campaign Finance Chair of former Vice President Joe Biden.'”

An email about a month later indicated that Jim Biden had met with a high-ranking Qatari official. Lander wrote in an email to Jim Biden, “I am following up from the meeting we had with the Minister.” She added, “Your approach with him was flawless. He requested more information on Americore.”

Lander’s email to Jim Biden came five days after a large delegation of Qatari officials and business leaders visited Miami. In the email, she suggested a potential request of $200 million, and asked Jim Biden to provide more information on the potential benefits to Qatar of an investment deal, the report said.

However, the anonymous Americore executive said the fundraising efforts hit some snags pertaining to moving investment funds across international borders. The former executive said that moving the money in gold bars was discussed. Another way to transfer the funds was depending on helping a payment processing company called Billerfly gain access to the U.S. banking system, the report said.

A draft presentation sent to Americore described Jim Biden as Billerfly’s “chief global banking emissary.”

Emails from Jim Biden showed frustration as fundraising efforts stalled. In a May 17 email to Americore CEO Grant White, Biden “vented about a flap” between them and implored White to provide more detailed information to investors, the report said. Jim Biden also wrote that Rustom and Lewitt were waiting on World Bank approval of their acquisition of a bank.

Jim Biden also expressed frustration with Rustom and the $30 million they said they would commit, writing, “Things have happened in the interim that are completely understandable, but the fact remains that the $5 million at this point in time is critical in order to get by for the big picture. ”

Lewitt in June 2018 wrote Jim Biden and Grant White about efforts to move money from Dubai to Qatar, and said, “Amer would like me to join Jim for the presentation to the Finance Minister in Doha so as soon as we have the date I will plan my travel.”

The former Americore executive reportedly said that Jim Biden and Lewitt did travel to Qatar in mid-2018 as part of the fundraising efforts, but it is not clear whether any meeting between Jim Biden and Qatar’s then-finance minister, Ali Sharif Al Emadi, took place. Al Emadi left his post in 2021 after he was arrested on suspicion of corruption. He was later convicted of charges including money laundering of more than $5 billion and sentence to 20 years in prison.

In July 2018, Jim Biden reportedly cut ties with White, which he said was due to Americore’s dependence on high-interest loans.

Lewitt the next month wrote Jim Biden to tell him that his fund would be repaid imminently for its loans to Americore with the money from Dubai.

Jim Biden continued to work with Lewitt and Rustom to secure financing for other health care ventures from the Qatar Investment Authority, the report said, citing to filings in a settled federal court case in Tennessee where Jim Biden, Lewitt, Rustom and Platinum Group USA were named as co-defendants.

The report said Jim Biden’s financial ties to Lewitt deepened, and that over the course of 2019, Jim Biden’s company, Lion Hall Group, received $225,000 from Third Friday, Lewitt’s investment fund. Jim Biden told Congress that the payments were loans that were later forgiven, the report said. Lewitt told Politico that the fund did not forgive his loans, and that Jim Biden’s debt was assumed by a third party but did not give the name of the third party.

Also during this time, a new business called Platinum Global Partners, LLC, was registered in Florida with Jim Biden, Sara Biden, Lewitt, Rustom, and Rustom’s brother Azzam Rustom, all listed as managers, the report said. Jim Biden later told Congress he was trying to land investment from Qatar for infrastructure projects and hotels. The company dissolved in 2020 and the venture petered out, Jim Biden told them.

“We weren’t able to show the financial bona fides of any one particular project,” Biden reportedly said. “We got pretty far down the road on several hotel complexes, but they never came to fruition.”

According to the report, the “third party” that assumed Jim Biden’s debt to Third Party appears to be a Delaware company named Obermeyer Engineering Consulting. In the course of Americore’s bankruptcy litigation, Lewitt produced an agreement between Third Friday and Obermeyer, which calls for Obermeyer to purchase Third Friday’s loans to Americore, as well as a 35 percent stake in the hospital chain for $30 million, according to the report. The agreement appears to include a signature from Azzam Rustom as Obermeyer’s “authorized signatory,” but Amer Rustom is contesting the validity of the contract, saying that he and his brother had never seen the contract before.

The Rustoms are also contesting the authenticity of signatures and documents that showed loans from Third Friday to the Platinum Group, saying the loans did not exist, Azzam Rustom has signed a declaration that said Lewitt had forged his signature on the loan documents. Lewitt was called to testify at the federal bankruptcy court in Lexington, Kentucky. Lawyers for Americore’s bankruptcy trustee accused Lewitt of perjury regarding the Platinum Group loans, and the judge is reportedly considering a potential criminal referral to the Justice Department, the report said.

During testimony, Lewitt said the Rustoms owned both the Platinum Group and Obermeyer with “members of the Qatari government,” and speculated that the brothers had not cleared the agreements with the Qatari officials. “I don’t think they expected these to become public,” Lewitt testified, adding, “I think they were trying to cover themselves.”

Judge Schaaf concluded, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire…and this is a black haze right now.”

In addition, in 2022, investors in Third Friday sued Lewitt, saying he embezzled their money through Americore to Jim Biden and others. The case remains ongoing. Politico noted that Third Friday’s loans to Americore, as well as other dealings involving Jim Biden, Lewitt, Rustom, and the Platinum Group, are being scrutinized in an “ongoing federal criminal investigation in South Florida. In April, Lewitt settled a fraud case brought by the SEC over the loans, and was banned from the security industry for five years.

Michael Caputo, a former senior Trump administration official, pointed out that Jim Biden would not be the first Biden family member to have financial links to a foreign government, in reference to Hunter Biden and his dealings with Chinese businessmen linked to the Chinese government.

Some observers on X suggested that President Joe Biden’s soft-handed approach to Qatar, where Hamas has its political headquarters, is linked to his brother’s business dealings with Qatar.

A research fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), Hussain abdul-Hussain, posted on X:

If there is ever a serious investigation, the list of influential Americans — incumbents, have beens and everyone in between — who are on the Qatari payroll, will take years to unveil. — Fund manager: Jim Biden was in business with Qatari officials

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