A new book outlines how President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, and Biden’s younger brother, Jim, profited by using their politician relative’s name and influence.
Jim Biden’s “job,” a former business partner said, was to “ensure the lifestyle is good for the family,” and Hunter Biden later joined forces with his uncle, author Ben Schreckinger reveals in his new book, “The Bidens: Inside the First Family’s Fifty-Year Rise to Power.”
In an excerpt of the book published in The New York Post Monday, Schreckinger explains how Hunter and Jim Biden angled their way into the hedge fund business, along with Jim’s friend Anthony Lotito in 2006, while Joe Biden was getting ready to seek the Democrat presidential nomination.
Lotito testified in court proceedings that Jim had called him because Hunter’s job as a lobbyist for William Oldaker, a campaign counsel and treasurer for his father, would be a problem for the campaign.
Jim and Hunter both denied the call took place with Lotito, but the three of them decided to open a hedge fund and decided on Paradigm Global Advisors, founded by James Park, who had been married to a daughter of the religious leader Sun Myung Moon.
Jim and Hunter Biden offered to buy out the company for $21 million, giving Hunter a new job as CEO of Paradigm, writes Schreckinger.
The former chief compliance officer of Paradigm Global Advisors, whose name was not reported, told Schreckinger that the Bidens showed up with another family member, Beau Biden, and “a couple of large men” and ordered the executive to fire firm president Stephane Farouze.
At that time, Jim Biden and Lotito were the co-owners of Americore International Security, which employed private security guards and a “director of cabaret security,” who oversaw the protection of nightclubs.
The executive said Jim Biden told him not to worry about investors, because “we’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden,” the book says.
Beau Biden, who died in 2015, was then in his first attorney general’s race, and the executive recalled he was angry with what his uncle said, and told him “this is not why we are making this investment. This can never leave this room. And if you ever say it again, I will have nothing to do with this.”
Farouze did not respond to calls for contact and a lawyer for the Bidens denied that the episode took place.
Schreckinger further wrote, however, that Beau Biden followed in his father’s footsteps while Hunter followed in those of Jim Biden seeking money. Hunter sought to enlist Joe Biden’s political allies, and “during their time at the helm of the firm, the Bidens were learning to tap the global demand for business partnerships with the relatives of a powerful American official,” the book says.
At that time, Joe Biden was the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and became its chairman a few months later when the Democrats took control of the senate.
But Hunter and Jim Biden “found themselves in over their heads” at Paradigm, as the company had just some of the assets under management and not the amount they claimed to have.
They also learned that the attorney brought on for the acquisition, John Fasciana, had been convicted the year before on counts of mail and wire fraud, and backed out of the deal, causing them to lose more than $1 million.
The Bidens, though, still wanted the company and offered Park an $8 million IOU, which he accepted.
Park stayed on, but the chief compliance officer said the collaboration was complicated because Park and Hunter were using cocaine heavily during work and after hours.
Lotito sued Jim and Hunter in January 2007, saying they had gone behind his back to acquire the firm and claiming his former partners had used their political connections “as a basis for disclaiming the obligation.”
“The Bidens threatened to use their alleged connections with a former United States Senator to retaliate against counsel for insisting that his bill be paid, claiming that the former senator was prepared to use his influence with a federal judge to disadvantage counsel in a proceeding then pending before that court,” Lotito claimed.
The case was eventually settled, but Lotito’s lawsuit came when Biden was preparing to announce his second try for the White House.
