TRUTH behind Biden's claim he got 'first job offer' from Idaho lumber firm Boise Cascade
President Joe Biden has once again made waves for sharing memories that did not happen. This time, he claimed at a wildfire-focused event in Idaho that his “first job offer” came from Boise Cascade, a local lumber and wood-products business.
Speaking at the event on Monday, the 46th POTUS claimed that he regularly spoke of the job offer with his Senate colleague from Idaho, the late Democratic Senator Frank Church. However, the company said it has "no record" of ever interviewing Biden or making him an offer. Earlier this month, we reported the truth behind the President's claim that he visited the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill following the murder of 11 people in an anti-semitic attack in 2018. In February, we reported how he claimed he was once arrested by Capitol Police after trespassing into Senate chambers at the age of 21.
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“I used to tell Frank Church this, I got a — my first job offer, where I wanted — my wife, deceased wife and I wanted to move to Idaho because we — not a joke — it’s such a beautiful, beautiful state. And I interviewed for a job at Boise Cascade,” Biden said. “And in the meantime, there was a war going on. Anyway. But the whole point was that I used to always kid Frank.”
However, Boise Cascade's spokesperson Lisa Tschampl told the New York Post, “We have no record of President Biden’s application or of him having worked for the company," insisting that “we checked our system internally and nothing has turned up.”
The newspaper was unable to find any prior record of Biden speaking of the company, even after scouring through news clippings archived by the Nexis and Factiva databases. In Biden's 2007 memoir 'Promises to Keep', he does not mention the company, let alone a desire to move to Idaho. Furthermore, it's unclear how the Idaho job application to a lumber firm would fit into the Democrat leader's Delaware centric legal and political career.
Joe Biden says his “first job offer” was from Idaho lumber company Boise Cascade.
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 13, 2021
The company told the @nypost they have “no record” of him. pic.twitter.com/hlXcHupJwl
According to the Post, Biden graduated from Syracuse University’s law school in 1968 and was granted a medical draft deferment from the ongoing Vietnam War due to a history of asthma. He subsequently became a law clerk and public defender in Delaware before landing a position with the New Castle County Council in 1970.
According to his biography, Biden's late ex-wife Neilia, whom he married in 1966 while in still in law school, moved to Delaware in 1968 shortly after he earned his degree. Recalling his final year in law school, Biden noted how “Neilia and I still hadn’t settled on where we were going to live, so I hadn’t accepted a job.” His father in Wilmington, Delaware had set him up for a meeting with a local judge, who then referred him to a lawyer whose firm offered him a job. Biden was elected to the US Senate in 1972, and Neilia tragically died in a car crash shortly after his victory.
Tschampl said it was possible that Biden sought employment with Boise Cascade and those records were lost when the company dropped their projects in industries related to concrete, plastics, and textile. “We had a diverse portfolio in the 60s and early 70s… so my guess is any records have been purged or transferred for the businesses/projects we are no longer involved in,” she said. “I would not want to speculate about what type of role he may have applied for in 1972. Today we are a wood products manufacturer and wholesale distributor of building materials.”
Nonetheless, Biden has a history of making inaccurate or embellished claims. In 1988, he dropped out of his first presidential campaign after being accused of plagiarising speeches and even a law school paper. He was also embroiled in controversy for dubious claims he made about his academic record at the time.
Meanwhile, the 78-year-old President's mental acuity has also been frequently debated. Earlier this month, Biden falsely claimed that he spent time at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh after the October 2018 mass murder of 11 people. When the synagogue clarified that he did not visit, the White House attempted to defend the commander-in-chief saying he was referring to a 2019 phone call with the congregation’s rabbi.
Another erroneous statement came last year when Biden claimed he “had the great honor of being arrested” in South Africa when he was “trying to get to see [Nelson Mandela] on Robbens Island,” where the South African leader was incarcerated until 1990. Biden even said Mandela thanked him for the visit, only to later retract his claims and admit they were untrue.