Who is Joe Biden's brother Jim? A look at his scandalous past as he rebuffs questions about Hunter's China deals
Joe Biden's family matters now seem to be a storm in a teacup. The Democratic presidential nominee was targeted on social media after news websites said his son Hunter Biden allegedly sent “thousands of dollars” to people who may have been involved in Eastern European prostitution and sex trafficking rings citing a report released on September 23, 2020, by Senate Republicans. Since then, the chatter on social media hasn't stopped.
A few days later, in October 2020, the New York Post published an article concerning a laptop found in a computer repair shop, and which the shop owner claimed to have belonged to Hunter. The documents were soon linked to business deals with China. Since then, a number of questions have been raised about whether that story is accurate and if all the information allegedly on the laptop is authentic.
Now, James Brian Biden — more popularly known as Jim Biden — has been thrust into the limelight after a Fox News reporter stopped by his doorstep and hurled a bunch of questions from the street. Seven years younger than Joe, Jim lives at a house in Maryland. Approached at his residence on the Eastern Shore, he repeatedly rebuffed questions in his driveway and said, “I don’t want to comment about anything.”
Tony Bobulinski and the “plausible deniability” claim
The questions from the reporter were connected to his company Sinohawk founded with his nephew Hunter. Set up with three other people, it included his family friend Rob Walker, British businessman James Gilliar, and former Navy lieutenant and businessman Tony Bobulinski. Recently, Bobulinski, their former business associate, told Tucker Carlson of Fox News in an exclusive interview that the former vice president's denials of knowledge or involvement in his son's foreign dealings were “a blatant lie.” Back in 2017, when Bobulinski raised concerns to Jim about Joe's alleged ties to a possible joint venture with a Chinese energy firm, the family played it cool. “I remember saying, ‘How are you guys getting away with this?’ ‘Aren't you concerned?’” he told Carlson, adding that Jim chuckled. “Plausible deniability. He said it directly to me in a cabana at the Peninsula Hotel,” Bobulinski said.
Soon after, Tucker Carlson said that the “damning” Hunter Biden documents had mysteriously vanished and were lost. The Biden campaign has refused to engage in any questions about the Bobulinski allegations, which first aired hours before the presidential debate on October 22, 2020.
Who is Jim Biden?
Born to parents Catherine Eugenia “Jean” Biden and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr, Jim was raised alongside his siblings — Joe Biden, [Mary] Valerie Biden Owens and Francis William “Frank” Biden. Married to Sara Biden, Jim has been at his older brother’s side at every critical juncture in his professional and personal life.
A ProPublica report reveals hard times kept the family close. “We could fight among ourselves inside the house, but we were not allowed to say a single syllable against a sibling on the outside,” Joe once said. One family friend said the Bidens’ struggles “rubbed off on how each of the boys were wired. With Joe it translated into, ‘I want respect.’ With Jimmy it translated into, ‘I want money.’”
As a student at local public schools, he was “aloof and had, perhaps, a bit of an attitude,” said classmate Steven Bennett. “Good luck in Senior High,” Jim wrote in Bennett’s junior high yearbook. “You’ll need it.” Jim studied at the University of Delaware over four semesters but did not earn a degree there, according to a university spokesperson. At the age of 22, Biden was the finance chairman of his then 29-year-old brother's bid for a US Senate seat in Delaware and successfully enlisted the support of national unions, political leaders and financiers across the country, his bio in a press release read. Following the first campaign, Jim obtained his securities, insurance and real estate licenses and began consulting with national business leaders and developers.
Jim went into the nightclub business soon after Joe’s first Senate victory and started a restaurant-lounge named Seasons Change with funding from Wilmington’s Farmers Bank. He then opened another club called The Other Side. “They had a helluva run for a couple of years,” recalled Bob Bowersox, a band booker for both clubs who now runs a theater company in Key West, Florida. At that time, he and a partner borrowed $300,000 from First Pennsylvania Bank of Philadelphia. Sadly, it made little or no profit. “I was a naive kid is what it was,” Jim told the Sunday News Journal in Wilmington in 1977. Seasons Change was shut down in 1978 with more than half a million dollars in debts.
During Joe’s presidential campaign in 2007, a Biden aide said, Jim “raised almost no money. He came in at the end when we were the most desperate.” When probed further, the insider said it was because of “family tensions.” At the same time, “There were always questions around Jimmy’s business dealings — what kind of blowback would there be for the campaign?”
Active in the National Association of State Treasurers, he was a founding member of the Steering Committee for the Native American/Corporate America Business Conference and served as a featured panelist of the first African Leaders Roundtable sponsored by the African Presidential Archives and Research Center (APARC) at Boston University. In 2010, Jim joined Hill International's subsidiary HillStone International, LLC as Executive Vice President. Soon after, the company landed a deal to build homes in Iraq and several rumors at the time suggested it was with Joe's help.
What is Jim Biden's net worth?
“A source with knowledge of Jim Biden’s finances said that he and his wife, Sara, have sometimes failed to pay their taxes on time because “they are largely self-employed and sometimes have an unclear picture of how their year will end financially,” but that they have always paid in full, including interest and penalties,” the ProPublica report read.
The same report details: “In December 2013, Jim and Sara Biden invested $2.5 million in a luxury vacation home on Keewaydin Island near Naples, Florida. The six-bedroom house can only be reached by boat, and Joe Biden vacationed there when he was vice president. While Jim and Sara Biden racked up renovation debts, the IRS slapped them with another $589,000 lien for unpaid 2013 federal taxes.” Nonetheless, James has seen his high times; in 2012, he reportedly had an estimated net worth of $7 million.
In the wake of the 2020 elections, Jim “is trying very hard to stay out of the limelight.” Shedding light on his loyalty that springs from strong family ties, an adviser revealed: “For all his — let me find a kind word for it — entrepreneurship, Jimmy understands that he needs to keep his business separate from Joe’s career. Whether his relationships with unions, treasurers, law firms are the result of people who want to be nice to Jimmy because he’s Joe’s brother, that’s a thankless position to be in.”