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A former enterprise associate of Jim Biden’s is disputing an account the president’s brother gave to Congress about a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} in loans his firm obtained.
Biden instructed congressional investigators that fund supervisor Michael Lewitt forgave $225,000 in loans to Biden’s agency, in line with a transcript of his Feb. 21 testimony launched Friday.
However Lewitt, who beforehand labored with Jim Biden to finance a hospital chain, instructed POLITICO that he didn’t forgive the loans. As an alternative, he mentioned, a 3rd occasion, which he declined to call, assumed Jim Biden’s debt. Lewitt mentioned he believes the mortgage assumption occurred in early 2020.
Lewitt’s statements indicate that Jim Biden’s firm obtained a six-figure bailout from an unnamed benefactor whereas his brother was operating for president.
It comes on the heels of a POLITICO investigation that discovered Jim Biden invoked his brother’s title to advance his work with the hospital chain, which has since been accused by the federal authorities of taking part in a large conspiracy to defraud Medicare.
A lawyer for Jim Biden reaffirmed his unique testimony in regards to the loans.
“Jim’s understanding stays that the loans from Michael Lewitt have been forgiven,” Paul Fishman, a associate at Arnold & Porter, mentioned in a press release to POLITICO. “He’s unaware of any discover on the contrary.”
Investigators from the Republican-led Home Oversight and Judiciary committees, that are pursuing an impeachment inquiry targeted on the primary household’s enterprise dealings, zeroed in on Americore and Lewitt throughout final month’s interview of Jim Biden.
Lewitt’s Third Friday Fund transferred $225,000 to Jim Biden’s firm, Lion Corridor Group, over the course of a number of months in 2019, in line with financial institution data cited within the interview transcript. Jim Biden instructed investigators that his spouse Sara Biden is his associate in Lion Corridor, in line with the transcript.
He described the transfers as loans, in line with the transcript, and mentioned Lewitt forgave the loans, although he mentioned he couldn’t recall when.
Requested in regards to the transfers, Lewitt contradicted Jim Biden’s testimony. “I can affirm my fund made these loans,” he wrote in an e-mail, “however they weren’t forgiven they have been assumed by a 3rd occasion and might be repaid to my fund.”
Lewitt declined to call the third occasion, saying its id was “personal.” Requested about documentation of the mortgage assumption, he responded, “Can’t say it was documented.”
The transfers, which have been disclosed for the primary time in Friday’s transcript launch, got here amid a yearslong affiliation between Jim Biden and Lewitt that has come beneath rising scrutiny in latest months.
Starting round 2017, Jim Biden, Lewitt and Florida businessperson Amer Rustom, who has boasted of ties to officers within the Center East, started pursuing enterprise alternatives collectively.
The group got down to safe funding, together with from sources in Qatar, for a wide range of well being care and different ventures.
A type of ventures was Americore, an operator of rural hospitals that has since collapsed and been accused by the federal authorities of sprawling Medicare fraud.
Jim Biden helped prepare loans from Lewitt’s fund to Americore, starting in early 2018.
Questions on whether or not Jim Biden has obtained monetary assist from individuals looking for favor together with his brother have dogged him since he obtained loans to start out a Delaware nightclub throughout President Joe Biden’s first Senate time period within the Nineteen Seventies.
POLITICO’s investigation of Americore, printed final month, included accounts from a number of individuals concerned within the enterprise who mentioned that Jim Biden invoked his brother’s clout to advance the enterprise or raised the prospect that Joe Biden would contain himself within the firm.
On the time, representatives for Jim Biden declined to reply to POLITICO’s questions in regards to the matter, however in his congressional interview, Jim Biden disputed every of these accounts.
“I’ll have talked about my brother’s title occasionally, however I by no means did it within the, you recognize — what you are inferring is that I attempted to make use of it as a lever or affect,” he mentioned, in line with the transcript.
Jim Biden was requested to sq. his statements with a 2018 e-mail to the CEO of a medical agency being courted for a licensing cope with Americore, during which he provided to “expose my brother’s group to your protocol.”
Jim Biden recommended that the e-mail recipient may need introduced up Joe Biden first.
“They might have queried me, ‘Is he your brother?’ And I would say, you recognize, ‘Sure, he is my brother,’” he mentioned, in line with the transcript. “I am very happy with my brother, and I am happy with his public service.”
Jim Biden minimize ties with Americore in mid-2018 and instructed congressional investigators that the agency’s CEO hid particulars of its funds from him.
In 2022, a Florida businessperson, Daniel Damage, pleaded responsible in federal courtroom in Pennsylvania to his function in an enormous Medicare fraud during which he admitted to receiving kickbacks from an Americore hospital outdoors of Pittsburgh. POLITICO reported final month that the case stays open.
It’s one in every of a number of ongoing authorized proceedings associated to the hospital chain, which filed for chapter in 2019.
Final September, the SEC sued Lewitt for fraud, alleging that his loans to the corporate violated his fund’s insurance policies. Lewitt has denied wrongdoing, and the case stays ongoing. In December, Home Republicans despatched a letter looking for testimony to Lewitt, who beforehand instructed POLITICO he plans to disclose to Congress “all the pieces I do know.”
No interview date has been introduced.
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