James Biden Recorded on FBI Bribery Probe Tapes in 2008

The House Oversight investigation into President Joe Biden and his family’s influence-peddling schemes digs all the way back to ties to the late-’90s big tobacco settlement, including James Biden’s deal-working caught on FBI tapes in an unrelated 2008 bribery scheme.

James Biden’s deal-making getting picked up on FBI tapes in 2008, as The Washington Post reported Sunday, are resurfacing amid the House Oversight investigation and the official impeachment inquiry.

Mississippi trial attorney Richard Scruggs admitted to paying James and Sara Biden’s “consulting firm” $100,000 to help grease the wheels for the Senate to pass a 1997 big tobacco law that would ultimately fail. James Biden was key, because he was the brother of then Senate Judiciary Ranking Member Joe Biden.

Then-Sen. Joe Biden began as one of the bill’s most vocal opponents before he flipped to be one of its staunchest defenders, according to the report, although it never did pass.

“I probably wouldn’t have hired him if he wasn’t the senator’s brother,” Scruggs told the Post.

“Jim was never untoward about his influence. He didn’t brag about it or talk about it. He didn’t have to. He was the man’s brother.”

Scruggs did not need the law to pass to enrich himself. The $248 billion Big Tobacco settlement in 1998 would ultimately net Scruggs and his firm between $300 million and $400 million, according to the Post.

Scruggs told the Post he was unaware if James Biden spoke to then Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., “but I hope he did.”

That $100,000 payment is a piece of the House Oversight investigation into the Biden family’s influence-peddling schemes.

The White House declined to comment to the Post on Joe Biden’s actions on the big tobacco legislation, but the lawyer for James and Sara Biden denied having spoke with the senator about it.

“Jim Biden’s consulting work has never involved speaking with or providing access to his brother for this or any other client,” Paul Fishman told the Post.

The 2008 FBI investigation into a Scruggs bribery of a judge circled around James Biden’s deal-making, but it never charged James or Sara Biden. Scruggs and James Biden’s would-be associates did do prison time, according to the Post.

“More than 15 years ago, Jim and Sara Biden had serious discussions about starting a firm that would provide legal and consulting services,” Paul Fishman emailed the Post in a statement when asked about the ties to the 2008 bribery bust.

“That venture never got off the ground. Jim and Sara were not aware of or involved in any unethical or illegal behavior.”

Scruggs served prison time after the FBI bust, but he is not breaking from support for the Bidens.

“I have some empathy with Jim and Hunter Biden and, I hate to say it, even the Trump kids,” Scruggs told the Post. “It’s really difficult for the close relative or particularly the sons of prominent men to make it on their own.

“Anything they do on their own, people say, Well, it’s because their daddy helped them. My own son, for example, had to live in my shadow, for better or worse, and it got him in trouble.

“So I’m a little empathetic with the sons and daughters of prominent people. They have a cross to bear that nobody else has.”