FBI secretly taped US President Biden’s brother James: Report

By Gozde Bayar

US President Joe Biden’s younger brother James Biden was secretly recorded by the FBI during a bribery investigation into a Mississippi trial attorney, a report said on Sunday.

In 2008, the FBI was investigating a Mississippi trial attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs in the bribery scandal when James Biden was recorded, according to the Washington Post.

The relationship between Scruggs and James Biden, 74, started years earlier when Scruggs paid $100,000 to James and his wife Sara's Washington consulting firm in 1998 to try and push support for a settlement against big tobacco, according to the report.

It said Scruggs was seeking $368 million in a deal with the tobacco companies for allegedly withholding negative information about their products. Scruggs oversaw the lawsuit but needed Congressional approval to wave antitrust provisions.

The bill never passed with then-Senator Joe Biden saying the tobacco industry used its influence to prevent Republicans from going along with it.

As FBI agents circled in on Scruggs and his associates over a plan to deliver $40,000 in bribes to a local judge, they also secretly recorded conversations with James Biden who was trying to create a consulting firm with the Scruggs partners, the report said.

Neither James Biden nor his brother was charged or accused of wrongdoing in the case, which led to prison for Scruggs and several of his associates, including James Biden’s would-be partners.

Much of the material related to James Biden in the Mississippi case is not available in court files, but the recordings, transcripts and other material were collected by Curtis Wilkie, who wrote a 2010 book about Scruggs, The Fall of the House of Zeus, which reported a number of details about the Biden connections.

The report said that the White House did not respond to a list of questions from The Washington Post about President Biden’s action on the tobacco legislation and, more broadly, on his relationship with his brother and whether he has ever used his public position to help him financially.