Now-first brother James Biden was hired to help a Philadelphia construction company resolve a decades-old dispute with the Saudi government because he was the sibling of then-Vice President Joe Biden, court documents reveal.
The 2017 admission by James Biden, referenced in two affidavits from May 2021, is certain to draw the attention of the GOP-led House Oversight Committee as it investigates the first family’s influence-peddling dating back years.
The affidavit, first obtained by DailyMail.com, was filed in a dispute between the construction company, Hill International, and one of three law firms it hired to help claw back approximately $140 million the Saudis owed for a desalinization plant built by a Hill subsidiary in the 1980s.
That firm, Lankford & Reed, claims that Hill International also hired James Biden, now 73, in 2011 to negotiate a secret deal with the Saudis to settle the dispute – and get out of paying Lankford the 40% cut outlined in their contract.
In July 2017, Thomas Sullivan, a former Treasury Department official-turned-private investigator hired by Lankford, drove to James Biden’s home in suburban Philadelphia to discuss his role with Hill.
According to Sullivan’s sworn statement, James Biden said he was hired to handle Hill’s “business development” and had been assigned to help with the company’s interests in Saudi Arabia.
The first brother added that he was often tapped to represent Hill in meetings “because, of course, the name didn’t hurt,” Sullivan recalled.
James Biden also told Sullivan he had attended a February 2012 meeting with Saudi officials at which Hill would receive “final payment” for the desalination plant. Biden added that he had attended the meeting “because of his position and relationship” with his older brother, then Barack Obama’s No. 2.
According to the president’s sibling, Hill’s payment for its subsidiary’s work “would be made in both cash and ‘a very large amount'” of future business, Sullivan said.
After the meeting, Sullivan alleged, James Biden’s wife Sara walked him to his car and revealed that her husband and his older brother Joe were very close, and that they told each other everything.”
Sara Biden also told Sullivan that “he doesn’t like us talking to people,” the ex-Treasury man recalled.
“I didn’t ask for a further explanation,” Sullivan said, “since I was looking at two large men in dark suits, in a big black sedan parked on a side street looking directly into their house down the walkway I had just exited. I thought they were some type of security, probably Secret Service.”
In a separate affidavit, Lankford & Reed partner Thomas Lankford alleged that his firm and the Saudis had tentatively agreed on a settlement of Hill’s claims worth around $100 million by November 2011. However, after James Biden’s February 2012 meeting with Saudi officials in Riyadh, Hill initially “went dark” — then claimed that the Saudis had backed off on the settlement.
According to Lankford, Hill International CEO Irvin Richter had told him that he had retained James Biden because the Saudis “would not dare stiff the brother of the Vice-President who would be instrumental to the deal.”
Lankford’s affidavit does not elaborate on why Richter believed Joe Biden would be “instrumental” to any settlement.
After James Biden’s February 2012 meeting, Lankford said, Richter “seemed indifferent” to the ongoing dispute and communicated with the law firms “only infrequently.”
In addition, Lankford claimed, US government officials, “who had previously been helpful, became guarded and emphasized that Hill was doing lots of business in Saudi Arabia.”
At some point after 2014, when Lankford said Richter declined his offer to sue the Saudis to settle the debt, James Biden revealed that Hill and Riyadh “had secretly agreed to settle … through the award of future contracts.”
According to Lankford, James Biden “also stated that the settlement may have involved a cash payment to Richter.”
As of May 2021, Lankford claimed, Hill International and its affiliates had been awarded $358 million from the Saudis in construction management contracts since February 2011 after doing “virtually no business” with Riyadh prior.
It is unclear from the affidavits how much James Biden was paid for his work on Hill’s behalf. A rep for the first brother didn’t immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
President Biden has long denied having any knowledge of his family’s foreign business deals – including those involving James and first son Hunter Biden.
James and Hunter were previously linked to a planned multimillion-dollar deal with Chinese state-backed energy conglomerate CEFC, which is currently being probed by federal investigators.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) asked the Treasury Department in July of last year for information about transactions flagged as suspicious that involve the first brother’s activities in the Middle East, specifically in Saudi Arabia and Qatar “where James Biden acquired relationships over the course of Joe Biden’s time in elected office.”
“Evidence continues to mount that the Biden family used Joe Biden’s name to secure deals around the world to enrich themselves,” Comer told The Post Tuesday. “The Treasury Department must provide the suspicious activity reports generated for the Biden family and their associates to inform our investigation about the Biden family’s business schemes and Joe Biden’s involvement. If Joe Biden is compromised by his family’s deals, this is a national security threat.”