President Biden’s younger brother, James Biden, told House investigators that he tossed in the garbage a diamond ring that was a gift to his nephew, Hunter Biden, from a Chinese energy firm.
The diamond was practically worthless, James Biden, 74, told House investigators who interviewed him behind closed doors on Feb. 21 as part of their inquiry into President Biden’s role in the family’s lucrative business deals.
James Biden’s story about the origins of the diamond conflicts with testimony Hunter Biden provided to lawmakers Thursday during his closed-door interview.
Lawmakers want witnesses to testify in a public hearing as their impeachment probe of the president enters a new phase, but Hunter Biden has signaled that he’s unlikely to participate in what will likely expose clashing claims about the business deals and the level of Mr. Biden’s involvement.
According to a transcript of the interview with James Biden, the president’s brother said a diamond ring was given to Hunter Biden in 2015 or 2016 by the father of a student at the exclusive Sidwell Friends school in Washington.
The wealthy and powerful send their children to Sidwell and that’s where Hunter Biden’s daughters were enrolled at the time.
The president’s son had agreed to work with the company, the now-defunct CEFC, which was linked to the Chinese Communist Party and supplied parts of Western Europe with liquified natural gas.
James Biden told investigators that the diamond ring was handed to his nephew by the unnamed Sidwell Friends parent, who called it “a gift from the chairman” of CEFC.
The diamond’s existence surfaced during Hunter Biden’s 2017 divorce from his first wife, Kathleen, who in court papers described the ring and said it was worth $80,000.
Hunter Biden told James Biden he didn’t know what to do with it.
“I said, ‘Give it to me,’” James Biden recounted. He showed the ring to a jeweler in Philadelphia, who he said appraised it at $200.
“And I said, ‘Listen, hey, Hunter, the money — this is not worth anything. And I took it and threw it in the trash,” James Biden explained.
Hunter Biden, 54, told lawmakers a different story about the ring. He also said there may be more than one diamond gifted to him from the Chinese.
He testified Thursday that CEFC executive Ye Jianming passed him a diamond in an envelope while he was meeting with him in Miami in February 2017, which was after his father ended his second term as vice president.
James Biden was at that meeting, Hunter Biden recalled, along with fellow business associate Rob Walker.
The diamond was part of a cultural gift exchange, he said.
Hunter Biden, his uncle and Mr. Walker gave Mr. Ye an expensive bottle of scotch, he said, worth “tens of thousands of dollars.”
Lawmakers asked him about reports of additional diamonds he may have received from the Chinese. Hunter Biden said he didn’t “recall, exactly, any other gifts,” but he could not say so definitively.
Hunter Biden said he gave the Miami diamond to James Biden and that his uncle told him it wasn’t worth much. “I trust my uncle’s word,” he said.
The Biden family’s deal with CEFC is at the heart of the House investigation into whether Mr. Biden, 81, participated in an influence-peddling scheme. Lawmakers say the family profited from additional deals with Russia, Ukraine and other countries seeking access to the powerful Biden name.
Business associates say their work with CEFC began in late 2015 or early 2016, before Mr. Biden ended his job as vice president, and that payments were delayed until he left office.
The family pocketed millions from the deal, all of it wired to different bank accounts shortly after Mr. Biden left office in 2017.
Some of the CEFC proceeds ended up in Joe Biden’s bank account as a $40,000 loan repayment James Biden gave him in 2018. The president’s brother wrote another loan repayment check to Mr. Biden for $200,000 that was derived from a business deal with Americore Health LLC. The struggling rural hospital operator partnered with James Biden specifically to help expand the business through his political connections and powerful brother, according to court records.
In his testimony to House lawmakers, James Biden said the loan from his brother was intended to help him pay “outstanding bills.” It was interest-free, he said, and there was no documentation.
According to the transcript, James Biden also received “massive loans” from wealthy Democratic donors but has not fully repaid them.
James Biden said his brother was able to loan him the $240,000 with the proceeds from his 2017 book, published after he left the Obama White House, “Promise Me Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.