by Fred Lucas
Kentucky’s attorney general is investigating a health care company that wired $200,000 to James Biden the same day he wrote a check for that amount to his brother and future president Joe Biden.
James Biden worked as a consultant for Americore Holdings LLC, a Florida-based hospital chain that later collapsed. Americore declared bankruptcy in Kentucky in 2022 under federal law amid reports of massive staff departures, poor patient care, and poor equipment at one of the hospitals in the state.
It’s not clear whether the probe by the office of Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, a Republican, extends to members of the Biden family.
“Since this is an ongoing investigation, we can’t provide further details at this time,” Atley Smedley, Coleman’s deputy communications director, told The Daily Signal in an email.
Coleman (pictured above), elected in November 2023, is a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky.
James Biden gave closed-door testimony Wednesday to investigators with three House committees—Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means—as part of House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into the president’s connection with family business deals in places such as China, Russia, Ukraine, and Romania.
Similar to Hunter Biden’s message to a CEFC associate, Jim Biden claimed Joe Biden was sitting next to him while on a health care pitch call. pic.twitter.com/P6dwiH4qHS
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) February 21, 2024
Americore, the collapsed hospital chain, gained prominence last year when the House Oversight and Accountability Committee revealed that on March 1, 2018, James Biden wrote a $200,000 check to his brother Joe Biden, making a notation that it was a “loan repayment.”
James Biden wrote the $200,000 check to his older brother the same day he got a $200,000 payment from Americore Holdings LLC.
The House committee also revealed a separate $40,000 check that James Biden made out to Joe Biden and apparently was linked to a large Chinese energy company, CEFC China Energy.
This evidence seems to contradict the president’s repeated assertions that he never profited from the overseas business deals made by his son Hunter Biden or other family members.
At a time when the Biden administration controls the Justice Department, more Republican prosecutors should hold the Biden administration accountable for potential criminality in their jurisdictions, said Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, a conservative legal group.
“Republican attorneys general, district attorneys, and other prosecutors should wake up and start enforcing criminal laws related to obvious Biden family corruption across the country and world,” Davis told The Daily Signal.
“If there is a Biden family business deal in any of their jurisdictions, then Republicans should prosecute,” said Davis, a former Republican chief counsel for nominations working for the Senate Judiciary Committee. “If money flowed into any Republican jurisdictions, and if there was any criminal activity, Republicans should open up a criminal probe immediately.”
Earlier this week, Politico reported on James Biden’s work with Americore Holdings, writing: “Joe Biden was a central element of Jim Biden’s pitch to potential partners and investors.”
POLITICO: Biden’s brother used his name to promote a hospital chain. Then it collapsed.
This weekend, POLITICO released a bombshell report on the Bidens’ interactions with Americore, a financially distressed rural hospital operator.
Reminder: We previously revealed how… pic.twitter.com/3ZVVaX2Bwh
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) February 21, 2024
In addition, the Kentucky Labor Department began investigating the Americore hospital chain in 2018, according to Politico’s report.
James Biden was in Pineville, Kentucky, in May 2017 as part of his consulting work for the hospital chain, Politico reported.
Americore Holdings operated a hospital in Pineville that Politico, citing a report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, described as “ravaged by staff departures and dwindling medical supplies.” It said “a patient died of cardiac arrest in late 2018 after receiving substandard care.”
When The Daily Signal first inquired about a possible investigation by the Kentucky attorney general, Coleman’s spokesperson initially replied: “We can’t comment on ongoing investigations.”
Asked in a follow-up message whether the office could confirm whether such an investigation exists, Smedley replied: “Since this is an ongoing investigation, we can’t provide further details at this time.”
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Fred Lucas is chief news correspondent and manager of the Investigative Reporting Project for The Daily Signal. He is the author of “The Myth of Voter Suppression: The Left’s Assault on Clean Elections.”
Background Photo “Kentucky Capitol” by Peter Fitzgerald. CC BY-SA 2.5.