According to legal documents, Jim Biden, the younger brother of President Biden, was reportedly chosen to lead covert discussions with the Saudi government on behalf of a US construction firm due to his close ties to the then-Vice President.
The affidavits, obtained by DailyMail.com, suggest that Jim Biden was picked as the Saudi officials were unlikely to renege on a deal with the brother of the influential Vice President.
In 2012, the 73-year-old was involved in a $140 million settlement agreement between Hill International and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Based on the documents, Jim informed a former high-ranking US Treasury official who was working as a private investigator that he had been engaged to negotiate with the Saudis due to his position and connection to VP Joe Biden, who was leading delegations to Saudi Arabia during that period.
In the affidavit, the former Treasury official, Thomas Sullivan, recounted his meeting with Jim Biden, during which they discussed Jim’s appointment to negotiate with the Saudis.
The affidavit describes the sit down:
Sullivan claimed the President’s brother told him: ‘Of course, the [Biden] name didn’t hurt’, and Jim’s wife Sara, who was present, allegedly said that Joe and his brother ‘told each other everything.’
[Biden] stated that he was often sent to meetings to represent Hill because ‘of course, the name didn’t hurt,’ and he was the former Vice-President’s brother, or words to that effect. He repeated this statement at least twice during the interview.
I asked specifically if he had attended a meeting with the Saudi Ministry of Trade in mid-February 2012 to receive the final payment for the work Hill had performed. He answered that, to the best of his memory, he had been at such a meeting, and that the reason he had attended was “because of his position and relationship” with his brother.
The revelation of Jim Biden’s involvement in the Saudi negotiations came to light following a dispute between the US construction company Hill and their former legal representatives over a payment from the Saudis. Hill was owed $140 million by the Saudi government for constructing desalination plants in the Middle East dating back to the 1980s, and their negotiations had been ongoing for years as part of the “Special Claims Process,” a US government initiative aimed at resolving the kingdom’s outstanding debts to American companies.
According to an affidavit by Thomas Sullivan, a former official in the enforcement division at the Treasury Department, he interviewed Jim at his residence in Merion Station, Pennsylvania on July 16, 2017. Sullivan also noted that he briefly spoke with Jim’s attorney wife Sara, who advised him that “he doesn’t like us talking to people.”
The Congress, which was controlled by Republicans, vowed to conduct a thorough investigation into potential influence-peddling by members of Biden’s family, including Hunter, his son.
The legal team enlisted the services of an investigator to interrogate Jim and his wife regarding the purported covert agreement, and purportedly elicited some stunning revelations from the President’s sibling. As per Sullivan’s affidavit, he conducted an interview with Jim at his residence in Merion Station, Pennsylvania on July 16, 2017.
It read: “I asked Mr. Biden to describe his position with Hill International,’ the former Treasury official wrote. ‘He said that he had been hired to do ‘business development’ work for them and that Saudi Arabia was a country that Hill had him assigned to assist with.”
“James stated that he was told that the final payment would be made in both cash and ‘a very large amount’ of new future contract work.”
Sullivan wrote, “I didn’t ask for a further explanation 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.”