FBI Taped Biden’s Brother While Probing Lawyer Who Paid Him $100K: Report

As federal agents looked into an alleged plot by a famous Mississippi trial lawyer to bribe a local judge in 2008, they secretly taped conversations with Joe Biden’s brother, who was looking to build a consulting firm with the attorney at the time, The Washington Post revealed Sunday. James Biden’s lawyer told the newspaper that he and his wife, Sara, “were not aware of or involved in any unethical or illegal behavior” by the trial attorney, Richard Scruggs, or his associates. Though “serious discussions” were had by Biden and Scruggs about the proposed consulting firm, the venture “never got off the ground,” according to Biden’s lawyer. Though Scruggs would eventually plead guilty to the bribery scheme and serve about five years behind bars, Biden was never charged with or implicated in any wrongdoing in the matter. James Biden’s ties to Scruggs stretch back as far as 1998, when the Mississippi lawyer paid Biden’s D.C. consulting firm a fee of $100,000 for advice on how to pass a tobacco bill, which was then being stymied by a number of dubious lawmakers—among them, the future president. “I probably wouldn’t have hired [James Biden] if he wasn’t the senator’s brother,” Scruggs told the Post.

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