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exclusive
LOBBYIST BOUGHT TROPICAL LAND FROM BIDEN’S BROTHER
Scott Green, a lobbyist with close ties to Joe Biden, purchased Virgin Islands
property from James Biden and then extended him a private mortgage.
Joe Biden, his brother James Biden and lobbyist Scott Green. | POLITICO
Illustration/Getty Images; AP; Alain Brin
By Ben Schreckinger
01/28/2020 05:01 AM EST
Updated: 01/28/2020 10:19 AM EST
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In 2005, Joe Biden’s brother bought an acre of land with excellent ocean views
on a remote island in the Caribbean for $150,000. He divided it into three
parcels, and the next year a lobbyist close to the Delaware senator bought one
of the parcels for what had been the cost of the entire property. Later, the
lobbyist gave Biden’s brother a mortgage loan on the remaining parcels.
The Virgin Islands land deal, reported here for the first time, furthers a
pattern in which members of the Biden family have engaged in financial dealings
with people with an interest in influencing the former vice president.
In this case, a Biden staffer left the Senate in the early ’90s to become a
lobbyist. Both before and after the land transaction, his clients benefited from
Biden’s support and appropriations requests. A firm the lobbyist co-founded —
which features a testimonial from Biden praising his “emotional investment” in
his work on its website — specializes in federal contracts for niche law
enforcement and national security programs for which Biden long advocated.
After the land deal, Joe Biden vacationed elsewhere on the tiny island, which
once protected a nearby submarine base before it became a tropical getaway, on
at least three occasions.
Water Island. | Alain Brin/POLITICO
The property itself has remained vacant and undeveloped. It is not clear why the
lobbyist, Scott Green, purchased the parcel from Biden’s brother James, or why
James Biden later went to the lobbyist for a loan, rather than to a bank. An
easement James Biden obtained granting road access to the land before selling it
to Green may have made the land more valuable, but it is unclear whether the
dramatically higher price Green paid for his parcel reflected its true value.
The terms of the loan were not disclosed in property records.
It is also not clear whether Joe Biden was aware of the transactions. Following
the land purchase, Green continued to lobby on issues over which Biden wielded
influence and to meet with Biden’s staff. Green’s firm also continued to land
government contracts related to federal programs for which Biden advocated.
Representatives of the Biden campaign declined repeated requests over weeks to
comment. Shortly before publication, spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a
statement: “Joe Biden was wrong. Politico does have a sense of humor. Because
this story is an absolute joke.”
Green did not respond to several requests for comment. A lawyer for James Biden,
George Mesires, acknowledged receiving questions, but did not respond to them.
James Biden, six years Joe’s junior, served as finance chairman on his older
brother’s first Senate campaign in 1972. He went on to pursue an entrepreneurial
career that regularly intersected with Joe’s public duties. He once sought to
launch a Washington lobbying firm, but the venture was cut short when his
would-be partners were convicted of attempting to bribe a judge in an unrelated
matter. He has previously been accused by former business contacts of seeking to
exploit the former vice president’s clout for financial gain in court
proceedings inNew York,Kentucky, andFlorida, though he has denied such claims.
Water Island is a 500-acre spit of land in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The
Department of Defense purchased the island from a Danish company during World
War II, using it to protect a submarine base on nearby St. Thomas. Since then,
it has become an under-the-radar tropical getaway dotted with several-dozen
homes, where the largest beachfront estates can fetch north of a million
dollars.
Scenes of tropical Water Bay. Honeymoon Bay (top) and the Water Island Ferry. |
Alain Brin/POLITICO
In May 2005, James Biden and his wife, Sara, purchased a one-acre plot of land
in the middle of the island, according to property records. Tax records describe
the view from the property as “excellent.” The price: $150,000.
Then, the couple got an easement to access the land and divided it into three
parcels. The easement, granted by the Virgin Islands territorial government,
gave them the right to use an existing driveway to the property that cut across
government land. A year later, in May 2006, the Bidens sold the northernmost
parcel, just over a third of an acre, to Green and his wife, Julie, according to
property records.
The price, again, was $150,000. In effect, James and Sara Biden had gotten their
money back while keeping most of the land — recouping their investment in just
12 months.
Land value can fluctuate, making it difficult to assess whether such a dramatic
increase in land price was reasonable. An easement can make land more valuable,
depending on how costly the easement was and how difficult it was to obtain.
The paperwork costs for this type of easement would be minimal, according to Raf
Muilenburg, managing partner at Morrisette & Muilenburg, a law firm based in the
U.S. Virgin Islands. Muilenburg estimated that the cost of planning and
surveying a driveway easement would be under $1,000. Filing fees would be in the
hundreds of dollars, and that the easement could also entail a small amount of
legal work, he said.
Typically, the recipient of an easement also pays the party granting the
easement for the rights they are getting on that party’s land. If James and Sara
Biden paid the Virgin Islands territorial government for the driveway rights, it
was not reflected in property records.
A tax bill from 2006 lists the assessed value of Green’s parcel at $87,000, but
tax records indicate the bill was rescinded. Subsequent tax bills list the
assessed value of Green’s plot at just $38,000 — a quarter of the $150,000
purchase price — until 2013, when it jumped to $83,700. Typically, land sells
for more than its assessed value.
A person answering the phone at John Foster Real Estate, a local realtor,
identified Chuck Gidley as the agent listed on the original 2005 transaction.
Gidley declined to comment.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott Green’s career has been tied to Joe Biden’s, from his days as a member of
Biden’s Senate staff to his work as a lobbyist on projects of special interest
to Biden.
As a young man, Green played linebacker for the University of Delaware football
team, overlapping at the school with James Biden for a few semesters, and
graduated in 1973. He is best known for his work as an NFL referee, having led
the officiating crew at Super Bowl XLIV in 2010. He is currently listed as the
executive director of the NFL Referees Association, which acts as a bargaining
representative in labor negotiations.
Referee Scott Green makes a call in the second half of the Seattle Seahawks and
Baltimore Ravens NFL football game on Nov. 13, 2011, in Seattle. | Elaine
Thompson/AP Photo
At the same time, Green has led a parallel career in Washington. After working
as a probation officer after college, Green accepted an offer from Biden in the
early 1980s for a job on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he worked for a
decade in roles that included staff assistant and senior advisor.
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From the Senate, Green pivoted to the private sector.
In 1994, he co-founded Lafayette Group, a lobbying and consulting firm focused
on law enforcement and national security that is now headed by his son.
The firm’s website features a photo of Green with Biden. It also quotes Biden
praising his former staffer’s commitment to law enforcement, saying, “Scott
Green was emotionally invested. It wasn’t just a job for him; it was an
emotional investment.”
Government contracts for niche support services for law enforcement and national
security agencies have been central to the firm’s business over the years,
according to a firm history posted on its website.
In the Senate, Biden over the years proposed appropriations for many of the
niche areas in which the firm specialized, including “interoperable
communications” for first responders and “fusion centers” for processing
threat-related intelligence.
Lafayette Group’s government contracting business extended into the Obama years,
as did Green’s ties to Joe Biden. Government data shows tens of million of
dollars in contract awards to the firm from federal agencies over the course of
the Obama administration.
If Joe Biden knew of his brother’s dealings, he should have stopped allowing
Green to lobby him or his staff, according to Richard Painter, a former chief
White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, who recently
became a Democrat.
“It’s really time to send a message to the lobbyist that ‘If you’re doing deals
with my brother, I really can’t see you,’” Painter said. It is not clear whether
such measures were ever taken in response to the property deals.
In both January and September of 2010, Green met with a Biden aide in the Old
Executive Office Building, according to White House visitor logs, which do not
record the purpose of those meetings. In May of that year, he attended a
reception in honor of firefighters and law enforcement officials at the vice
president’s residence at the Naval Observatory, according to the logs.
Among Lafayette Group’s biggest single days for government business during the
Obama years was April 11, 2010, when records show it received two awards from
the Federal Emergency Management Agency worth a total of $5.8 million as a
subcontractor to Booz Allen Hamilton. Lafayette Group was charged with providing
“Support for [the Office of Emergency Communications] contract developing
communications strategies,” according to a description of the award. There is no
indication that Biden played a role in the awarding of the contract.
On April 14 of that year, Green and his wife gave James and Sara Biden a
$133,300 mortgage on their remaining Water Island real estate, according to
property records.
Top Left: Photo of land owned by Jim Biden. Top Right: Photo of land owned by
Scott Green. Bottom: Satellite image identifying lots owned by Jim Biden and
Scott Green. | Alain Brin/POLITICO; Google Earth
This was not the first time a Biden-tied lobbyist had figured into James Biden’s
personal finances. In an unrelated episode, he and Joe’s son, Hunter, took out
loans worth seven figures from WashingtonFirst Bank to repay a business debt
around 2006. The bank was co-founded by a lobbyist and Biden adviser who was
also a lobbying partner of Hunter Biden’s for several years. A former executive
at the bank previously told POLITICO that James and Hunter repaid that loan.
In September 2013, the Greens released the Water Island mortgage, saying they
had “received full payment and full satisfaction,” according to property
records.
From 2012 to 2018, according to Lafayette Group’s firm history, it received
contracts tied to at least one government program championed by Biden: the
Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network.
The network, which set aside broadband internet spectrum for first responders,
was proposed following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to improve
emergency communications in the event of disaster and endorsed by the 9/11
Commission.
Among the biggest proponents of creating the network was the Major Cities Chiefs
Association, a police association that hired Green as a lobbyist in 2007 and was
represented by Lafayette Group until Dec 6, 2019.
In the Senate, Bidensupported setting aside broadband spectrum for the network
both before and after Green registered to lobby for the police group, but the
initiative encountered years of delays.
As vice president, Biden was the administration’s chief advocate for the
creation of the network, making the public case for it and guiding legislation
through Congress that reserved broadband spectrum for it.
“We owe you,” Biden told a group of police officers in Alexandria, Virginia,
promoting the measure in September 2011. “We said we’d give you what you need,
and we told the public they’d have what they needed to be protected.”
The creation of the network finally passed as part of the Middle Class Tax
Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012.
When the Department of Homeland Security set about launching the initiative, it
contracted with Lafayette Group to persuade state authorities to participate in
the network, according to the firm’s website. In total, Lafayette Group has
received more than $10 million in contracts for work related to the network, now
called FirstNet, according togovernment data.
Reached by phone, Lafayette Group’s current CEO, Green’s son Keil Green, asked a
reporter to call him back the following day. He did not respond to follow-up
communications.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another lobbying client of Green’s, the non-profit Drug Abuse Resistance
Education program, had benefited from Biden’s support over the course of more
than two decades, both before and after Green’s land purchase.
The program, known as D.A.R.E. America, began in Los Angeles in 1983, and,
helped by federal backing, grew along with the War on Drugs. D.A.R.E, which sent
police officers into classrooms to warn against drug use, enjoyed bipartisan
support and was eventually implemented in the vast majority of school districts
in the United States.
After leaving Capitol Hill, Green signed up D.A.R.E. as a client in the early
’90s and lobbied his old boss on behalf of the program. Green made $40,000 a
year in lobbying fees from the drug education program from 1999 to 2010, the
years for which his lobbying disclosures are available online.
Biden ensured its inclusion in the 1994 Crime Bill, making it eligible to
compete for hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds.
“As you know, it’s a pretty popular program, so it wasn’t a question of not
including it,” a Biden staffer told Reason magazine at the time.
Top: Vice President Joe Biden speaks to the Alexandria Police Department about
the American Jobs Act on September 29, 2011, in Alexandria, Virginia. Bottom:
Actor Erik Estrada and former gymnast Nadia Comaneci (center) pose with D.A.R.E.
students during a D.A.R.E. rally on April 11, 2002, in North Hollywood,
California. | Getty Images
D.A.R.E. was in fact popular with schools and police departments, but it was
also controversial.
Research consistently showed it was ineffective at its stated purpose of curbing
substance abuse. It also cost taxpayers money.
The 1995 Reason article cited an estimate from the White House Office of
National Drug Control Policy that the program was taking in about $40 million in
federal funding annually, despite research showing it was ineffective.
Over the following years, the program faced mounting criticism from researchers
and skeptics of the war on drugs as more studies piled up — from universities,
theSurgeon General and theGovernment Accountability Office — concluding it was
ineffective at preventing drug abuse.
Yet Biden’s support for the program continued through his time in the Senate.
In Biden’s final few years in the Senate, he continued to act as one of
D.A.R.E’s top proponents in Congress, helping secure its funding, even as
critical news coverage in The Columbus Dispatch andHarper’s Magazine noted the
evidence of the program’s ineffectiveness and cited Biden’s relationship to
Green as a possible reason for the senator’s support. After congressional
reforms required legislators to attach their names to earmark requests,
disclosures for the fiscal year 2008 budget show that Biden, along with
Republicans Chuck Grassley of Iowa and the late Ted Stevens of Alaska,
co-sponsored a $450,000 Senate earmark for Justice Department funding for
D.A.R.E. The earmark died in conference.
A spokesman for Grassley, Michael Zona, said staffers who would be familiar with
the details of the 2008 earmark have since left Grassley’s office, but he
pointed out that Grassley and Biden had co-chaired the Senate Drug Caucus.
“There’s nothing unusual at that time about a grant like this,” Zona said, “But
I couldn’t speak specifically to this grant.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the years since the land deals, the U.S. Virgin Islands have been a favored
destination for the Biden clan. In between election night 2008 and Barack
Obama’s inauguration, Biden and his family traveled to Water Island over the
winter holidays. As vice president, he returned to the island over the next two
holiday seasons.
News coverage of Biden’s travel to the small island said he was visiting “family
friends” but did not name them.
The undeveloped land owned by Green and his brother is abutted on one side by a
nature conversancy and by Virgin Islands government land on the other.
One Water Island landowner, who asked not to be named discussing a sensitive
subject, said the Bidens learned about the “forgotten little island” through
family friends from Baltimore, but that those friends were not among the
island’s hundred-odd residents. The landowner said the Bidens rented a house
when visiting the island.
“I was amazed that the Bidens ever wanted to come down there,” she said, citing
the logistical challenges of traveling to the remote island, which normally
requires taking a boat from nearby St. Thomas. “I guess it’s where you want to
go when you want to get away from the rat race of D.C., and supervision, and
observation.”
Water Island. | Alain Brin/POLITICO
In late 2009, the entertainment outlet E! News reported that a Biden relative
had called neighbors on the island, looking for a place to put up the vice
president, and one family agreed to cancel their vacation plans so that Biden
could use their home. A Biden spokeswoman told E! News at the time that a
realtor had made the request, not a Biden relative.
An Airbnb listing for a treehouse cottage at “Shipwreck Point” on the island
states that Biden has stayed at the rental property with his family and
entourage. The owner of the property did not respond to a request for comment.
In the later years of the Obama administration, Biden and his family continued
to vacation annually in the Virgin Islands, but on St. Croix. The Water Island
landowner said the Bidens switched to the larger island because it was more
practical for traveling with an entourage that included Secret Service agents.
Over the holiday season before launching his presidential campaign, Biden again
traveled to St. Croix, where he wasspotted on New Year’s Day 2019.
St. Croix resident Devin Boyd takes a snapshot after running into with former
Vice President Joe Biden at Point Udall shortly after dawn, Jan. 1, 2019. |
(Devin Boyd photo provided by Alice Henry)
* Filed under:
* Joe Biden,
* Joe Biden 2020,
* Caribbean,
* Virgin Islands,
* James Biden
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