That's recent stuff. Actually, corruption seems to be something Joe's quite practiced at. Via Politico, Breitbart reported a doozy of corrupt dealings surrounding Joe Biden's brother and the concessionary loans he got from banks to finance is nightclub, while Joe sat on the Senate banking committee :

A lot of us have heard of Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden's son's questionable business dealings in Ukraine and China. He got some gargantuan loans from China and some amazing consulting contracts by people under investigation for corruption in Ukraine, something Joe himself put a stop to.

Politico reported on Friday that James Biden, who has a history of murky financial dealings, was able to parlay his role as the chief fundraiser for his brother’s 1972 Senate run into the startup capital required to open a nightclub.

The loans were considered “unusually generous” given that the younger Biden was a salesman without any business experience and purportedly had a net worth of less than $10,000 at the outset of the venture in 1973. Another key component of the story, which was widely covered by local media in Delaware and Pennsylvania at the time, is that the loans appeared to draw concerns over influence peddling, as Joe Biden had just been appointed to the Senate Banking Committee.

“No sooner was freshman lawmaker Joe Biden seated on the Senate Banking Committee,” Politico reported, “than James became the beneficiary of business loans that were described … as unusually generous because of the relatively large amount of money he was able to borrow with little or no collateral and a lack of relevant prior experience.”

The first series of loans — totaling $165,000 — were provided by Wilmington’s Farmers Bank, which, although privately managed, was partially owned by the public with the state of Delaware having a 49 percent stake. The Wilmington Morning News reported in 1977 that of the total, $60,000 was “unsecured,” meaning that James Biden was “personally liable” for its repayment.

Despite the extensive startup capital, the nightclub failed to turn a profit and by 1975 had run up debts totaling more than $500,000. Unable to pay their bills, James Biden and his business partners, which by then included his brother-in-law John T. Owens, turned to First Pennsylvania Bank for a bailout.

The exact manner in which the loan, for $300,000, was arranged is unclear, especially as James Biden only had a total net worth of $10,050 at the time. It appears the loan came through after the incumbent governor of Pennsylvania made a recommendation on the nightclub’s behalf. Regardless, the money did not last long and by 1977, James Biden was forced to surrender the club to creditors after incurring more than $700,000 of debt.

The details of this are amazingly nasty. The banks extended loans to a guy with no business experience and no assets, knowing he couldn't pay. Biden sat on the banking committee that regulated the banks, so somehow, James Biden got those concessionary deals a regular guy on the street would not be able to get.

The loans were shoveled out with banks knowing they'd lose money, and lose money they did as James' incompetence became apparent. And they didn't mind, they let it happen. In normal circles, that would be called a bribe. In Joe Biden's, that's just business as usual.

What's more, Biden's brother suffered no ill effects from his losses - he went on to con hedge funds and other investors as this lawsuit here in Tennessee alleges.

Based on Biden's coercion used in the Ukraine case with his son's consulting contracts, it's quite normal to think that Biden used muscle to get those meritless loans through for his brother, too. That was what allowed him to operate as such a predator on others and go on to worse and uglier things.

Is there someone around to ask the bank officers why these lose-money loans really happened? And to tell us whether Joe used his Senate pull to muscle them through so early in his career? This case calls for it because obviously, the Biden family corruption started very early.

Image credit: Mark Nozell, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0