FBI secretly taped Joe Biden's brother as part of investigation into lawyer's bribing of a local judge - years after the disgraced attorney paid James Biden's firm $100K to help push a tobacco settlement

James Biden, the president's brother, was taped by FBI agents investigating an attorney's bribing of a local judge in 2008, according to a report. 

In 2008, the FBI was investigating noted attorney Richard 'Dickie' Scruggs in the bribery scandal when James was recorded. Scruggs was eventually sentenced to prison, as were several of his partners, who also would have been partners with James in a new firm they were looking to start.

While neither of the Biden brothers are considered to have committed any criminal activity in relation to the case, it forces questions about the president's family members using his name to make money.

The relationship between Scruggs and James Biden, 74, started years earlier when  Scruggs, a Mississippi trial attorney, paid $100,000 to James and his wife Sara's Washington consulting firm to try and push support for a settlement against big tobacco. 

Joe Biden, then a Senator from Delaware, went from being a skeptic of the settlement to a big-time backer when it came up for a vote. 

'I probably wouldn't have hired him if he wasn't the [Joe Biden's] brother,' said Scruggs told the Washington Post. 

'Jim was never untoward about his influence,' he told the Washington Post. 'He didn't brag about it or talk about it. He didn't have to. He was the man's brother.' 

Scruggs was seeking $368million in a deal with the tobacco companies for allegedly withholding negative information about their products. Scruggs oversaw the lawsuit, but needed Congressional approval to wave antitrust provisions.

The attorney made contact with Biden through Steve Patterson, an aide to former Senator John Stennis, a Democrat from Mississippi. 

'Biden wouldn't have known anybody in Mississippi if not for me. That's just a fact. I take ownership of that,' Patterson said. 'Biden loved Mississippi.' 

Scruggs made multiple payments of $10,000 to Lion Hall - James and Sara's firm - over the course of a year. 

'I hope he did,' Scruggs told the Post, when asked if James told his brother to support the law.

Joe Biden, then the Senator representing Delaware and ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, went from saying he was 'not yet convinced that this settlement is a good deal' to being its biggest advocate in Washington by the time it came up for a vote in 1998.  

The bill never passed, with then-Senator Biden saying the tobacco industry used its influence to prevent Republicans from going along with it. 

At one point, James Biden was recorded by the FBI during their investigation into Scruggs as James Biden was attempting to launch a consulting firm with partners of Scruggs.

The recordings were part of an investigation targeting Scruggs for paying a local judge $40,000  - a case Scruggs would later plead guilty in. 

In one of the recordings, it is even suggested the president's infamous son Hunter Biden, James' nephew, would also be involved. 

An attorney for James Biden claims his 'work has never involved speaking with or providing access to his brother.'

The White House has yet to comment on the report. 

The news comes as James Biden has been called in for depositions before the House Oversight Committee - which has taken the lead on the Biden impeachment investigation. 

Records released in October noted that then-Vice President Joe Biden exchanged nearly 20,000 emails with his son Hunter, brother Jim's Lion Hall and business associates at Hunter's investment firm Rosemont Seneca. 

The House Oversight Committee has requested Hunter Biden come in on December 13 and James Biden appear on December 6. 

Hunter's attorney Abbe Lowell said the president's son would comply with the subpoena. He called it a 'political stunt' but said: 'Nevertheless. Hunter is eager to have the opportunity, in a public forum and at the right time, to discuss these matters with the Committee.' 

Committee Chair James Comer is also requesting transcribed interviews with Melissa Cohen, Hunter's wife, Sara Biden, Frank's wife, Hallie Biden, Hunter's ex-girl friend and Beau Biden's widow, Elizabeth Secundy, Hallie's sister who Hunter is believed to have had a romantic relationship with while she was married, and Hunter associate Tony Bobulinski. 

Comer says he has traced some $24 million from foreign actors to Biden family  and Biden associate bank accounts. Through issuing subpoenas for bank records, the GOP-led committee says it has found 20 shell companies related to the Biden family, most of which were set up when Joe was vice president. The money was traced to foreign actors in China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Kazakhstan.

Comer says the shell companies were used to give a convoluted path to the payments that didn't set off alarm bells. 

White House spokesperson Ian Sams scoffed at the new subpoenas and accused Republicans of trying to 'distract' - pointing to the government funding deadline on November 17. 

'With just over a week to go until House Republicans may again thrust the country into a harmful and chaotic government shutdown, the most extreme voices in their party like James Comer are trying to distract from their repeated failures to govern.'

Top Oversight Democrat Jamie Raskin noted the committee has already obtained business records from Hunter, James and Rob Walker and has interviewed many of his business associates. 

'Comer has decided what he needs to jump-start this epic flop of an investigation is a big pile of subpoenas and interview requests, all to private citizens,' Raskin said. 

'For all the Chairman’s impressive acrobatic efforts to conceal evidence and turn somersaults around the facts, all the voluminous information gathered discredits their false claims about President Biden.' 

Comer recently touted an image of a $200,000 check James Biden mailed to his brother Joe Biden as a 'smoking gun,' but the check was marked as a loan repayment.

Weeks ago Comer unveiled a $40,000 direct payment to Joe from 2017 labeled as a 'loan repayment' that he claims is 'laundered money' that can be traced back to the Chinese.

Bank records seen by DailyMail.com show that Joe had loaned James the exact amount he was paid - $240,000 -  before he was paid back by his brother. 

The records show Joe made two short-term loans to James Biden - one for $40,000 on July 28, 2017, and one for $200,000 on January 12, 2018. 

The loans were repaid in full by James Biden without interest in 37 days and 48 days respectively. 

But an Oversight Committee aide pushed back, calling the White House and Democrats' response 'convoluted.'

Republicans have maintained that there were nothing included in the wires to show that they were a loan coming from Joe.

'Documents in the committee's possession do not make it clear that the law firm wired money from Joe Biden's personal account or rather a more generic account the firm could have used to mask the true identity of client transactions.'

The last two digits on the account of the money coming out and going in were the same, however, and another source familiar confirmed they were the same bank account. 

But Comer claimed the bank records the committee obtained through recent subpoenas for James and Hunter Biden's financial records show a money trail beginning in July 2017 snaked from Chinese oil giant CEFC - one of Hunter's joint ventures - into Joe's account.

In WhatsApp messages from August 2017 previously published by DailyMail.com, Hunter demanded $10 million from CEFC, and claimed his father was 'sitting here' next to him during the exchange.

After an initial $5 million from CEFC was put in the joint venture on August 8, 2017, and a transfer of $400,000 was placed into Hunter Biden entity Owasco, P.C. on the same day. Then, $150,000 was transferred directly from Owasco into the bank account of James and Sara Biden - Joe's sister-in-law - on August 14, 2017.

Then on September 3, 2017, Sara wrote a $40,000 check direct to Joe - just six days after she took out $50,000 in cash, according to the obtained documents.

Joe Biden has previously stated that Hunter never made money from China, and the White House has maintained that the president never benefitted from his family's business ventures.