(PresidentialInsider.com)- According to the Washington Examiner, when he was Vice President, Joe Biden played a key role in helping further the billion-dollar fraud perpetrated by Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.
On Monday, Holmes was found guilty of one federal charge of conspiracy to defraud investors and three counts of wire fraud. Each count is punishable by up to twenty years in prison.
But in 2015, then-Vice President Biden lavished praise on Holmes and her fraudulent company. In July of that year, Biden visited the Theranos headquarters to participate in a summit and take a tour of the facilities.
Theranos falsely claimed that it could conduct a wide range of revolutionary life-saving tests using only a few drops of blood. During his appearance at Theranos, Biden praised the company, calling it an “inspiration” and he gushed over Holmes, telling her what she has been able to do “is amazing to me.” He celebrated the “historically low prices” Theranos charges to make its diagnostic tools available to everyone.
The then-Vice President joined Holmes on a tour of the facility where he glad-handed employees and got to see Theranos’ finger-stick test system for himself.
But as the Washington Examiner explains, most of what Biden saw was a sham.
Theranos was valued at $9 billion in 2014. And since Elizabeth Holmes owned 50 percent of the company, on paper, her net worth was $4.5 billion.
But just months after Biden’s gushing visit, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal revealed that Theranos’ claims about its blood test technology were misleading at the very least. While Joe Biden declared the company “the laboratory of the future,” in reality, the vast majority of the tests Theranos conducted weren’t being done through some kind of revolutionary new tests. Instead, they were being done through existing technology.
It was all a fraud.
In retrospect, Biden’s effusive praise did not age well.
But Biden isn’t the only government official who got hoodwinked by the con. Theranos board members included such luminaries as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Defense Secretary William Perry, former Democratic Senator Sam Nunn, former Republican Senator Bill Frist, and former Trump Defense Secretary James Mattis.
Elizabeth Holmes also hoodwinked the Clinton Foundation. She appeared at several Foundation events alongside former President Bill Clinton and also campaigned with Chelsea Clinton at a fundraiser in March 2016.
