Posted on 01/04/2022 5:53:18 AM PST by Red Badger
Then-Vice President Joe Biden played a key role in helping further the billion-dollar con job perpetrated by Elizabeth Holmes, lavishing the disgraced Theranos founder with praise in 2015.
Holmes, whose company falsely claimed to be able to conduct wide-ranging and revolutionary life-saving tests using only tiny drops of blood, was found guilty on Monday on one federal charge of conspiracy to defraud investors and three counts of wire fraud. She faces up to 20 years in prison per count.
Holmes, now 37, and her longtime business partner Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani were indicted in June 2018 for two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and nine counts of wire fraud. The jury for Holmes did not reach a verdict on three of the wire fraud charges and found her not guilty of a conspiracy to defraud patients and not guilty on three of the other wire fraud charges. Another count against Holmes was dropped.
Balwani's trial is scheduled to begin later this month.
Theranos touted Biden’s July 23, 2015 visit to its headquarters in a lengthy press release, calling it “A New Era of Preventive Health Care" summit. Both the company and Biden repeatedly posted on Twitter about the event.
"Information is the lifeblood of research." -VP Biden on innovation in health care today at the Theranos manufacturing facility
— VP Biden (Archived) (@VP44) July 23, 2015
“Talk about being inspired," Biden said at the time, though he turned down the chance to have his blood drawn. "This is inspiration. It is amazing to me, Elizabeth, what you’ve been able to do.”
Vice President Joe Biden participates in a roundtable discussion yesterday in the Theranos machine shop in California pic.twitter.com/qfw30XrzbN
— VP Biden (Archived) (@VP44) July 24, 2015 Biden praised Theranos for "charging historically low prices" and making its supposedly game-changing diagnostic tools available to all.
Today, we are greatly honored to welcome @VP Biden to Theranos.
— Theranos (@theranos) July 23, 2015 An audio recording showed Holmes returning the flattery.
“It is an absolute privilege and a tremendous honor to have Vice President Biden here with us,” Holmes said in her opening remarks. “He is someone I so deeply respect and am so inspired by the context of his service to our country and the bold actions he has taken in service to our country throughout his career.”
Starting soon: we’re hosting @VP Biden and industry leaders for our summit “A New Era of Preventive Health Care.” http://t.co/W1iNyaultl
— Theranos (@theranos) July 23, 2015
Theranos said Biden joined Holmes on a tour of its “laboratory and manufacturing facility, seeing Theranos’ finger stick test and innovative test system, and meeting many of the company’s employees.” Much of what he saw was a sham.
The valuation of Theranos was pegged as high as $9 billion in 2014 and, since she owned 50% of the company, her net worth was as high as $4.5 billion — at least on paper.
Our technicians receive a 4.8 out of 5 in customer satisfaction. Thanks, Tiffany. Awaiting @VP Biden. https://t.co/xjgWk22QNe
— Theranos (@theranos) July 23, 2015 Theranos’s sham unraveled publicly just a few months after Biden’s visit when an investigation by the Wall Street Journal’s John Carreyrou revealed that Theranos was misleading about its blood test technology and that the company was doing the vast majority of its tests with existing technology.
Biden's praise for Holmes and her crooked company has not aged well. In his visit, Biden talked about his own aneurysm and his late son Beau Biden's brain cancer as he praised Theranos.
.@VP Biden meets with our founder and CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, and Theranos technician, Tiffany. https://t.co/hAUo2bpigz
— Theranos (@theranos) July 23, 2015
Biden said he’d met Holmes a year prior when he’d spoken at a conference, and the Theranos founder had been sat next to him, saying, “I’ve been threatening Elizabeth for the last year that I’m going to come and see the operation and be shown around."
"You get the sense that the whole medical complex and industry is on the cusp of some fundamental change that goes far beyond what encompasses what you’re doing here,” Biden told Holmes.
“This is the laboratory of the future.” - @VP Biden today at our inaugural health summit. #ownyourhealth pic.twitter.com/TYzKWdRYg3
— Theranos (@theranos) July 23, 2015
Biden made it clear that then-President Barack Obama was supportive of Theranos too.
“You know, the president and I, as I hope we’ve demonstrated, led by the president, share your vision of a new healthcare paradigm focused on preventive care,” Biden said.
“The @POTUS and I share your vision of a health care paradigm focused on prevention." - @VP Biden #ownyourhealth pic.twitter.com/ya7eCJlKE3
— Theranos (@theranos) July 23, 2015
Theranos highlighted that Biden had supported the company regarding its dealings with the Food and Drug Administration when he said, “The fact that you’re voluntarily submitting all of your tests to the FDA demonstrates your confidence in what you’re doing.”
Biden wasn't the only high-profile person to get conned. Theranos board members included former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Defense Secretary William Perry, former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn, former Republican Sen. Bill Frist, and former Trump Defense Secretary James Mattis.
A few days after Biden’s visit, the Obama White House’s YouTube channel posted a video of Holmes, with the description saying she spoke “about her Signature Initiative on empowering women in science, technology, mathematics and business.”
Holmes had been invited to a White House state dinner honoring Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in April 2015, with the event attended by the Obamas, the Bidens, and others.
Obama named Holmes a “Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship” in May 2015 and honored her and eight other new fellow PAGE honorees at a “Global Entrepreneurship” event on May 11.
The Theranos founder was a staunch ally of the Clinton family as well, appearing at multiple Clinton Foundation events onstage with former President Bill Clinton and campaigning with Chelsea Clinton at a March 2016 fundraiser.
I always marvel at this. These con men ( screw the pronoun he she it stuff) are smart but miss the exit ladder. I remember hearing about a guy named Stanford. Conned a small Caribbean country and thousands of Americans. He had fancy offices around the country, flew around in private jets and made this little Caribbean nation a world cricket center.. When the whole thing unraveled he was found hiding in a girl friend’s apartment. It was pretty clear Elizabeth Holmes technology wasn’t viable, but she strutted around like the reincarnation of Pasteur.
Bernie Madoff also comes to mind. All Ponzi schemes are destined to fail as his was. There should be a point in which the fraudster can tell the jig is up and he activates a pre-planned escape plan. Do they believe their own hoaxes?
10% for the Big Guy.
The word is GREED.
They get away with it long enough that the money is looking just too good and they start believing they can extend the con indefinitely.
Amateurs like Madoff and Holmes also get addicted to the fame and notoriety that goes with their con. They enjoy the interviews, the magazine covers, the hobnobbing with the movers and shakers of the world.
Professional grifters (other than politicians) know they have a set amount of time and work accordingly. For some they have a set dollar amount, for others it’s a period of time. The one thing they keep in mind is the exit point. Then off to somewhere else for another con.
They have dozens of cons and variations they pull over their lifetime.
The professional con also works in the shadows. They don’t want their pictures out in the world. They don’t want televised interviews. They want to remain anonymous. That way the next con has a good chance of success.
“There should be a point in which the fraudster can tell the jig is up and he activates a pre-planned escape plan. Do they believe their own hoaxes?”
Except when they get too big and you can’t even bolt the country without looking over your shoulder the rest of your life.
And if one tries to leave earlier, they’re (understandably) scared to death that they’ll still get nailed, so the default is to keep it going, and simply hope...
I was just reading about this:
(How DID she fool them all? Feted by billionaires and world leaders, Elizabeth Holmes was the darling of Silicon Valley. Now she’s going to jail - and they are paying the price after her audacious £700m fraud, writes TOM LEONARD)
I have never heard of this before. What an absolutely crazy story!! I checked out a portion of a video with her in it, talking in a weird voice. (I can do a better baritone than she can! Just saying! Mr K - not the one on this forum - can’t even hit low notes as well.)
Lots of people got suckered into this. Wow. Just wow. Not surprising that The Big Guy was in on it. Did he lose a bundle? I hope so!
She was considered the female Steve Jobs.
Her ‘accomplishments’ were praised all over the planet by woke fools.
Nobody bothered to question her on the details, they just accepted, lemming-like, the ‘fact’ that she was female and had done all these great things.
They literally threw investment money at her and her corporation, thinking it would be the next ‘APPLE’ stock.
They were suckered in by their own greed, she just helped.
“You can’t cheat an honest man.” - -———————————————————
Seems to me he should have some legal liability in all this, especially given his professional standing.
Holmes to face maximum of 80 years in prison when she’s sentenced in September (via Ars Technica)
September?.......... If that were you or me we’d already be in the Big House!................
I would have been beaten to death in the big house years ago and have an unmarked grave somewhere out in northern New Mexico.
I just wonder how many of the investors KNEW it was a hoax.
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