President Joe Biden cautioned his brother Frank about potential business dealings during his campaign for president, according to a report.
“For Christ’s sake, watch yourself,” Biden said according to a report in Politico. “Don’t get sucked into something that would, first of all, hurt you.”
Politico cited a “person with knowledge of the conversation” in its report and said that Biden was “jocular and serious” in his comment to his brother.
Biden’s intention, Politico reports, was to protect his brother from “being hurt and vilified” because of his connections to the president.
Since Biden’s inauguration, questions about members of his family have been raised regarding their business dealings, especially after Republicans questioned his son Hunter Biden’s business deals with foreign countries during the campaign.
Frank Biden’s law firm, The Berman Law Group, promoted his relationship to President Biden in an advertisement on Inauguration Day.
“The two Biden brothers have long held a commitment to pushing environmental issues to the forefront; the president-elect has vowed to rejoin the Paris Agreement and wants to set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets, for example,” the ad read.
A White House official responded to the story by warning that Joe Biden’s name should not be used in any commercial advertisement.
“It is this White House’s policy that the President’s name should not be used in connection with any commercial activities to suggest, or in any way that could reasonably understood to imply, his endorsement or support,” the official told CNBC in January.