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
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 have 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
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