SimmonsCooper officials said any suggestion of a connection between business deals with Biden's family and official Senate actions was "ludicrous."
What's clear is that SimmonsCooper's interests in Washington were clearly aligned with Biden's philosophical views, and his position on the Judiciary Committee was enormously important to such a firm.
SimmonsCooper is one of the nation's best-known and most successful asbestos litigation firms. Its says it has obtained more than $1 billion for clients, many of whom suffered from mesothelioma, a deadly lung disease that results from contact with asbestos, a once commonly used fire retardant and insulation material.
Biden and others -- including many congressional Democrats, trial attorneys, victims groups and organized labor -- have argued that any trust fund must be large enough to compensate cancer victims. And in 2003, when then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) sponsored legislation to create a trust fund, Biden attached an amendment that would have allowed plaintiffs to return to court if the fund ran out of money.
The amendment was fiercely opposed by industry groups and Republican lawmakers. When Hatch's bill collapsed, those supporters pledged to continue to work to create the trust fund. The following year, SimmonsCooper began contributing heavily to Biden, providing $45,500 to the senator.
In 2005, when asbestos legislation was revived by Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), Biden again pushed for a guarantee that plaintiffs could return to court if there was insufficient money in the fund. The bill stalled.
It was during this period that the first financial connections to the Biden family emerged.
SimmonsCooper began filing asbestos cases in Delaware in 2005 using, as its local counsel, the law firm where Biden's son Beau worked.
Beau, 39, a former federal prosecutor, had just joined the firm -- which became Bifferato, Gentilotti & Biden -- and was looking to do more complex litigation work. Beau Biden, who is now the attorney general of Delaware and a captain in a National Guard unit heading to Iraq, did not respond to requests for comment. But a partner in his former firm credited the senator's son with securing the SimmonsCooper business.
