Fact-Checker gives Joe Biden four Pinocchios over claim Hunter never made any money from China

AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler has a new story up pointing out that Hunter Biden has directly contradicted a claim made by Joe Biden. Specifically, Joe claimed during the first presidential debate back in Sep. 2020 “My son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are you talking about, China.” Here’s the exchange in question:

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We now know that wasn’t true:

But now, nearly three years later, Biden’s assertions have been directly rebutted by Hunter himself. In court testimony last week, the younger Biden acknowledged that he in fact had been paid substantial sums in China — the first official confirmation that this was the case…

Last week, Hunter Biden appeared in court concerning a tentative plea agreement he had reached with the Justice Department regarding a failure to pay more than $100,000 in taxes in 2017 and 2018 and a gun charge. The agreement is now under renegotiation because of concerns raised by U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika.

Under questioning from Noreika, according to a transcript of the proceeding, Hunter Biden acknowledged sums of money he had earned in 2017 and 2018 that were listed in the proposed plea agreement (a copy of which was obtained by Politico). After accounting for expenses, Hunter Biden reported nearly $2.4 million in income in 2017 and $2.2 million in income in 2018 — most of which came from Chinese or Ukrainian interests, according to court testimony…

“I started a company called Hudson West, your honor, and my partner was associated with a Chinese energy company called CEFC.” He provided the name of Yi Jianming as chairman of CEFC. He confirmed that CEFC also paid him an additional $644,000 during that year.

There’s more from Hunter’s proposed plea agreement but the gist is that he actually earned quite a lot of money from entities connected to China. Kessler got an anonymous statement from the White House which doesn’t deny the facts but suggests (without actually saying) that Biden misspoke. It must be nice that Biden himself never has to address this or explain how his statement in a presidential debate matches up with the reality.

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In any case, Kessler says excuses aside this was a lie. He concludes, “the fact remains that Biden, during the debate, denied his son had made money in China. In court last week, his son has said he earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from Chinese business deals.”

Anyway, with news of the Trump indictment this afternoon, no one is going to notice this story. Still, it’ll be interesting to see what other stories about Hunter Biden eventually turn out to be true. In the meantime, no one should take Joe Biden’s denials at face value. He has proven his word can’t be trusted on this topic.

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