Hunter Biden’s personal attorney on Friday received a letter from the CEO of a Chinese private equity firm saying that Biden had, indeed, relinquished his position on the company’s board of directors in Oct. 2019. The letter came days after conservative media outlets and figures said that Biden was still “on China’s payroll.”
“Mr. Robert Hunter Biden no longer serves as an unpaid director on the board of Bohai Harvest RST (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Co., Ltd. (BHR) Effective from October 2019,” read the single-sentence letter from BHR CEO Jonathan Li.
Right-wing news organization the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) set off a firestorm in the conservative media landscape on Tuesday when it reported that Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, had not resigned from the board of the Chinese firm, despite promising to do so on Oct. 31, 2019.
The report was based on public business records (repeatedly referred to by DCNF as “Chinese business records”) available on China’s National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (NECIPS), which still had Biden listed as a Director at BHR.
Already under intense scrutiny for his controversial work with Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, Biden publicly pledged that he would resign from the BHR board in October, additionally promising that if his father were elected president, he would not serve on boards or work on behalf of any foreign owned companies.
Without confirming the accuracy of the NECIPS filing, DCNF reported that Biden was still listed as a Director at BHR, writing that “no evidence has surfaced to prove he actually followed through on his promise” to resign.
Conservative news outlets and the Republican political figures lauded the report as proof that Hunter Biden had lied.
Ronna McDaniel, Chair of the Republican National Committee, tweeted the article to her nearly 600,000 followers, writing that Hunter Biden was “STILL on the board of a Chinese company he promised to resign from in October.”
The Trump campaign’s communications director Tim Murtaugh also tweeted the article.
As did the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., who said Hunter Biden was “on China’s payroll.”
Hunter Biden’s attorney George Mesires, who had already stated that his client resigned from the BHR board, said the BHR’s NECIPS filing error would be updated when the company names a successor for the directorship Hunter Biden vacated.
[image via Nightline screengrab]
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