Hunter Biden admitted in court this week that he made hundreds of thousands of dollars from China, an admission that flies in the face of several past denials by President Joe Biden.
"I started a company [in 2017] called Hudson West, your Honor, and my partner was associated with a Chinese energy company called CEFC," Hunter Biden said Wednesday in a Delaware federal courthouse, where his previously arranged plea deal with the Justice Department fell apart.
Biden was confirming a point made by the prosecution that he had made $664,000 from a "Chinese infrastructure investment company," according to the court transcript, reported by Fox News.
"Who was your partner?" the judge in the case asked the first son.
"I don't know how to spell his name, Yi Jianming is the chairman of that company," Hunter Biden said. Yi has disappeared since being taken into custody by Chinese officials in 2018.
Hunter Biden's admission of business ties with Chinese companies flies in the face of previous comments by the president.
"My son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are you talking about, China," Joe Biden said to then-president Donald Trump in an October 2020 debate.
"The only guy who made money from China is this guy," Biden added, referring to Trump. "He’s the only one. Nobody else has made money from China."
The original deal Hunter Biden and the DOJ struck would have allowed him to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax crimes and receive immunity on a broad range of criminal charges, all while avoiding jail time.
Federal judge Maryellen Noreika rejected the deal and told both prosecutors and Biden's legal team to craft a new one.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that Joe Biden will not pardon his son.
"No," Jean-Pierre said definitively after a reporter asked if there was a possibility the president would issue a pardon.