To their credit, minutes before the end of Monday, Politico retracted its Friday faceplant of a story about Trump “owing tens of millions” to the Bank of China. It was a case of Fake News.
On Friday evening, POLITICO received a statement from a representative for Bank of China USA, which had not been contacted beforehand, that the bank had sold off, or securitized, its debt shortly [22 days] after the 2012 deal. A spokeswoman said the bank has no current financial interest in any Trump Organization properties. We updated the body of the article to take account of the bank’s statement. The original headline was changed to “Trump owed tens of millions to the Bank of China.”
It appears the difference between that pathetic edit and a full retraction was hanging on a thread: “A 2017 document filed by the loan servicer, Wells Fargo, with the New York Department of Finance listed Bank of China as having a financial interest in the building,” but on Monday, Wells Fargo confirmed the Bank of China had sold its interest in 2012.
Consequently, the story was updated a second time on Monday evening to take account of the apparent mistake in the public record. Our commitment at POLITICO is to journalism that gets its facts straight. We regret we fell short in this case.
Now will Biden's team apologize and retract? Trump rapid-response director Andrew Clark pointed to Biden rapid-response director Andrew Bates, who tried to exploit the Fake News on Twitter on behalf of Biden:
On Monday, Clark noted the DNC tweeted and quickly deleted promoting the Fake Bank News.
But the fakery continued. In a TV interview with Miami CBS affiliate WFOR, Biden spread the original false claim that President Trump “owes apparently millions of dollars to the Bank of China.”
Here's Joe Biden:
— Andrew Clark (@AndrewHClark) April 28, 2020
A) Failing to explain Hunter Biden's China business dealings (with gibberish?).
B) Pushing the debunked fake news that President Trump is in debt to the Bank of China. pic.twitter.com/YW9bLn7NTM
BIDEN: My son’s business dealings were not anything everybody that’s he’s talking about. [sic] Not even remotely, number one. Nothing to do with me, number two.
And talk about business dealings! Look at the business dealings of the president has with China. He owes, apparently, millions of dollars to the Bank of China.
As our last blog explained, Hunter's dealings with China have everything to do with Joe Biden, and the Biden name, used to give Chinese business dealings a little American "name ID" so they "stand out."
