Apple Daily denies commissioning Hunter Biden report

[alp227]

Source: Radio Television Hong Kong

Apple Daily on Friday dismissed claims that it commissioned an "intelligence report" which purported to show that Hunter Biden, son of US presidential candidate Joe Biden, had connections with the Chinese Communist Party.

US broadcaster NBC published an article on Friday debunking the 64-page report which it said had been widely spread on right-wing internet sites.

Christopher Balding, who claimed to be one of the authors, told NBC that the report had been commissioned by Apple Daily. NBC also said that a spokesperson for Apple Daily had confirmed it had worked with Balding on the report.

But Apple Daily released a statement on Friday saying it had been wrongly implicated by NBC.

Read more: https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1557482-20201030.htm

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The NBC article: How a fake persona laid the groundwork for a Hunter Biden conspiracy deluge

[underpants]

1. And now I sort of know what Apple Daily is.

This is going to be a special day. I can feel it.

[exboyfil]

2. Fulbright University needs to look at Balding for academic misconduct

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulbright_University_Vietnam

[mr_lebowski]

3. NBC was only 'implicating' Apple Daily because Balding implicated Apple Daily

He was trying to give the report he's been disseminating additional imprimatur.

Apple Daily making this denial doesn't bring down NBC's story about the shadiness of the document, it bolsters it.

[Warpy]

4. Christopner Balding and Mark Simon are names to watch out for

Last edited Fri Oct 30, 2020, 09:41 PM - Edit history (1)

Balding was a formerly respected professor at Fulbright University. He seems to have fallen down the MAGA rabbit hole about 2 years ago and cooked up some of this stuff angling for a WH job.

Simon calls himself a former CIA agent in the US, which means he's a bogus as they come. His official capacity is "newscaster," which someone there says is also bogus since he can't read Chinese.

Jimmy Lai is a little easier to understand. He's bought the notion that Dumdum will somehow punish Xi for the heavy handed treatment of people in Hong Kong. He's bought the rhetoric of a pathological liar.

Unless this gets buried quickly (and we've seen that before), this is going to continue to be a fascinating story.

[stillcool]

5. great info, thanks!

[Eugene]

6. Jimmy Lai distances himself from report on Hunter Biden's alleged China links

Source: Reuters

Jimmy Lai distances himself from report on Hunter Biden's alleged China links

Reuters
Sat 31 Oct 2020 12.54 GMT

The Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai has said he personally had “nothing to do with” a report on Hunter Biden’s alleged Chinese business links, but admitted funds from his private firm had been used to pay for it.

Lai, a prominent democracy advocate in Hong Kong and a staunch critic of China, said on Twitter he was sorry his flagship newspaper, Apple Daily, had been implicated in an article by the US media outlet NBC.

In the article, NBC alleged that a 64-page document circulating on the internet about Hunter Biden’s purported connections to the Chinese Communist party and his business dealings in China had “questionable authorship and anonymous sourcing”.

-snip-

Lai said his newspapers had not personally commissioned the document, but admitted his senior executive, Mark Simon, had “worked with the project”.

“Mark used my private company’s money to reimburse for the research he requested. It’s only $10,000 so he didn’t have to have my approval,” he said on Twitter. “I know it is hard for anyone to believe that I didn’t know about it and my integrity is damaged.”

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/31/jimmy-lai-distances-himself-from-report-on-hunter-bidens-alleged-china-links