Does a posed golf course photo prove Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden lied when he said he never met with the CEO of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian oil and gas company? No, that's not true: None of the four men in the photo is a past or current CEO of the company. President Donald Trump and his supporters have alleged Biden took actions as vice president to corruptly enrich his son. But, a Republican-led investigation found the vice president was not guilty of conflicts of interest nor wrongdoing.
The claim appears in several Facebook posts including this October 30, 2020 post (archived here) on the "Douglas L. Mason" Facebook page. It said:
So... On 60 Minutes, Joe said he never met with Hunter and the Burisma CEO. Well, here he is with both... Lying POS!!!!
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Oct 30 22:33:13 2020 UTC)
The photo, whose origin Lead Stories could not establish, shows, from right to left:
- Hunter Biden, a lawyer and lobbyist who served on Burisma's board of directors from 2014 to 2019;
- Joe Biden, then vice president;
- Ralph Pascucci, an investment banker whose father built and runs a golf course on Long Island near where the Bidens vacationed in August of 2014;
- Devon Archer, who served on Burisma's board of directors with Hunter Biden. Archer is a former business partner of Biden the younger.
Here is a photo of Archer, from the Burisma website at the time he served on the board.
(Source: Burisma Holdings website screenshot from archived version taken Fri October 30 22:30 2020 UTC))
Here is a photo of Pascucci:
(Source: Netrex Capital Markets, LLC website, Pascucci bio page screenshot taken Fri October 30 22:10 UTC 2020)
The Republican-chaired U.S. Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee investigated allegations that the senior Biden had misused his office to assist his son's business career and announced in September of 2020 it found no wrongdoing. Democrats on the committee called it an election-year stunt.
