I don’t know that it would have been useful to give a more ambiguous example to demonstrate the difference between the two words at question. I was discussing grammar not Hunter Biden, to the largest extent possible. The definitions of the words shouldn’t change from when we’re discussing the Trump family or the Biden family. And we should use the most easily imagined and least confusing to explain what the words mean.
If we’re talking Biden and impeachment then, sure, a better analogy might be a police officer trying to get a warrant, and submitting various evidence to show probable cause. Among that evidence might be things like “a witness said that the subject had brown hair and Bob has brown hair” or “another witness said that Bob yelled ‘Fuck the police!’” These are both really far from being conclusive, smoking gun evidence of Bob’s guilt. There are reasonable reasons to conclude that they aren’t, alone, proof of his guilt. But that doesn’t stop them from being admissible evidence, to submit to the judge, to make a request. There should be more than that, if you want to get the judge to sign off, but those elements could be in the package of evidence. They aren’t “lies” that need to be restricted from the discussion and trying to play like they are is just playing swan games.
In the case of the Bidens and the IRS agents, the “Big Guy” matter is pretty flimsy. It’s not 100% clear that Joe Biden is “the big guy” - though it would need to be some influential person in Hunter Biden’s vicinity, so it’s reasonable to think that Joe is a contender. If he is “the big guy”, it’s not clear that he was ever actually a part of the deal, or just that someone assumed that they were buying access to Joe when, in fact, that wasn’t in the running. And, most importantly, we know that the Big Guy was never included in the deal in the end. Ultimately, there’s no probable cause because there was never a payment.
And, with the China case, even if there had been a payment or some quid-pro-quo, it doesn’t matter because Joe Biden was a free citizen with every right to do business in China. From a criminal standpoint, there’s no issue.
In terms of a foreign influence issue, for evaluating Joe Biden for the Presidency, we don’t know whether Hunter was really speaking for his father or just playing pretend; whether the commitment that “Joe” asked the Chinese businessman for, was for something personal to himself (e.g. versus the businessman doing something for the Federal government); whether the commitment was for something financial (e.g. bribes) or something personal (e.g. arranging a tour of Shanghai for Joe’s granddaughter who would be traveling through China); and we don’t know whether Joe was being serious or making a joke.
In the interests of national security, it doesn’t hurt to ask these questions and an honest and reasonable House of Representatives might do so without animosity. But for the same people that voted against taking any actions against Trump to vote that the evidence here is as concerning as we had for Trump or more extreme than we had against Trump is nonsensical.
All that being said, the testimony of the IRS agents is real, on the record evidence. It pushes Joe Biden towards guilt of foreign influence more than if there was no such thing. But, likewise, having brown hair might push Bob more towards being the arsonist than a blond guy, but it doesn’t have any large weight. It’s not a lie, it is evidence, but it’s not deeply meaningful on its own.