As Sondland testified, a misleading Ukraine story spread among conservatives on social media

[90DayFinancier 910]

A misleading claim about the head of the Ukrainian energy company at the heart of the House impeachment inquiry went viral across conservative pockets of social media Wednesday, receiving hundreds of thousands of retweets and shares from some of the president’s most ardent online supporters.

The incorrect story, first disseminated by the finance blog ZeroHedge, claimed that Mykola Zlochevsky, the head of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, had been indicted over money laundering related to the Biden family. Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden, was previously on Burisma’s board of directors.

 

 

In fact, there was no announcement of an indictment. Ukraine’s chief prosecutor, Ruslan Ryaboshapka, announced in October his office would conduct a wide-ranging review of all previous cases involving Burisma, and Wednesday said he was including possible embezzlement in the investigation, according to Reuters.

ZeroHedge apparently misconstrued the original Russian article from the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency, which did not mention an indictment. The Interfax-Ukraine News Agency operates as part of Interfax, a Russian news outlet.

But that didn’t stop allies of President Donald Trump from widely disseminating the false account of an indictment, seizing on some truthful elements while wildly extrapolating others to offer conservatives and Trump loyalists a welcome alternative to the day’s news, in which Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, implicated numerous members of the Trump administration in the ongoing impeachment inquiry

As Sondland testified, a misleading Ukraine story spread among conservatives on social media

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/sondland-testified-misleading-ukraine-story-spread-among-conservatives-social-media-n1087511