Burisma

Was the wife of a former Burisma co-owner found dead after she had offered to disclose the firm's secrets she had accessed as an accountant? No, that's not true: According to her attorney, the woman is alive and well as of June 19, 2023, and she didn't work as an accountant for the company in question. The story originated from…

Does a social media video prove that reported Russian missile strikes on Ukraine didn't take place or were staged? No, that's not true: The video, which alternates between images of Independence Square in the capital Kyiv and BBC television coverage showing damage across the war-ravaged nation, only confirms that missile strikes didn't take place in that particular part of the…

Did the materials released by Mike Lindell at his Cyber Symposium meet evidentiary standards of relevance, proof of origin, chain-of-secure-custody and reproducibility that online security experts say would be needed to take seriously his claim that he holds massive data files showing the 2020 election was stolen by hackers? No, that's not true. Lead Stories asked for the information necessary…

Do President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Mitt Romney and climate envoy John Kerry all have sons on the board of Burisma Holdings? No, that's not true: None do. Biden's youngest son used to sit on the board of the Ukrainian energy company, but no longer. There is no publicly available evidence to support the allegation about the…

Does Hunter Biden work for a foreign oil company? No, that's not true: He used to sit on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company, but no longer. He left the board in 2019 and has said that he won't work for foreign-owned companies during his father's presidency. The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) published…

Did a congressional report "released today" on January 15, 2021 say President Joe Biden took $140 million from the U.S. Treasury, sent it to his son's private equity company and then to Joe Biden's personal account in the Cayman Islands? No, none of that's true: Though critical of the Bidens, the cited report (by Republican congressional staff) says none of…

Did Joe Biden say "My son has not made money in China" in the first presidential debate? No, that's not true: During the September 29, 2020 debate, Biden addressed the controversy over his son landing overseas work at the time that Biden was vice president and overseeing several aspects of U.S. foreign policy. In response to a long flurry of…

Does the DomainKeys Identified Mail signature within metadata of the New York Post's "smoking gun" Hunter Biden email prove the correspondence is "unquestionably authentic"? That's a stretch: DKIM can validate who sent an email and what text and other content was included. But it does not prove if the content consists of true statements. The claim appeared in an article…

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…

Has U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi been accused of espionage by two separate intelligence agencies? No, that's not true: The story comes from a satirical website that trolls conservatives with pieces that are often stolen by fake-news sites and presented as real - with no reference to the satirical origins. There is no truth to the story. The…