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A: Please see the article Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory and the discussion at its talk page.

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Isaac Stanley-Becker (September 25, 2019). "Checking the Web on Hunter Biden? A 36-year-old physicist helps decide what you'll see". Washington Post. Retrieved September 25, 2019. The page has been viewed nearly 230,000 times in the past 30 days, more than the page for Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, or for Vice President Pence. Misplaced Pages dominates Google's search results and helps supply the information spit out by Siri and Amazon Alexa.
Fang, Lee (August 15, 2023). "Emails Show Hunter Biden Hired Specialists to Quietly Airbrush Misplaced Pages". Lee Fang. Retrieved August 17, 2023. Powerful individuals and corporations routinely tap specialized consultants to edit Misplaced Pages for more favorable entries, often through anonymous accounts designed to appear organic. Emails from Hunter Biden's laptop show that he made continuous efforts to airbrush his image and the Misplaced Pages articles associated with his Ukrainian benefactors.
Rondón, Emmanuel Alejandro (August 15, 2023). "Hunter Biden hired specialists to clean up his image and that of his Ukrainian associates on Misplaced Pages". Voz Media. Retrieved August 17, 2023. Independent journalist Lee Fang released a series of emails and evidence showing that Hunter Biden . . . hired specialists to quietly edit biographies on Misplaced Pages in order to launder his image and that of his Ukrainian associates.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report 11 times. The weeks in which this happened:

False allegations of corruption?

I don't believe it is the place of what is supposed to be an objective news source to claim that these allegations are false. Unproven at this moment perhaps, however the pardon alone strongly suggests that there is SOMETHING to the allegations. There would be no other reason to extend the pardon all the way back ro January 2014. I was asked to donate money which I would very much like to do but I cannot donate money to a source that clearly has an agenda such as Misplaced Pages. 2601:18C:8B00:27F0:EB9B:F11B:A6F0:D56A (talk) 14:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, the phrase "false allegations of corruption" in the introduction to this article includes a link to an article titled "Biden-Ukraine Conspiracy Theory," which appears to show that there have indeed been such false allegations. And it's not the place of an encyclopedia article to speculate on the reasons for the period covered by the pardon. If someone finds reliable sources that discuss the possible reasons, they can be added here. NME Frigate (talk) 19:01, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I think it would be fair to just say "allegations" without any modifier that could be construed as partisan 71.210.42.253 (talk) 23:56, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

No, it would be WP:FALSEBALANCE to suggest that the arguments that he did engage in malfeasance have validity. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:24, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

"False" implies some sort of verification. Something like "unproven" would at least provide a more neutral interpretation by the encyclopedia in the event that there ever is some sort of decisive outcome. 71.210.42.253 (talk) 03:28, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

"False" is correct, but it should be more specific to the claim of Burisma's investigation and Biden's efforts to fire Shokin, especially since that is what that linked article actually focuses on and that is actually objectively false according to RS. Beyond that, Biden played off his last name and his relation to the then-vice president to rake in a lot of money. Colloquially, if not statutorily, getting hired to a foreign energy company to use your last name to influence your politically powerful parent might be something a reasonable person would call "corrupt" to some extent. Ex: Politico on Hunter arranging a meeting between a Burisma exec and VP Biden, among other foreign dealings: “Even though this administration isn’t corrupt on the same level as the previous administration, which seemed to embrace the corruption,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor and government ethics expert at Washington University in St. Louis, “the public has reason to be concerned." KiharaNoukan (talk) 05:38, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

We should stay away from using loaded terms like "corrupt" as to a lot of people that entails illegal behavoiur such as government/law enforcement officials take bribes in exchange for looking the other way. TarnishedPath 06:00, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, specificity should be the remedy here, I made an edit in that sense. KiharaNoukan (talk) 06:07, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Good edit. TarnishedPath 08:47, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Also care should be taken about claims that Hunter Biden was "hired to a foreign energy company to use last name to influence politically powerful parent" unless it has been shown that this is what happened. (And in describing an American person, the correct phrasing is "hired by" not "hired to".) NME Frigate (talk) 20:43, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

"Contrary to the statement"?

Currently the subsection on President Biden's pardon refers to claims made in the White House statement in which the president announced and explained the decision to issue the pardon: the president argued there that the prosecution was selective and specifically that the collapse of a plea deal was politically biased. Then the subsection goes on, "Contrary to the statement," and (1) notes that it was the judge who rejected the plea deal and (2) quotes that Special Counsel David Weiss as rejecting the claim of selective prosecution.

The first point probably is true enough for this article, although rather superficial.

The second point runs into a tricky and possibly novel issue: the official position of the executive branch of the U.S. government, of which David Weiss is currently an employee, as he was when he denied the claims of selective prosecution, now is that the prosecution was indeed selective. Weiss's (boss's) boss, the president, has said that Weiss is wrong. This article could just as easily cite Weiss's claims and say, "Contrary to Weiss's statements, President Biden has written that the prosecution was indeed selective." Who makes the call that the special counsel is correct and the president is incorrect, or vice versa? NME Frigate (talk) 19:38, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

To elaborate on the possible difficulties with the first point as currently written: with citation to Devlin Barrett at the New York Times, it says that "the plea deal had fallen apart due to the presiding judge questioning its unusual construction, which violated a basic tenet of federal guilty pleas against having side deals in the plea agreement."

But that's not what is said earlier in the article, in the two paragraphs on the plea deal and its collapse in the long introduction to the "Investigations and federal indictments" section (of which the "Pardon of criminal offenses" subsection is the last part). There it says that the deal fell apart because Hunter Biden and his attorneys believed the agreement would result in the investigation being closed while prosecutors said there was an "ongoing" investigation into possible FARA violations and adds that the judge, expressing "concerns over immunity Biden might receive from future charges," gave the parties thirty days to resolve their differences.

These explanations given in two different parts of the article should be made to comport with each other.

In addition, neither explanation really explains why the deal fell apart -- possibly there has been no reliable reporting about that -- nor conclusively undermines the president's claim that the deal fell apart for political reasons. Why did both parties go into court believing different things about the deal. Had one or both sides mispresented their positions to the other? Why were prosecutors willing to forgo a plea deal in order to pursue a FARA investigation that never resulted in any charges? The separate article titled "Weiss special counsel investigation," which is linked from this article, notes that a former FBI informant named Alexander Smirnov had been peddling false claims about Hunter Biden and his family taking bribes to help the Ukrainian company Burisma and that Smirnov's false claims had also "played a key role" in Congressional investigations of the president and his son. Smirnov was later indicted for this. Did his claims underlie the FARA investigation that prosecutors were pursuing? Were they pursuing it because of pressure from members of Congress similarly influenced by his false allegations? Should Smirnov at least be mentioned in this article?

Finally, the paragraphs about the plea deal explains that FARA "requires that anyone who acts on the behalf of a foreign government, e.g. China or Ukraine, must register with the Department of Justice and file regular reports on their activities for that government."

Why are China and Ukraine specifically mentioned there? Did prosecutors identify those countries or is that a Misplaced Pages editor's speculation? There are two sources cited at the end of that section. One quotes a paragraph from a "Wall Street Journal" article published shortly after the hearing. It specifically mentions FARA, but no specific countries are named in that paragraph. The other links to an article in "The Hill" from before the hearing. That one doesn't mention FARA or any specific countries, although it refers to "bribery allegations" made by a member of Congress who also mentioned the Biden family's supposed "schemes."

If there is to be a specific country mentioned there, should it instead be Romania? As noted at the end of the introduction to the "Investigations and federal indictments" section, while Hunter Biden was never charged for violating FARA, prosecutors in August of this year did seek permission to allege in his tax trial -- nominally to demonstrate that he was aware of how much money he made -- that he "agreed to lobby on behalf of a Romanian businessman seeking to 'influence U.S. government agencies' while his father was vice president." NME Frigate (talk) 20:35, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

The president makes a claim, but it is reported as being false. WP:NPOV requires mentioning that it is false rather than presenting it unchallenged. "Contrary to" is for the first sentence, which mentions the reality of how the case fell apart, contrary to the false claim made by the president. Weiss is listed as a specific person who objected to the president's claims in general as well, it is attributed to him, and the call is left to the reader as to whether to trust the president or Weiss.

The article's mention of On July 26, the plea deal was rejected by the presiding judge, who cited concerns over immunity Biden might receive from future charges is the questioning from the judge. The immunity is the unusual side deal. KiharaNoukan (talk) 05:09, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, but I'm still left wondering why this can't be seen from the opposite perspective. To adopt the model in your phrasing, the counterargument might be "The special counsel makes a claim, but that claim is disputed by the president." In other words, it could be that the special counsel not the president is he one making the false claim. Also, I would quibble slightly with your statement here that Misplaced Pages guidelines on neutral points of view require about the president's statement that this article "mention that it is false"; rather the guidelines require "mentioning that it has been claimed by someone else to be false." NME Frigate (talk) 20:39, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Add context to date of Biden pardon

I propose to add some context to Biden's pardon dates.

On December 1, 2024, President Biden issued a full and unconditional pardon for his son. The pardon covered all federal offenses committed between January 1, 2014, the year when Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma Holdings, and December 1, 2024 and included his tax charges, gun charges, and any other potential charges within that time. Отец Никифор (talk) 15:37, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

1) do you have a source which specifically connect the pardon starting January 1, 2014 to the year he joined the board of Burisma.

2) I don't think it's due for the lead anyway. TarnishedPath 00:46, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

The first sentence of the section about Burisma Holdings lists Hunter's starting date as April 2014 so surely one of the cited sources for that contains the date. But I also agree that this kind of aside is inappropriate for the lede. Big Thumpus (talk) 04:10, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Even if it was DUE, and we both agree it isn't, per WP:SYNTH we can't combine sources in that way in order to arrive at statements that neither of them say by themselves. TarnishedPath 04:12, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Even if a source mentions both, the phrasing is synthesis because it implies a connection between the two. You would have to add a second sentence that says someone noted that the pardon date back to Hunter's appointment to Burisma. However, there is no reason it should not be in the lead, because Hunter's notability is based on his alleged criminal and unconventional behavior. TFD (talk) 21:12, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Hunter was notable prior to the criminal stuff. TarnishedPath 01:58, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Here's a link to his article before 1 January 2014, before the period under which he has been pardoned. He lacked notability and the article would have been a good candidate for deletion. Being the son of a VP does not establish notability. TFD (talk) 03:52, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Your comment above presumes that the start of Hunter's "alleged criminal and unconventional behavior" was 1 January 2014. A read of the article indicates that their legal troubles started in 2020 and any allegations in relation with Burisma Holdings are at this point unhinged conspiracy theory as the article Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory makes clear. TarnishedPath 04:27, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

See a BBC article about Hunter Biden's pardon: "That spans a period beyond Hunter Biden's tax and gun offences and dates back to the year he joined the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, while his father, then US vice-president, had a key role in US policy towards Kyiv."

The "unhinged conspricy theory" btw was about Joe Biden, not Hunter. It claimed that Biden forced the resignation in order to protect Hunter, which is untrue, because the prosecutor was not investigating him.

Here's a link to Hunter Biden's article at the end of 2018: the main issues are the controversy around his role in Burisma and his drug use. Without those, he would have no notability.

Take the controversy out of the article and there's nothing left. That does not mean of course that any of the allegations are true. TFD (talk) 21:03, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the 2018 version is indicative of what he is notable for, however my point above was at that stage we was not facing any criminal charges, therefore his notability isn't in relation to criminal charges. The issuing of a pardon going back to 2014 is not indicative that there was any criminal conduct at Barisma, it could easily be a pre-emptive strategy to make any mud-raking pointless. TarnishedPath 08:15, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Exactly. This is context that should be provided for that date Отец Никифор (talk) 11:28, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Finally time to add a reference to Alexander Smirnov?

1. Here is the first paragraph of a CNN story that was just published (on Jan. 8, 2025):

"The disgraced former FBI informant who falsely accused President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden of taking a $10 million bribe from Ukraine was sentenced Wednesday to six years in federal prison, according to court records."

That informant, Alexander Smirnov, was sentenced to six years in prison. I think it is past time that this Misplaced Pages article, which includes 15 paragraphs about Hunter Biden's business dealings and 10 paragraphs about his legal troubles before even getting to the subsections about the crimes for which he actually was charged, convicted, and pardoned, adds one whole sentence about Smirnov's false claims about Hunter Biden and his father, Smirnov's admission that he was repeating talking points from Russian intelligence in this article, and the fact that Smirnov pled guilty and was sentenced to prison for that.

At the moment, neither "Smirnov" nor "informant" are mentioned here, but prosecutors working under David Weiss, the Special Counsel who secured a conviction of and guilty plea from Hunter Biden on gun and tax charges, respectively, had requested Smirnov receive a sentence of this length, which they said was warranted in particular because Smirnov's false claims about the Bidens, when later shared with the House Oversight Committee, had led that committee on a wild goose chase. And without that goose chase, those 25 paragraphs I mentioned would probably be less than half as long. In other words, some portion of this lengthy Misplaced Pages article's very newsworthiness was based on Smirnov's lie.

(And it is quite long: this article on a president's child is more than 70% longer than that for Chelsea Clinton and more than three times longer than that for Beau Biden, who was an actual public official.)

Here is some more from that new CNN story:

"Smirnov's bombshell indictment – and the subsequent public repudiation of his fake bribery claims – helped derail the Republican impeachment push against Biden. Prosecutors hit Smirnov with additional tax charges in November, and with a trial looming, he pleaded guilty last month to causing the creation of a false FBI record, as well as three counts of tax evasion. ...

became a naturalized citizen and a prized informant for the FBI. But according to prosecutors, he later started expressing bias toward Biden, and invented the Ukraine bribery narrative to hurt Biden’s 2020 campaign against Trump.

The Justice Department secretly probed Smirnov’s allegations in 2020, but nothing came of it. Three years later, during the run-up to the 2024 campaign, congressional Republicans brought national attention to Smirnov’s unproven allegations, and touted his record as an FBI informant. Their claims quickly went viral in the right-wing media ecosystem."

2. On Dec. 17, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the Ranking Member (i.e., top Democrat) on the House Oversight Committee, issued a statement that included the following text:

"Mr. Smirnov’s guilty plea is a stunning indictment of Congressional Republicans who turned three congressional committees into willing mouthpieces for Russian propaganda aimed at undermining the office of the President of the United States. ...

...Republicans were repeatedly warned ... that Russian intelligence agencies were using individuals ... to promote completely fraudulent bribery claims against President Biden. ...

This week, Mr. Smirnov admitted to his outrageous crimes in a court of law. When will my Republican colleagues admit they became unwitting accomplices in a Russian disinformation and influence operation ... commit to stop spreading these sickening and now legally debunked Russian lies in the media?"

3. And here are two passages from an Associated Press story dated Dec. 16:

"While Smirnov’s identity wasn’t publicly known before indictment, his claims played a major part in the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family, and helped spark a House impeachment inquiry into Biden. Before Smirnov’s arrest, Republicans had demanded the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the unverified allegations, though they acknowledged they couldn’t confirm if they were true.

Smirnov claimed to have contacts with Russian intelligence-affiliated officials, and told authorities after his arrest this year that 'officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story' about Hunter Biden."

link: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/08/politics/ex-fbi-informant-fake-biden-ukraine-bribery-allegations-alexander-smirnov/index.html

link: https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/news/press-releases/ranking-member-raskins-statement-guilty-plea-alexander-smirnov-whose-lies-were

link: https://apnews.com/article/alexander-smirnov-guilty-plea-biden-informant-fbi-62a3b7acce0345303f812ca6d0206b10

(I provide all this to give an editor enough material to work with.) NME Frigate (talk) 01:05, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

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