Thread by @JewhadiTM

Ukraine ‘scoop’ implodes within hours of publication (via @BecketAdams) washex.am/2nDDG4S

.@Axios breathlessly tweeted Wednesday evening: “JUST IN: An adviser to Ukraine’s president tells @ABCNews that Trump’s insistence for the two leaders to discuss a possible investigation into Joe Biden was a precondition for their now-infamous July 25 phone call.”

As of this writing, that tweet, which is still live, has been shared more than 8,000 times.

Axios’ accompanying story, which mostly just repeats ABC’s original reporting, originally bore the headline, “Adviser to Ukraine's president says Biden case was precondition to Trump phone call.”

Sounds big.

ABC, for its part, published its original “scoop” earlier Wednesday titled, “Ukrainians understood Biden probe was condition for Trump-Zelenskiy phone call: Ukrainian adviser.”

The only problem with this story: The supposed adviser to the Ukrainian president is no longer an adviser. In fact, Leshchenko has been on the outside since even before the July 25 phone call, meaning he is (at best) just another guy who heard a thing from another guy.

But it is actually even worse than that, according to Radio Free Europe's Christopher Miller, whose beat includes covering Ukrainian politics. Leshchenko "said he DID NOT tell ABC insistence for leaders to discuss Biden probe was precondition for call,"

Axios and ABC have amended their respective stories since to correct the record, but they are still quite flawed as they stand.

The ABC story now includes an editor’s note that reads:

“CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Serhiy Leshchenko as a current advisor to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.”

“Leshchenko advised Zelenskiy’s transition team following his election in April but has since been distanced by the administration. He is no longer advising Zelenskiy.”

Axios tweeted later in a note that has been shared only 373 times, “CORRECTION: We have updated the story to reflect that Serhiy Leschenko is no longer an adviser to the Ukrainian president as ABC News first reported.”

Yet, their stories still cite Leshchenko as the source of the claim that a Biden investigation was a condition of the July 25 call. Are we just going to ignore the part where the former adviser was distanced from the Zelensky administration months before the call even took place?

Are we going to continue to pass Leshchenko off as an in-the-know informant and not just another second-hand source of intel?

Are we also going to ignore the part where @ChristopherJM reported that Leshchenko told him explicitly that he had not told ABC that the Biden probe was a precondition for the phone call?