On November 26, 2019, Aaron Klein of Breitbart reported that Sean Misko “in 2015 was a yearlong ‘Millennium Fellow’ at the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council” and was listed as giving a small donation of up to $999 to the think tank in 2016. The Atlantic Council still hosts an expert page in his name. That listing is real. This page does not treat a fellowship or a small think-tank gift as a crime.
Breitbart’s headline and frame juxtaposed Misko with Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company that later sat at the center of Hunter Biden reporting. The article said Burisma in January 2017 signed a cooperative agreement to sponsor the Council’s Eurasia Center — after the 2015 fellowship year Klein assigns to Misko. The same piece is largely about another Schiff staffer, Thomas Eager, and an August 2019 Atlantic Council Ukraine study trip. HPSCI Democrats, on January 3, 2021, said Eager’s trip was a bipartisan fellowship applied for in January 2019, unrelated to the impeachment inquiry, and that Eager did no impeachment work. That is their statement about Eager. It is not a statement that Misko worked for Burisma.
Label: funding of the Atlantic Council by Burisma is not Sean Misko’s employment by Burisma. The Council’s donor list is not his personnel file. This site does not invent a Burisma paycheck, a Burisma title, or a meeting he did not attend. Klein’s juxtaposition is reporting and commentary. It stays labeled.