The New York Times faced criticism on Monday after a reporter in Ukraine announced her new job as spokeswoman for the nation’s new president — just several weeks after authoring a controversial piece on Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian business dealings.

Iuliia Mendel, once a part-time Times reporter, announced her new communications job for the newly-elected Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Twitter Monday morning, which sparked scrutiny over her past reporting. In a piece last month, titled, “Biden Faces Conflict of Interest Questions That Are Being Promoted by Trump and Allies,” Mendel — along with a co-byline from Times investigative reporter Kenneth Vogel — detailed the Biden controversy that President Donald Trump has used to hit the former vice president.

Thanks everyone for your congratulations. There were 4000 applications. It is a big honor and big responsibility to become a spokesperson for the President of Ukraine @ZelenskyyUa. The Administration will be as transparent as possible.Let’s start today 4pmhttps://t.co/KmL6y9Szue — Iuliia Mendel (@IuliiaMendel) June 3, 2019

The story focused on Hunter Biden’s directorship of a Ukrainian gas company called Burisma Holdings and the ethical questions raised by the relationship, as his father was serving in the Obama administration. Mainly, it focused on a spring 2016 case in which Biden called for the removal of a Ukraine prosecutor who was going after his son’s company — implying that the vice president acted unethically to help his son. However, the stance opposing the Ukrainian prosecutor was also held by the Obama administration and many allied foreign governments at the time.

The Times was subsequently criticized for the story by some in media and their liberal-leaning audience who argued covering the Ukraine controversy was playing into Trump’s hands and hurting Biden. They pointed out that some of the most salacious details alleged in the Biden-Ukraine controversy are false, as detailed by Politifact.

The Times did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Check out a few of the reactions to the former Times writer announcing her new job:

Huh. The Times public editor should probably weigh in on this one, seems pretty weird. https://t.co/FYD8p8dUKE — Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) June 3, 2019

Wow. The New York Times’ stringer in Ukraine has just been appointed the new president’s spokesperson. https://t.co/peyInAPFfc — Simon Ostrovsky (@SimonOstrovsky) June 3, 2019

Co-author of controversial NYT story on Biden-Ukraine (https://t.co/atRhnbFGxS) has been appointed spokesperson to Ukraine’s new president https://t.co/cjRox7FIzM — Miriam Elder (@MiriamElder) June 3, 2019

Last month, @IuliiaMendel wrote a story for the NYT about Biden and Ukraine. That story was controversial to say the least. Today, Iuliia has announced that she has accepted a position to serve as the spokesperson for the President of Ukraine. https://t.co/oXUqwZRNfn https://t.co/78sF4eop3A — Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) June 3, 2019

When claims in the story were challenged last month, Ari Isaacman Bevacqua, an NYT spox, told Bloomberg: “We stand by our reporting, which is detailed and well documented.”https://t.co/URhMv9illS https://t.co/tvLXxdfFYr — Allan Smith (@akarl_smith) June 3, 2019

Um, this doesn’t look good. It’s a far bigger problem than that Hope Hicks profile that cause such a freak out. https://t.co/3YCYXZdoNG — Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) June 3, 2019

Has the @nytimes commented on this development? Seems awfully problematic. https://t.co/PSiuIkq7dc — Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) June 3, 2019

UPDATE: A New York Times spokesperson provided the following statement to Mediaite:

Iuliia Mendel was a freelance contributor to The New York Times based in Kiev, Ukraine. Last week, The Times learned that she had applied for a job as spokesperson to the President of Ukraine on May 3 and has now accepted this position. Ms. Mendel wrote one story for The Times in May while she was a candidate for the government position, about the dissolution of Parliament. Had she informed editors of her job application, they would not have given her that assignment and we would have stopped working with her immediately given this serious conflict of interest. All reporters, including freelance reporters, must abide by our ethical journalism guidelines. Editors are confident that despite the conflict that should have been disclosed, her reporting — including her work on our recent Hunter Biden story — was fair and accurate.

[Photo by Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images]

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