Former Ukraine prosecutor says Hunter Biden ‘did not violate anything’
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
KIEV, Ukraine — A former top Ukrainian prosecutor, whose allegations were at the heart of the dirt-digging effort by Rudolph W. Giuliani, said Thursday he believed that Hunter Biden did not run afoul of any laws in Ukraine.
“From the perspective of Ukrainian legislation, he did not violate anything,” former Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuri Lutsenko told The Washington Post in his first interview since the disclosure of a whistleblower complaint alleging pressure by President Trump on Ukraine’s president, Volodymr Zelensky.
Lutsenko’s comments about Hunter Biden — which echo what he told Bloomberg News in May — were significant, because Trump and his personal attorney Giuliani have sought to stir up suspicions about both Hunter and former vice president Joe Biden’s conduct in Ukraine in recent weeks. Joe Biden is leading Trump in many opinion polls ahead of the 2020 election.
Hunter Biden has denied any wrongdoing, and there is no evidence he was involved in any lawbreaking in his work in Ukraine with the country’s largest private gas company.
Lutsenko has been an elusive figure in recent weeks since stepping down from office in late August, but his conversations with Giuliani figure highly in both Giuliani’s own allegations about corruption in Ukraine and in the whistleblower complaint that was declassified Thursday.
“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son,” Trump told Zelensky in a July 25 phone call, a rough transcript of which was released Wednesday.
According to the complaint, Trump in the call “praised Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, Mr. Yuriy Lutsenko, and suggested that Mr. Zelenskyy might want to keep him in his position.”
The rough transcript of the call released Wednesday by the White House did not mention a prosecutor general by name, and it was unclear from the transcript which official Trump was referring to.
Trump went on to tell Zelensky to be in touch with Giuliani and Attorney General William P. Barr and suggested that U.S. investigators could assist the Ukrainians to look into any wrongdoing.
But Lutsenko said he was not aware of any U.S. law enforcement officials coming to Ukraine to assist in any such probes while he was in office.
“No American groups came to Ukraine for an investigation” during Lutsenko’s tenure from May 2016 until late August.
Giuliani has alleged that Hunter Biden was involved in corruption during his nearly five years on the board of Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company.
Giuliani has not offered any evidence. Burisma’s owner came under scrutiny by Lutsenko’s predecessors for possible abuse of power and unlawful enrichment, but Hunter Biden was never accused of any wrongdoing in the investigation.
As vice president, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire Lutsenko’s predecessor, Viktor Shokin, who Biden and other Western officials said was not sufficiently pursuing corruption cases. At the time, the investigation into Burisma was dormant, according to former Ukrainian and U.S. officials.
“Hunter Biden cannot be responsible for violations of the management of Burisma that took place two years before his arrival,” Lutsenko said.
Lutsenko had earlier cast doubt on Hunter Biden’s actions in Ukraine, an effort that drew Giuliani’s notice last year. Lutsenko said that Giuliani tried to arrange a meeting with him two times before they finally managed to connect on the third try in January,
“I took a vacation. I took my youngest son, I showed him New York and I met with Mr. Giuliani,” Lutsenko said. “I had a long conversation with him. But this was only in the forum of exchanging information.”
Lutsenko met with Giuliani again in Warsaw in mid-February, then for a third and final time “in Europe,” he said, refusing to be more specific.
Lutsenko did not fully explain the change of heart in May when he gave an interview to Bloomberg in which he said he believed Hunter Biden had not broken any Ukrainian laws.
But Lutsenko said that if U.S. authorities were separately interested in Hunter Biden’s financial arrangements in Ukraine, Ukrainian law enforcement officials would be happy to comply.
Trump and Giuliani have also alleged that Ukrainian officials intervened in the 2016 election to favor Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Their complaints were fueled in part by Lutsenko’s own publicly alleged concerns, which he said he passed along in person to Giuliani over the course of three meetings.
“If we talk about Ukrainian collusion, I think that there were signs of this type of interference,” Lutsenko said, pointing to the appearance in August 2016 of a mysterious black ledger that appeared to detail secret Ukrainian government payments to Paul Manafort for his work as a consultant to former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. The release of the ledger that month quickly forced Manafort to step down as Trump’s campaign chairman.
Ukrainian officials have denied any effort to help Clinton in the 2016 election.
Lutsenko had declined repeated requests for an interview in recent days. But on Thursday, a Kiev-based reporter saw Lutsenko in the lobby of a popular hotel in central Kiev. He entered the Premier Cigar Lounge of the hotel and had lunch. After he finished eating, reporters approached him, and although he said he had no time to talk, he kept answering questions for more than half an hour.
Lutsenko said that he planned to leave later Thursday for Britain, where he was going to spend a month studying English.
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Wella wella. It seems that the Ukranian prosecutor who investigated the case found no Biden wrongdoing.
“Hunter Biden cannot be responsible for violations of the management of Burisma that took place two years before his arrival,” Lutsenko said.
Zlochesky, the owner of Burisma was/is dirty.
He served in President Yanukovych's cabinet for more than 4 years years.
He was the minister of Ecology and Natural Resources from 2010 to 2012 and was the deputy secretary for Economic and Social Security on the National Defense Security Council from April 2012 until February 2014.
He mysteriously came into control of almost 35% of Ukraine's natural gas leases by non public bid contracts with the government. (Yanukovch ) while Minister of Natural Resources 2010 to 2012, two years before Biden, Archer and a dozen other people became board members.
The first probe in 2014 was closed in 2015 and the British agreed in 2016 releasing his frozen assets. A second probe was closed in December 2017. It was reopened in June of 2018 after phone calls between Poroshenko and Zlochesky implicated both in graft and corruption.
It's a typical Russian geo-political mess of corruption and 'favors' between oligarchs.
The Current PG Lutsenko has been trying to give all of their investigative material to our State Dept and Justice Departments since March and there are no takers.
"The message for Ukraine is quite easy to understand: from the perspective of Ukrainian legislation, we are now seeing no violation of Ukrainian laws by American citizens in the Burisma case," Lutsenko added.
The Ukrainians have however reopened the case against Zlochesky.
from the Ukraine
And you will love this clarification in todays Ukraine news.
Too bad that Biden used corrupt quid pro quo pressure to fire a former prosecutor investigating his son before such a finding could have been reached then. This makes Biden a bigger monster that he had to exert influence in the belief that that might not have been the final outcome. That a prosecutor now might exonerate Hunter does nothing to shield sleepy Joe from the consequences of his illegal behavior.
Trump has stated that anyone else who had done what the Biden's had done would have gotten the electric chair. He has suggested that millions/billions were stolen/embezzled by Joe and Hunter Biden, and he continued the accusations today. This makes me sick that he is using the same abhorrent behavior that he did in 2016.
Trump is a serial liar. More to come.
True, but this is so much worse. It's one thing when a presidential candidate is slinging crappola. It's another when the freaking President of the United States is doing it.
Hmmm... Makes you wonder where all the “whistleblowers” were when Obama was sending cash to Iran, playing footsie with the Muslim Brotherhood, giving Putin everything he wanted, trying to humiliate Netanyahu, lying to the American people about Benghazi, and letting the Bidens make money?
This President????
And the deporables will eat this shit up as gospel truth...
And ask for a to go bag.
Maybe Trump should take a closer look at his own sons before criticizing someone elses.
And son-in-law.
From a law enforcement perspective, I think that's reasonable. However, I can see how the elder Biden could have recognized that politics is often unreasonable and sought to use his influence to keep the story quiet regardless. That's a lot of possibility with no facts, though, at this point.
Which might make us all wonder a little bit. Some people don't want to go down that road, of course. However, if the names of these people were Trump instead of Biden, it's hard to imagine that it wouldn't be in the news constantly.
Right. Biden tried to 'keep the story quiet' by talking about the actual events in a taped Counsel of Foreign Relations forum.
Which begs the question; What value does your fantasy bring to the discussion?
Those that don't want to go down that road include Trump, Giuliani and the Hill because they've disseminated Lutsenko's machinations as fact for over a year. Hell, Trump recalled our Ambassador to Ukraine based on what Lutsenko now admits was bullshit. Though that admission hasn't stopped Trump from making threats about the Ambassador.
Bullshit. Barely a peep has been made of Ivanka's Chinese trademarks, Eric's deals in Scotland, Jr's new deal in India or the Saudi bailout of Jared's 666 property. Trump rakes in the 'Benjamins' and pretends not to have anything to do with any of it.
As an example of cognitive dissonance, Trump's sycophants say: Nothing to see here.
An alternative explanation that's every bit as plausible as the narrative the Democrats and their media want you to swallow.
Bullshit right back at you.
Now look who is engaging in "fantasy."
Why do you think an 'alternative explanation' is needed, especially one that you admit has 'no facts' behind it?
The 'narrative' we are talking about, otherwise known as the TOPIC of the seed, is that which is being voiced by current and former Ukrainian officials.
It's hilarious that last year neocons were all about lapping up what Lutsenko was saying about the Bidens yet suddenly, now that he's saying that the Bidens didn't violate any laws, they claim that he's a questionable source.
The CURRENT prosecutor states that Hunter Biden wasn't involved in the company during the time that is being investigated.
NO! Even though Zelensky assured Trump that the current prosecutor will be his hand picked guy, he's not a reliable source either.
NO! There needs to a an 'alternative explanation'!
Sheesh.
As per usual and illustrated by the majority of your comments.
Are you actually positing that Trump relinquished his financial stake in the company and is NOT profiting from the Trump Org.?
Or is your claim that Trump Org. isn't a profitable company?
Because that ridiculous comment only gives you those two choices.