Joe Biden's 2020 Ukrainian Nightmare: A Closed Probe Is Revived
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Two years after leaving office, Joe Biden couldn’t resist the temptation last year to brag to an audience of foreign policy specialists about the time as vice president that he strong-armed Ukraine into firing its top prosecutor.
In his own words, with video cameras rolling, Biden described how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn’t immediately fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
“I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden recalled telling Poroshenko.
“Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time,” Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations event, insisting that President Obama was in on the threat.
Interviews with a half-dozen senior Ukrainian officials confirm Biden’s account, though they claim the pressure was applied over several months in late 2015 and early 2016, not just six hours of one dramatic day. Whatever the case, Poroshenko and Ukraine’s parliament obliged by ending Shokin's tenure as prosecutor. Shokin was facing steep criticism in Ukraine, and among some U.S. officials, for not bringing enough corruption prosecutions when he was fired.
But Ukrainian officials tell me there was one crucial piece of information that Biden must have known but didn’t mention to his audience: The prosecutor he got fired was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings that employed Biden’s younger son, Hunter, as a board member.
U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden’s American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts — usually more than $166,000 a month — from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia.
The general prosecutor’s official file for the Burisma probe — shared with me by senior Ukrainian officials — shows prosecutors identified Hunter Biden, business partner Devon Archer and their firm, Rosemont Seneca, as potential recipients of money.
Shokin told me in written answers to questions that, before he was fired as general prosecutor, he had made “specific plans” for the investigation that “included interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden.”
He added: “I would like to emphasize the fact that presumption of innocence is a principle in Ukraine” and that he couldn’t describe the evidence further.
William Russo, a spokesman for Joe Biden, and Hunter Biden did not respond to email messages Monday seeking comment. The phone number at Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC in Washington was no longer in service on Monday.
The timing of Hunter Biden’s and Archer’s appointment to Burisma’s board has been highlighted in the past, by The New York Times in December 2015 and in a 2016 book by conservative author Peter Schweizer.
Although Biden made no mention of his son in his 2018 speech, U.S. and Ukrainian authorities both told me Biden and his office clearly had to know about the general prosecutor's probe of Burisma and his son's role. They noted that:
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Hunter Biden's appointment to the board was widely reported in American media;
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The U.S. Embassy in Kiev that coordinated Biden's work in the country repeatedly and publicly discussed the general prosecutor's case against Burisma;
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Great Britain took very public action against Burisma while Joe Biden was working with that government on Ukraine issues;
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Biden's office was quoted, on the record, acknowledging Hunter Biden's role in Burisma in a New York Times article about the general prosecutor's Burisma case that appeared four months before Biden forced the firing of Shokin. The vice president's office suggested in that article that Hunter Biden was a lawyer free to pursue his own private business deals.
President Obama named Biden the administration’s point man on Ukraine in February 2014, after a popular revolution ousted Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych and as Moscow sent military forces into Ukraine’s Crimea territory.
According to Schweizer’s book, Vice President Biden met with Archer in April 2014 right as Archer was named to the board at Burisma. A month later, Hunter Biden was named to the board, to oversee Burisma’s legal team.
But the Ukrainian investigation and Joe Biden’s effort to fire the prosecutor overseeing it has escaped without much public debate.
Most of the general prosecutor’s investigative work on Burisma focused on three separate cases, and most stopped abruptly once Shokin was fired. The most prominent of the Burisma cases was transferred to a different Ukrainian agency, closely aligned with the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, known as the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), according to the case file and current General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko.
NABU closed that case, and a second case involving alleged improper money transfers in London was dropped when Ukrainian officials failed to file the necessary documents by the required deadline. The general prosecutor’s office successfully secured a multimillion-dollar judgment in a tax evasion case, Lutsenko said. He did not say who was the actual defendant in that case.
As a result, the Biden family appeared to have escaped the potential for an embarrassing inquiry overseas in the final days of the Obama administration and during an election in which Democrat Hillary Clinton was running for president in 2016.
But then, as Biden’s 2020 campaign ramped up over the past year, Lutsenko — the Ukrainian prosecutor that Biden once hailed as a “solid” replacement for Shokin — began looking into what happened with the Burisma case that had been shut down.
Lutsenko told me that, while reviewing the Burisma investigative files, he discovered “members of the Board obtained funds as well as another U.S.-based legal entity, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, for consulting services.”
Lutsenko said some of the evidence he knows about in the Burisma case may interest U.S. authorities and he’d like to present that information to new U.S. Attorney General William Barr, particularly the vice president’s intervention.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Biden had correlated and connected this aid with some of the HR (personnel) issues and changes in the prosecutor’s office,” Lutsenko said.
Nazar Kholodnytskyi, the lead anti-corruption prosecutor in Lutsenko’s office, confirmed to me in an interview that part of the Burisma investigation was reopened in 2018, after Joe Biden made his remarks. “We were able to start this case again,” Kholodnytskyi said.
But he said the separate Ukrainian police agency that investigates corruption has dragged its feet in gathering evidence. “We don’t see any result from this case one year after the reopening because of some external influence,” he said, declining to be more specific.
Ukraine is in the middle of a hard-fought presidential election, is a frequent target of intelligence operations by neighboring Russia and suffers from rampant political corruption nationwide. Thus, many Americans might take the restart of the Burisma case with a grain of salt, and rightfully so.
But what makes Lutsenko’s account compelling is that federal authorities in America, in an entirely different case, uncovered financial records showing just how much Hunter Biden’s and Archer’s company received from Burisma while Joe Biden acted as Obama’s point man on Ukraine.
Between April 2014 and October 2015, more than $3 million was paid out of Burisma accounts to an account linked to Biden’s and Archer’s Rosemont Seneca firm, according to the financial records placed in a federal court file in Manhattan in an unrelated case against Archer.
The bank records show that, on most months when Burisma money flowed, two wire transfers of $83,333.33 each were sent to the Rosemont Seneca–connected account on the same day. The same Rosemont Seneca–linked account typically then would pay Hunter Biden one or more payments ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 each. Prosecutors reviewed internal company documents and wanted to interview Hunter Biden and Archer about why they had received such payments, according to interviews.
Lutsenko said Ukrainian company board members legally can pay themselves for work they do if it benefits the company’s bottom line, but prosecutors never got to determine the merits of the payments to Rosemont because of the way the investigation was shut down.
As for Joe Biden’s intervention in getting Lutsenko’s predecessor fired in the midst of the Burisma investigation, Lutsenko suggested that was a matter to discuss with Attorney General Barr: “Of course, I would be happy to have a conversation with him about this issue.”
As the now-completed Russia collusion investigation showed us, every American deserves the right to be presumed innocent until evidence is made public or a conviction is secured, especially when some matters of a case involve foreigners. The same presumption should be afforded to Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Devon Archer and Burisma in the Ukraine case.
Nonetheless, some hard questions should be answered by Biden as he prepares, potentially, to run for president in 2020: Was it appropriate for your son and his firm to cash in on Ukraine while you served as point man for Ukraine policy? What work was performed for the money Hunter Biden’s firm received? Did you know about the Burisma probe? And when it was publicly announced that your son worked for Burisma, should you have recused yourself from leveraging a U.S. policy to pressure the prosecutor who very publicly pursued Burisma?
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All of this is just smoke; nothing to see here. Everyone knows that the Ukrainian government is corrupt. Any connection between what happened in Ukraine and any Democrats during the Obama administration was just coincidental. Democrats certainly could not have been attracted by corruption in a corrupt country. The New York Times can debunk all of this in a New York minute.
Trump is asking to be impeached. So, impeach Trump already.
People don't seem to understand that impeaching Trump is the only way to clean up the Democratic Party.
Maybe it would clean up both parties. Both could use it.
40 pct of Congressional Republicans have turned over and have been replaced by Democrats or new Republicans. Much of the Republican deadwood has been removed. Republicans' biggest problem right now is Mitt Romney waiting in the wings to make a power play.
A power play in the Senate doesn't involve 'most Republicans'. Romney had enough support from party insiders to obtain the 2012 nomination for the Presidency. So, apparently Romney has some talent for backroom politics with party insiders.
Obama defeated Romney in much the same manner as Trump defeating Clinton; Obama won the rust belt. The interesting question is what role Romney played in persuading Republican voters to support Trump rather than an establishment candidate. In many ways Trump is a repudiation of Romney's politics.
Mitt Romney is motivated to force a return of the Republican Party to the status quo of the Reagan legacy. And Romney doesn't need voters to accomplish a power play in the Senate; Romney will need to make backroom deals.
Post already refuted bullshit allegations.
Rinse and repeat.
So, impeach Trump already. Trump is asking to be impeached; get on with it.
Trump isn't responsible for posting already refuted bullshit allegations on NV. You are.
Yet, Trump is being blamed for pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate Hunter Biden. As a matter of fact, the corruption investigation was already underway as discussed in the seeded article published in April, 2019, before Trump's phone call.
Trump is asking to be impeached. Why are Democrats stalling? The only way all the dirty laundry will be aired is to impeach Trump.
So, impeach Trump already. Get on with it.
Trump isn't responsible for posting already refuted bullshit allegations on NV. You are.
You're still desperately trying to deflect from those facts. Your post proves that.
Giuliani admitted that he did just that at Trump's behest.
Your seed is an opinion, utterly unsubstantiated, by a political hack.
There are multiple FACT based articles, from RELIABLE sources, with quoted statements naming Ukrainian officials and world officials such as Christine Lagarde of the IMF, that refute the bullshit in your seed. I've already posted one in two other seeds. You participated in at least one of those seeds.
I find it hysterical that EVERYONE agrees that Ukraine has had a corruption problem for quite a while and yesterday Trump claimed that he withheld aid because he was worried about that corruption.
Now, Trump, Giuliani and rest of his sycophants, seem to think that Ukraine should be relied upon to investigate American citizens and that we should believe whatever the fuck they come up with.
The whole concept is moronic.
Is there really any point with a GoP controlled Senate?
It will end like Clinton's ended and Trump comes out unscathed/
Yes there is a point. The Congress cannot let overt and blatant violations of the law ad nauseam into perpetuity.
If nothing else, the evidence will be documented and legislation can be fashioned to keep this shit from ever happening again.
IMHO, the loopholes and weaknesses in our laws are being exposed and the Congress desperately needs to put some teeth into the emoluments, indictment and subpoena statutes.
The truth is that 1) Pelosi is 5 votes short of the 218 total needed to get it passed in the House and 2) she wants to try and build up public support for it. I'm waiting to see the public response as well.
nope
That was reached last night.
That's what leaders do.
Where's the vote?
That's what leaders do.
Leader? She had Nadler clamoring for impeachment and Schiff making more & more inflammatory statements each day and the squad demanding it, then came the news of the whistleblower and the delay of handing over the info and Pelosi finally let go. You think she really wanted to do this?
She needs a broad consensus - democrats and Republicans. Did you notice how differently both sides interpreted the documents + complaint?
You keep asking that question but won't answer WHAT vote?
What is your definition of 'broad consensus'? How many Republicans?
Yes. I also noticed that some of the GOP in Congress merely spewed the 'talking points' put out by the WH. One of which is an outright lie though that doesn't keep them from repeating it.
Oh and Nunes! Somebody has got to get a net on that guy...
Then you don't want to have a serious discussion.
So a Vice president with the full backing of the State Department threatens to withhold military aide to a foreign government unless they get rid of a corrupt prosecutor who was aiding and abetting both Ukraine and the United State's enemies. That's exactly what our heads of State and administration should be doing.
vs.
A President, without the backing of the State Department or anyone else, threatens to withhold military aide unless the foreign government provide him dirt on a potential political opponent in an upcoming election.
How can anyone with more than half a brain try and equate one with the other? They are night and day different. President Trump is simply the most corrupt, unworthy, vile piece of self serving garbage to ever sit in the oval office.
Everyone outside the far rightwing propaganda bubble is well aware that the allegations regarding Biden's son and Ukraine have been investigated. The facts are out there. First and foremost they are that there is no zip zero nada evidence of any wrongdoing by Joe Biden. Full Stop. Period.
As to the families of those in power profiting from their access to power, well that is an issue worth exploring. Currently that is legal as evidenced by Trump's sons openly selling access and Ivanka receiving preferential treatment by China in the form of patents and franchising agreements worth gazillions into the far distant future. It was wrong Lincoln's and Grant's sons got filthy rich off the Civil War and Reconstruction and it was wrong when Billy Carter was getting special deals. And, it is still wrong today. There has never been any family of any administration to ever so openly gain financially from their access to power as the current one. In this regard Trump's is the most financially corrupt in at least one hundred year.
In any case, Joe Biden is not implicated of any wrongdoing as regards the Ukraine. That is not true regarding Donald Trump. Please remember that Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort, is going to spend the rest of his life in prison for in part lying to the FBI about his role in both Russia's and Ukraine's illegal interference in the 2016 US Presidential election. I think that is pertinent and evidence of intent to again flaunt US election laws.
The truth is out there for anyone to see. This article is six months old. Any implication that this story has not been thoroughly investigated and utterly debunked is pure bullshit. This is a lame attempt to divert from the fact that Trump has again conspired with a foreign government to illegally influence and interfer with another US Presidential election. AGAIN! There is something way fucking wrong with any American making excuses for that. None! NOT One! Trump's behavior in this Ukraine thang is inexcusable, unacceptable and intolerable.
IMPEACH TRUMP NOW!
Investigated by who?
Ukrainian to US prosecutors: Why don't you want our evidence on Democrats?
So, impeach Trump already. Let's put all the dirty laundry on the table and sort it out.
The Wall Street Journal and Fox News investigated and both found that Biden did nothing wrong. OTOH, those stalwart conservative outlets are condemning Trump's illegal attempts to get Ukraine to illegally interfere in our election. Everyone who cares to know knows that what I stated above is the god's honest truth. If it were not Trump's lousy justice department would have already indicated both Bidens. They have not. Full Stop. Period.
The US House of Representatives is going to impeach Trump. Deal with it...
When did news organizations become courts? That means we don't need to waste public money on the FBI or special prosecutors. That's why Robert Mueller's work as special prosecutor was a political sham. Trump had been convicted in the court of public opinion and that's all that mattered.
My way of dealing with impeachment is to look forward to it. I'm demanding that Democrats impeach Trump. I've been making that demand for quite some time.
Democrats are stalling; trying to run out the clock. Trump won't be impeached, indicted, or convicted after he leaves office. How serious have been the crimes?
It will be interesting to see how Democrats justify selling out America after they win the White House in 2020.
Since when do courts investigate?
Oh and since when is it kosher for the US government to instigate an investigation into an American citizen by a foreign government for an alleged crime perpetrated in another country? Seriously, WTF?
The DOJ spokeswoman said that the DOJ is investigating whether Ukraine had anything to do with the meddling in the 2016 election. So why does Trump want Ukraine to investigate Crowdstrike? Doesn't he trust his own DOJ to do the job?
That is a delusional statement.
So you don't think Trump will ever be held accountable for his crimes?
How have they sold out America? Please be specific.
Btw, my compliments again to John Solomon (Investigative Reporter) for getting the truth out.
John Solomon (Investigative Reporter) posted this as an OPINION piece. Much of the content has been debunked. It's ironic that the HILL has been all over the place on this story for YEARS. They really have a hard on for Biden...
John Solomon strikes fear in the hearts of liberals everywhere!
This liberal would laugh in his face. He's a hack and a light weight.
You need to put the sarcasm tag behind praise of Solomon. His co-workers at The Hill had to get his byline reduced to "op/ed" because he wasnt functioning as a reporter. There are few less credible "reporters" around.
So you've told us many times. He seems to attract you like a Bee to honey.