‘I have no doubt that there were illegal activities engaged in by Burisma,’ Shokin tells Fox News
Thomas Catenacci , Thomas PhippenFox News Published August 26, 2023 8:10pm EDT
In an exclusive interview with Fox News, former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin detailed the involvement he believed President Biden, the then-vice president, played in his firing and how it involved Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
During the interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, Shokin said he was ousted in 2016 because he was investigating Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company where Hunter Biden served on the board. Shokin also claimed that Joe and Hunter Biden accepted bribes in the case, and that the then-vice president ultimately hurt America’s reputation and created the groundwork for Russia to invade Ukraine.”I have said repeatedly in my previous interviews that Poroshenko fired me at the insistence of the then Vice President Biden because I was investigating Burisma,”
Shokin told Fox News in the interview which aired Saturday evening.”You understood me correctly, this is how it was,” he added after a follow-up question from Kilmeade about Biden’s involvement. “There were no complaints whatsoever and no problems with how I was performing at my job. But because pressure was repeatedly put on [then-Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko, that is what ended up in him firing me.”
Shokin did not provide additional evidence of his claim that the Bidens accepted bribes or elaborate on the allegation. In March 2016, Poroshenko ousted Shokin, who was appointed one year earlier, after facing pressure from the U.S. government. The international community, led by the U.S. and then-Vice President Biden who led U.S.-Ukraine policy, believed Shokin was allowing corruption to fester in the nation’s government and his own office.
In December 2015, Biden traveled to Kyiv, Ukraine, where he demanded Poroshenko root out corruption and fire Shokin, threatening to withhold a key U.S. aid package. During a speech delivered with the country’s leaders present, Biden said the Office of the General Prosecutor “desperately needs reform” and warned about the dangers posed by corruption in the government.
Biden urged Ukrainian president to fire Shokin
A year after leaving the White House, Biden recounted his closed-door conversations with Poroshenko during the 2015 trip. He explained how he told Ukrainian officials the U.S. would withhold up to $1 billion in aid money earmarked for their country if Shokin remained in his position.
“I said, ‘Nah, I’m not going to – we’re not going to give you the billion dollars.’ They said, ‘You have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said –.’ I said, ‘Call him,’” Biden recounted during a January 2018 event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations.
“I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the $1 billion.’””I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here,'” Biden continued. “I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”
Republican lawmakers and Shokin himself, however, have pointed to Shokin’s investigation of Burisma and its owner Mykola Zlochevsky at the time of his ouster. In February 2016, one month before Shokin was fired, his office filed a legal petition to seize Zlochevsky’s property, including four homes, two pieces of property and a Rolls-Royce sports car, the Kyiv Post reported at the time.The investigation took place while Hunter Biden served on Burisma’s board of directors.
Hunter joined the firm in 2014 and departed in 2019 after his term on its board expired. In a statement to Fox News, the White House pointed to indications that Shokin was fired because he had been too soft on corruption. “For years, these false claims have been debunked, and no matter how much air time Fox gives them, they will remain false,”
White House spokesperson Ian Sams told Fox News. “Fox is giving a platform for these lies to a former Ukrainian prosecutor general whose office his own deputy called ‘a hotbed of corruption,’ drawing demands for reform not only from then-Vice President Biden but also from U.S. diplomats, international partners, and Republican senators like Ron Johnson.”
The White House also stated Shokin’s office had not been investigating Burisma or Hunter at the time of his ouster in March 2016, and it pointed to three reports published within weeks of each other in 2019 by The Washington Post, Associated Press and New York Times stating Shokin’s office wasn’t investigating Burisma.
Shokin: Burisma merited ‘special attention’
“The reason I oversaw the Burisma case was because I was the prosecutor general. Burisma was an ordinary case. There wasn’t anything particularly different about it,” Shokin told Fox News.
“The reason that I was handling it was because it deserved a special mention,” Shokin continued. “It was on a list of cases to merit special attention because Hunter Biden was involved with Burisma and of course, his father, the vice president, Biden at the time oversaw Ukraine affairs for the White House. This is why.”
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin holds a press conference on Nov. 2, 2015, months before he was ousted over allegations of corruption. (GENYA SAVILOV/AFP via Getty Images)
He added that he had “no doubt” Burisma was engaged in illegal activities and stated it would take him “half a day” to explain them all. Among the allegations, he said Burisma illegally produced, sold and utilized natural gas supplies.”I have no doubt that there were illegal activities engaged in by Burisma,” Shokin said. “As a matter of fact, the criminal case had been started before me.” “It continued to expand and Zlochevsky, who at the time held the post of minister and was the founder and CEO of Burisma, started bringing in people who could provide protection for him,” he said.
“Hunter Biden was among them and the corruption network expanded as a result. So, yes, to answer your question, there was no doubt in my mind that Burisma was engaged in illegal activities.”
Hunter Biden ‘called D.C.’
Echoing Shokin’s claim that Hunter Biden was hired solely to protect Burisma by leveraging his father’s role in the White House, Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer, who also served on Burisma’s board, confirmed in a closed-door interview in July that company leaders turned to Hunter for help amid pressure from Shokin’s office and other entities.
Archer said Hunter “called D.C.” to help get Shokin fired.”When Burisma’s owner was facing pressure from the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the company for corruption, Archer testified that Burisma executives asked Hunter to ‘call D.C.’ after a Burisma board meeting in Dubai,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said after Archer’s testimony.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said he believes Hunter Biden leveraged his father’s position as vice president to help Burisma. (Mandel NGAN/AFP, Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Fox News Digital recently reported that, on Nov. 2, 2015, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharski emailed Hunter Biden, Archer and fellow Hunter associate Eric Schwerin about a “revised proposal, contract and initial invoice for Burisma Holdings,” from lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies.
Hunter reportedly connected Burisma with Blue Star Strategies to help the energy firm fight corruption charges levied against Zlochevsky, the company’s owner.Pozharski emphasized in his email that the “ultimate purpose” of the agreement with Blue Star Strategies was to shut down “any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine,” referring to Zlochevsky, who also went by Nikolay.
“The scope of work should also include organization of a visit of a number of widely recognized and influential current and/or former US policy-makers to Ukraine in November aiming to conduct meetings with and bring positive signal/message and support on Nikolay’s issue to the Ukrainian top officials above with the ultimate purpose to close down for any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine,”
Pozharskyi continued.Biden made the infamous December 2015 trip to Ukraine a month after the Pozharski email and would host a holiday party at his residence days after he returned that included Hunter and multiple Burisma-linked associates.
Shokin accuses Bidens of taking bribes
Shokin added in the interview Saturday that if he had been allowed to continue his investigation, he would have uncovered a scheme involving the Bidens and Archer. He also said he believed both Joe and Hunter Biden took bribes in the case.
“Had I continued to oversee the Burisma investigation, we would have found the facts about the corrupt activities that they were engaging in,” Shokin said. “That included both Hunter Biden and Devon Archer and others.”
“I do not want to deal in unproven facts, but my firm personal conviction is that, yes, this was the case. They were being bribed,” the former prosecutor general added. “And the fact that Joe Biden gave away $1 billion in U.S. money in exchange for my dismissal, my firing isn’t that alone A case of corruption?”
Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer, who also served on Burisma’s board, testified in a closed-door House Oversight Committee hearing in July that, amid pressure from Shokin’s office and other entities investigating Burisma, company leaders turned to Hunter for help.
Archer said Hunter “called D.C.” to help get Shokin fired. (Fox News)After Shokin’s ouster, The New York Times reported that Shokin had been criticized in Ukraine for not prosecuting officials, businessmen and lawmakers for corruption while Viktor Yanukovych was president.
The U.S. government and International Monetary Fund had believed in 2016 that Shokin wasn’t doing enough to fight corruption, which ran rampant throughout Ukraine.Both former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Bridget Brink testified during a Senate hearing in 2020 that Shokin’s decision not to pursue a Burisma investigation or root out corruption elsewhere were reasons for his firing.
Hunter Biden, left, and Mykola Zlochevsky, right (Getty Images)”It was our conclusion by then that, in fact, the dismissal of Prosecutor Shokin would be counter to Burisma’s interests, because not only was he not pursuing the Burisma case, he was responsible for protecting those who had helped get the case dismissed,” Nuland said.
However, Shokin pushed back when asked about the media reports and claims made about his alleged corruption, saying there hasn’t ever been an example given. He added he doesn’t have enough money to sue news outlets for defamation.
“I would appreciate if any of these highly respectable publications could come up with a single instance or a single example of my personal corruption or any offense whatsoever allegedly committed by me,” Shokin told Fox News. “Since I was fired, nobody, including Joe Biden, has cited or mentioned or provided any examples of my corruption or any offense allegedly committed by me.”Video“I would gladly [sue for defamation],”
Shokin continued. “But suing somebody costs money and I simply don’t have the money to do that because I am a retiree and my monthly pension constitutes the equivalent of $800.”And Shokin concluded saying that Biden has harmed America’s reputation abroad through his actions in Ukraine.
“There is no doubt that his actions have damaged the US reputation in Ukraine. It is public knowledge,” he said. “Everybody knows that it was because of Joe Biden’s actions that Russia was able to claim Crimea without firing a single shot, which of course eventually led to a full scale war that is currently under way.”
Shokin did not elaborate on how Biden’s actions contributed to Russia’s rapid takeover of Crimea in 2014. According to reports about the White House’s response to the invasion, Biden urged then-President Obama to send lethal assistance to Ukraine, but was overruled.
The White House noted that Shokin took office after Russia seized Crimea.Shokin told Fox that his book addresses the role Biden has played in Ukraine in his book.”But, yes, the damage has been done. Definitely,” Shokin concluded. “I have long been concerned about my personal safety and security. I’ve already died technically, twice as I was poisoned with Mercury.”
Poor Shokin. He got pulled out of retirement to help root out corruption from Ukrainian courts filled with Moskali, trashed in the media for years and poisoned by Moskali too. He did well as a patriot and everyone was surprised by his firing. Except Joe Biden. “Well, son of a bitch!”
“He did well as a patriot and everyone was surprised by his firing”.
Lol, are you trying to get an award for being the most delusional person on the planet?
You definitely aren’t aware of Shokin being a corrupt monster that was hated by the entire civil society of Ukraine.
He is as much a patriot as Yanukovich is.
I know that it is mission impossible, but maybe, just maybe, it is time to check other sources than your beloved Fox News.
Did you know that there are other media outlets as well?
Literally no one was surprised by his sacking, except for you.
And no, Shokin wasn’t investigating Burisma at the time, so his replacement by the equally corrupt Lutsenko did change exactly nothing.
Yes, Hunter Biden abused his dad’s position to get a well-paid job, but no, Shokin’s sacking has nothing with Hunter Biden.
And lets not forget, Red, it was Biden of America who said, HE will withhold Ukraine funding until he was fired.
That itself is a crime committed by Biden, which is highly published, yet American justice system condone/ignore the crime. It is not his money to withhold. This is serious as he is also saying Obama agreed.
Influence peddling …quid pro quo
https://www.facebook.com/WhiteHouse45/videos/joe-biden-if-the-prosecutor-is-not-fired-you-are-not-getting-the-money/196947478124769/
I wasn’t close enough to the corruption in Ukraine in 2016 so I like allot of others just heard what the US media wanted to say. I saw Shokin’s interview back in 2019 and it was hard trying to figure out who was the bullshitter. However if Sir Red opines that Shokin was indeed screwed I’m apt to believe that more so then the BS from US media.
The guy before Shokin took a $6 million bribe so Poroshenko appointed Shokin. That billion dollars was an installment legislated for Ukraine. The reason it was being released is because the White House and the DOJ approved Shokin’s work fighting corruption. Which, at the time, was a factor for releasing the money.
It’s sad that the US population believe through various polls that Biden and Trump are the best the US has to offer. It isenough to want to put a bullet in one’s head. Geez this is the best we have to offer? Please God help us all!
Out of a population of 350 million, you would think the US had someone to elect that had a spine not made from jelly.
I think we would have better candidates if the media didn’t trash half of them and the loonies sue half of them.
Hunter photographed himself whoring and doing coke, this confirming his status as a lowlife criminal halfwit. Furthermore, with no knowledge of energy, Ukraine, or Ukrainian law. So why did his dad make them both look so stupid and corrupt by inserting him into a blatantly obvious sinecure?
It’s obvious what was in it for Biden Jr, but who else benefited from such a sordid arrangement?
In whose interests is Shokin working, when he comes up now with this story and gives it to a Russia shill channel that employs Ingraham, Macgregor, Koffler, Gutfield and until recently Carlson? A channel whose owner is currently schmoozing the ex-mother-in-law of Abramovich?
Who gains from this story, apart from Russia and the campaigns of Trump, Ramaswamy and DeSantis?
Who loses?
Ans: Ukraine, which again is labeled as a “corrupt country”. How corrupt is it compared to say, France, Italy and other EU players?
How come no one ever points out that Belarus, Russia and all their filthy allies in the BRICS are the most corrupt in the world?
When Burisma is labeled as a Ukrainian company, it’s pretty misleading. It’s registered in Limassol, aka Moscow-on -Sea. Its owner took out Cypriot citizenship and is hardly a supporter of Ukraine.
I don’t think RSM cares about Shokin’s intentions. He clearly didn’t even try to find out anything about Shokin.
Fox News says it, so then it is true.
RSM’s logic has never changed over the years.
https://www.facebook.com/WhiteHouse45/videos/joe-biden-if-the-prosecutor-is-not-fired-you-are-not-getting-the-money/196947478124769/
This conduct is not legal. interfering with another countries investigation, then requesting the termination of and employee of Ukraine, and withholding American funds, which were not his to withhold, is criminal
“When Burisma is labeled as a Ukrainian company, it’s pretty misleading. It’s registered in Limassol, aka Moscow-on -Sea. Its owner took out Cypriot citizenship and is hardly a supporter of Ukraine.”
I don’t think many if any people know this. Unfortunately their address is Ukraine
Not to mention, that slimy mafia boss of Burisma used to work in the Yanukobytch cabinet I believe.
…because he was Ukrainian. That was before he bought Cypriot citizenship because Ukraine had a warrant out for his arrest.
”I have said repeatedly in my previous interviews that Poroshenko fired me at the insistence of the then Vice President Biden because I was investigating Burisma,”
Its been out there for years but….some people….ignore it because it doesn’t fit their narrative….the russian narrative.
Joe Biden didn’t “insert” Hunter.
Burisma had a problem getting foreign investments. Their existing corporate charter was set up by former communist party officials who didn’t have any expertise in corporate law. Burisma hired Hunter Biden to fix the problem. Hunter has a law degree and was a partner in a law firm at the time. He knew his way around corporate law.
Investors just wanted to be sure that if they invested a million dollars in Burisma, the CEO wouldn’t go buy a million dollar yacht with it. Hunter set up corporate rules to make sure Burisma was operated more like a Westernized European corporation than a Russian one.
Note that Hunter has been on other boards. In fact, he was appointed to a five-year term on the board of directors of Amtrak by President George W. Bush in 2006.
“When Burisma is labeled as a Ukrainian company” – Burisma was founded in 2002, in Ukraine, and their primary operations are in Ukraine. Zlochevsky was previously the Ecology and Natural Resources Minister for Ukraine, and also served as deputy secretary on National Security and Defense Council under Yanukovych.
As stated, it’s a Cypriot company run by a pro-Russia Cypriot criminal.
The idea that a know-nothing sack of shit like Hunter could have got such a high paid role without his father is a fantasy.
He wasn’t a “know-nothing”; he was a corporate lawyer with the experience that Burisma was looking for. He joined the board in 2014. It’s probably true that they hired him in hopes that he could pull some strings with his father, but that doesn’t mean that his father did anything to get him hired. (As I stated above, President Bush had appointed him to the board of directors of Amtrak in 2006.)
Hunter Biden’s brother Beau died of brain cancer May 30, 2015, which started Hunter’s descent; it was a year later that he started doing crack. Nobody knew in 2014 how far off the rails Hunter would go a few years later.
The article states Shokin did not provide additional evidence for his claim or elaborate on his allegations. Shokin s own deputy called the office a hotbed of corruption. Which drew demands from even Ron Johnson to reform.
For years these false claims have been debunked and no matter how much air-time fox gives it, it still remains false.
Shokin wants to claim he was doing what was right but he is just regurgitating lies to promote his new book.
It is easy for all to look back and see this and that. But at the time, if there was an official investigation ongoing, no matter what we thought, or Biden, Biden does not have the right or legal justification for withholding American’s funds and interfering with an ongoing investigation within another sovereign country.
Nope he didn’t, Obama was the one calling the shot. There was no ongoing investigation. The Deputy can attest to that.
Did you forget, Poroshenko was charged by the Zelenskyy Administrations for Treason.
Biden had no business, Bill, interfering and threatening another country’s government with money after it was approved by Congress.
Suggesting charges should be brought and them actually happening are two different things Bo. Biden was conveying the position of the Obama administration and the position of the U.S. government that the money would be held back unless more was done to tackle corruption. Specifically a corrupt PG and several others in his office. Despite some of the things said by then V.P. Biden he was nothing more than a messenger.
As to your he had no business comment, the U.S. government has and will at times condition assistance based on performance and actions of the recipient as directed by Congress it is NOT illegal.
After further review, I see Poroshenko was charged but not detained nor arrested. Have not yet found what became of that, or assets that were frozen pending outcome.
It WAS a hotbed of corruption before Shokin and the previous PG accepted millions in bribes. If you look at Shokin now, he has nothing but his pension and some people from that position take tons of bribes and live like a king. If Shokin was corrupt he was terrible at it because he has nothing. I don’t like Ukrainians getting trashed for being patriotic, that is unfair.
I don’t have a firm grasp on the extent of how things were before Shokin was PG, But Ukrainian prosecutors and anti-corruption activists with knowledge of the matter argue that the timeline of developments in the Burisma case and Shokin’s stint as chief prosecutor simply does not fit the narrative being put forward. Moreover Shokin himself was the biggest obstacle standing in the way of the investigations. Perhaps Shokin had a lot of outstanding debts to pay off. He doesn’t seem very patriotic in my eyes.
Activists sat the case had been sabotaged by Shokin himself. As an example, they say two months before Hunter joined Burisma’s board, British authorities had requested information from Shokin’s office as part of an investigation into alleged money laundering by Zlichevskiy. Shokin ignored them.
“he has nothing”
I just read that he has a net worth of $5 million. More interesting is that he apparently has a common-law wife and a child not specified as family members in his assets declaration, to whom he transferred a lot of assets. “According to the investigation, Shokin transferred his property in Kyivska Oblast countryside to his 3-year old daughter in summer 2014, immediately after he had been appointed Deputy Prosecutor General. This property was never declared.”
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2016/07/29/7116301/
Here, read for yourself what your compromised hero is doing to your party…and poor Ukraine. Kind of makes you proud?
https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/imo/media/doc/HSGAC_Finance_Report_FINAL.pdf
“your compromised hero”
Hunter Biden is not my hero. And no evidence of Joe Biden being compromised. Lots of attempts to smear by association, though. (And some stuff that’s already been debunked – e.g., the claim that Hunter Biden got 3.5 million from Elena Baturina.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/unraveling-tale-hunter-biden-35-million-russia/
But almost as immediately as Rosemont Seneca Thornton was created, the partners decided to dissolve it, according to a person with access to the board minutes. The original structure had added unexpected regulatory burdens to Thornton, and so Bulger’s lawyers advised that the group split up, this person said.
Within a year, Chinese corporate records reflected that the foreign investors in BHR were Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC, with 20 percent, and Thornton Group LLC, with 10 percent. Corporate records show Rosemont Seneca Bohai, the replacement corporate vehicle, was formed on Feb. 13, 2014, the day before the Baturina transfer.
In theory, for Hunter Biden, Rosemont Seneca Thornton was no more.
But Rosemont Seneca Thornton was not dissolved as planned. Four people familiar with the company said that Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, controls it. Archer had kept the vehicle alive for his own real estate business, Rosemont Realty, which raised money from Eastern European and Central Asian investors, two people knowledgeable about his activities said. But he did not inform either Hunter Biden or Bulger, they said.
Archer’s secret was exposed when the Senate report was published. Confronted, Archer told Bulger that he had used Rosemont Seneca Thornton to transfer funds from Baturina to purchase real estate in Brooklyn, according to a participant in the conversation.
More details on “Shokin’s secret life: ex-prosecutor general concealed luxurious $10M villa in Prague, houses in Ukraine owned by his partner wife and daughter.” can be found here:
https://censor.net/en/photo_news/399666/shokins_secret_life_exprosecutor_general_concealed_luxurious_10m_villa_in_prague_houses_in_ukraine_owned
(I don’t know how reliable they are, but MediaBias/FactCheck rates them as “mostly factual” and “high credibility”. The fact that pravda.com.ua reported the same thing also lends credence to it, in my mind.)
Amid domestic and international pressure, he was removed from office by the Ukrainian Parliament in March 2016, a move welcomed by the European Union, the United States, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.
Shokin was a controversial appointee due to his perceived role in blocking prosecutions against those accused of shooting demonstrators in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution.
two of Shokin’s prosecutors were caught with stashes of diamonds, cash and valuables in their homes, likely indicating bribery. Prosecutors from another department of Shokin’s office were fired or reassigned when they attempted to bring a prosecution against the so-called “diamond prosecutors”
The European Union praised Shokin’s dismissal due to a “lack of tangible results” of his office’s investigations, and also because people in Shokin’s office were themselves being investigated
The reason that Biden put pressure on Ukraine over Shokin was because he was refusing to investigate Burisma. And not just Burisma. Shokin was such a corrupt prosecutor that he was allowing oligarchs to do as they pleased, so long as they shared a little of their profits. It was actually a probe by the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office that opened the door on how corrupt Shokin was, and how his failure to investigate was turning Ukraine into a hotspot for international criminals. Getting rid of Shokin was a critical step in the fight against corruption in Ukraine.
Shokin himself has even confirmed that he was never investigating Burisma, which is all the testimony that’s needed to show that the whole thing is a farce. The truth is that Biden completely ignored how his actions might damage his son’s income in order to do the right thing in stopping corruption. And, no matter what Giuliani, Trump, or innumerable Republicans have said since then, there is not, was not, has not been, any evidence of wrongdoing by either Joe Biden or Hunter Biden in Ukraine.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/ukraine-prosecutor-says-no-evidence-of-wrongdoing-by-bidens
Read the interview. You sure come up with a bunch of BS because you don’t want to hear something. Get your head out of the sand. Everything is right here in black and white, read it.
I did read it. And I saw where Shokin said that if he had been allowed to continue his investigation, he would have uncovered a scheme involving the Bidens and Archer. So, he didn’t have any evidence of such a scheme, but thinks he might have eventually found something. And I saw where Shokin said, “I do not want to deal in unproven facts” and then proceeded to make unproven claims.
The Washington Post also debunked Shokin’s interview:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/08/28/viktor-shokin-fox-interview/
A few quotes from the WaPo article:
Kilmeade asked Shokin whether he was a “threat” to Burisma, which Shokin agreed he was.
The claim was centered on recent testimony and public comments by former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer. But Archer qualified the idea that Shokin was a “threat” by saying that “everyone in government is always a threat.” He has also said, including under oath, that he was told Burisma’s allies in Washington didn’t want Shokin fired.
“No, we were told that it was bad, and we don’t want a new prosecutor, and Shokin was taken care of,” Archer recently told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Vitaliy Kasko, a Shokin deputy, told Bloomberg News in 2019 that he had pushed Shokin without success throughout 2015 to pursue the pending [Burisma founder Mykola] Zlochevsky case. But coincidentally, as Biden and Poroshenko hammered out a deal, it appeared as if the prosecutor general’s office was finally acting against Zlochevsky. News reports suggested certain assets — personal property attributed to Zlochevsky but legally owned by his family, including a mansion, a luxury car and plots of land — had been seized in February 2016.
But working with our colleagues in Ukraine, The Fact Checker determined this was largely a technical reinstatement of a court order that had been in place for at least a year. The case — which began in 2014 — was transferred in December 2015 away from Shokin’s oversight to another prosecutorial entity, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), which is funded with U.S. and European aid and received technical support from the FBI. Zlochevsky’s lawyers took advantage of the gap in oversight to win court approval to cancel the seizure, but after a public outcry, the order to seize assets was reinstated on Feb. 4. So what had appeared to be new action was in fact the status quo.
…
Biden’s efforts to oust the prosecutor only plausibly benefited Zlochevsky if Shokin had moved aggressively against Zlochevsky. But documents and interviews instead show Shokin had failed to act — which was a key reason the international community, led by the United States, sought his removal in the first place.
Good think we have corrupt Biden in his own words withholding money approved for Ukraine unless Poroshenko fire Shokin. That is what matters and you can’t even bring yourself to admit what he did was wrong and hurt Ukraine. You are blinded by ideology, friend.
LOL. Nobody questioned that VP Biden did what President Obama told him to do, and insisted that Ukraine clean up their prosecutor’s office by firing Shokin. In fact, I’ve repeatedly posted that Viktor Shokin’s record was so dismal that his dismissal was also sought by the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, the G7, and Ukrainians who protested his actions. Getting rid of Shokin was a critical step in the fight against corruption in Ukraine. What President Obama had Joe Biden do was intended to benefit Ukraine.
From the US Congressional record:
Without pressure from Joe Biden, European diplomats, the International Monetary Fund and other international organizations, Shokin would not have been fired, said Daria Kaleniuk, co-founder and executive director of the Anti Corruption Action Centre in Kiev.
“Civil society organizations in Ukraine were pressing for his resignation,” Kaleniuk said, “but no one would have cared if there had not been voices from outside this country calling on him to go.”
https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110331/documents/HMKP-116-JU00-20191211-SD440.pdf
BTW – You don’t need to listen to lies from Faux News or James Comer or Gym Jordan about what Devon Archer said. You can read the transcript for yourself.
“Are you aware of any wrongdoing by Vice President Biden?”
Mr. Archer: “No, I’m not aware of any.”
“the firing of Shokin was bad for Burisma because he was under control.”
“State Department officials interviewed in this investigation explained that Shokin did not pursue corruption investigations against Burisma’s owner, effectively shielding the owner from prosecution, and that removing Shokin made an investigation into Burisma more, not less, likely.”
“do you have any basis to believe that Vice President Biden’s call for Shokin’s removal was driven by anything other than the U.S. Government’s anticorruption policy in Ukraine?”
Mr. Archer: “I have no reason to believe.”
“It is still true that you are not aware that Hunter Biden ever discussed policy with his father, discussed business with his father, influenced American policy for purposes of his business or otherwise caused the Vice President or asked the Vice President to do anything improper, right?”
Mr. Archer: “That’s my understanding.”
https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Devon-Archer-Transcript.pdf
Biden, Trump, blah, blah, blah. Does anybody care about Ukraine?…