Below is my column in the New York Post on new evidence contradicting the account of President Joe Biden on his role in forcing the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin. Biden’s boast about forcing the termination could become a defining moment in the corruption scandal.
Here is the column:
President Barack Obama famously warned fellow Democrats in 2020, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f–k things up.”
The warning was ignored by many as an almost brotherly reference to Biden’s habit of making false claims (like being arrested when seeking to see Nelson Mandela) or his continual verbal gaffes.
Biden has always had a certain penchant for bragging, whether it’s claiming a dead man told him he reached a million miles on Amtrak, being a cross-country trucker or fighting off some “bad dude” named Corn Pop.
But one of those bravado moments may have revealed more than vanity.
Ironically, it’s the one controversial story that appears entirely true.
In a 2018 interview at the Council on Foreign Relations, Biden bragged that he unilaterally withheld a billion dollars in US aid from the Ukrainians to force them to fire prosecutor general Viktor Shokin.
The Ukrainians balked, but Biden gave them an ultimatum: “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.”
The response from the Washington elite was rapturous, though the story was not only impolitic but embarrassing for an ally.
The Ukrainians were Joe’s new Corn Pop, and he recounted how he stared them down in a “High Noon” diplomatic moment.
A State Department memo is shedding disturbing light on that account and shredding aspects of Biden’s justification for the action.
Indeed, the ultimatum may have been the quid in a quid pro quo agreement as part of the Biden influence-peddling scandal.
The premise of the story is that Biden took this extraordinary stand because there was little hope for the anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine if Shokin remained prosecutor.
That is now questionable.
The Oct. 1, 2015, memo summarizes the recommendation of the Interagency Policy Committee that was handling the anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine: “Ukraine has made sufficient progress on its reform agenda to justify a third guarantee.”
One senior official even complimented Shokin on his progress in fighting corruption.
So Biden was told to deliver on the federal aid but elected to unilaterally demand Shokin be fired.
When the firing occurred, Shokin’s office was investigating Burisma Holdings, an energy firm that paid Hunter Biden a huge amount of money.
The State Department had identified it as a corrupt company engaged in bribery.
Recent testimony from Devon Archer, a business associate of Hunter Biden, revealed that Burisma executives made the removal of Shokin a top priority and raised it with Hunter.
He described how the need to neutralize Shokin was raised with Hunter and how “a call to Washington” was made in response. While Archer also said that “the narrative spun to me was that Shokin was under control,” he and others also heard concerns over Shokin and the risks of the investigation.
President Biden has insisted, “I did nothing wrong. I carried out the policy of the United States government in rooting out corruption in Ukraine. And that’s what we should be focusing on.”
Indeed, that will now be the focus, including the close correlation of the money and demands going to Hunter and the actions of his father.
There is evidence the State Department was alarmed by Hunter’s work and its impact on anti-corruption efforts.
While Joe was portraying his work as fighting corruption, some officials were warning the Bidens could be part of the problem, not the solution, in Ukraine.
Leading diplomat George Kent wrote then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, “The real issue to my mind was that someone in Washington needed to engage VP Biden quietly and say that his son Hunter’s presence on the Burisma board undercut the anti-corruption message the VP and we were advancing in Ukraine b/c Ukrainians heard one message from us and then saw another set of behavior with the family association with a known corrupt figure whose company was known for not playing by the rules.”
As part of the first impeachment of Donald Trump, Democrats largely dismissed earlier accounts of these misgivings and portrayed Shokin as a thoroughly corrupt prosecutor perpetuating corruption.
Biden’s Ukrainian Corn Pop story was celebrated as a gutsy moment of leadership.
During the impeachment, Kent said Biden’s demand was consistent with US policy.
Yet we now know the State Department had found progress was being made on corruption and Shokin was praised in private correspondence.
The demand for the replacement of the equivalent of the attorney general in another country is an extraordinary move.
We give massive amounts of money to countries with rampant corruption and authoritarian records.
But Biden decided Shokin had to go and used public money to make that happen.
The memo also highlights the flaws in the Trump impeachment.
When I testified before the House Judiciary Committee at the only impeachment hearing, I told the committee it should not depart from history and proceed to an impeachment without fact witnesses on the grounds for impeachment.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Adam Schiff and others refused.
It now seems there was material evidence that would have been used at the impeachment trial.
Trump was alleging there was a conflict of interest with the Bidens, and the evidence could have challenged Biden’s account and established his son’s interest in the Shokin firing.
I still do not believe Trump should have raised the matter in that call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
This evidence may not have made a difference to some senators, but it demonstrates why impeachments should proceed after fact hearings.
Instead, in the second impeachment, the Democrats went one better.
They used what I called a “snap impeachment” without even a hearing on the impeachment standards and articles.
The House could now have little choice but to hold the very hearings the Democrats blocked during the earlier impeachment — with a different president under constitutional scrutiny.
Jonathan Turley is an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.
Anti-Corruption offices set up in Ukraine by Soros. Same destabization tactic, followed by the money laundering M.O. Then war. The global mafia never changes. They’re about to face a nation of new Americans who have broke out their programming and ritual trauma abuse and it scares the shit out of them. Tick tock, we are waiting. The purge of career vile, evil, politicians has begun no matter what party.
Soros! Drink!
Global conspiracy! Drink again!
Soros! Drink!
Soros has interfered in US elections way more than Russia ever has. Drink indeed.
The difference is: Soros is acting legally, just like Trump’s PAC, which “interferes” just as much, whereas Russia acted illegally.
“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 by Trump and his allies. Moreover, they say that Shokin himself was the biggest obstacle standing in the way of the investigation.”
https://www.rferl.org/a/why-was-ukraine-top-prosecutor-fired-viktor-shokin/30181445.html
“John E. Herbst, a former Ambassador to Ukraine in the Bush administration and now director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, testified that … ‘Procurator General Viktor Shokin was a compromised figure who had served as Procurator General in the Yanukovych Administration. By late fall of 2015, the EU and the United States joined the chorus of those seeking Mr. Shokin’s removal as the start of an overall reform of the Procurator General’s Office.’” Shokin’s firing had bipartisan support in Congress.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/03/politics/gop-senators-echoed-biden-on-ukraine-reforms-kfile/index.html
According to Hochstein’s testimony to the investigators, Vice President Biden told his son that he had met with Hochstein and discussed his work for Burisma.
“I never discussed with my son, OR ANYONE ELSE, my family’s overseas business dealings.”
Your boy is a liar and you know it.
“But CNN says that somebody told somebody that Shokin was investigating Zlovchevsky. Nevermind that both Shokin and Zlovshevsky say that he was.”
——smeagol
“Ukrainian prosecutors and anti-corruption activists with knowledge”
Notice how these people never have names.
Oh, except for the ukrainian ambassador from the bush admin LMAO
I especially love “anti corruption activists with knowledge”
LMAO thats a thing now? Like “gender affirming care”?
The insanity has reached a grotesque level.
“The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth, and truth be defamed as lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world – and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end – is being destroyed.”
“One could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism … and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.” — Hannah Arendt
Never argue with trolls like Tom. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience!
Yea you learned your lesson when you spewed “you gotta have incontrovertible proof to get a conviction.”, didn’t ya, wise mouth??
Or this instant classic “evidence isn’t evidence if it’s not an illegal act”
Or this one “you can’t introduce evidence at trial unless you have incontrovertible truth”
Never argue with trolls like Tom. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience!!
Thanks for proving my point with the third grade comment.
Nice work Professor. Now do the other Biden quote: “We have put together, I think, the most extensive and and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.”
See ya coward!
“F U, Tommy.”
More wet dreams from the bug. No one here is interested in your fantasies.
Tom,
Eewww!
Upstate, only a paid operative, a partisan hack or a contrarian oddball, like Anonymous, would say that Trump extorted the Ukrainians when we have Biden bragging, as he is wont to do, that he EXTORTED THE UKRAINIANS. Son of a gun, they fired the guy…who happened to be investigating the company paying his own son $83,000 A MONTH, to do make things like this happen.
HullBobby,
Well said.
I know right. Trust me, it would make his mouth sore.
“When I testified before the House Judiciary Committee at the only impeachment hearing, I told the committee it should not depart from history and proceed to an impeachment without fact witnesses on the grounds for impeachment.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Adam Schiff and others refused.
It now seems there was material evidence that would have been used at the impeachment trial.”
But there was an impeachment trial in the Senate. It was televised. A whole bunch of fact witnesses were called who all testified Trump was guilty. A majority of the Senators voted to convict him – 57-43, which included a Republican Senator. These witnesses were also deposed in House committees before the impeachment vote.
It was not enough to remove him from office as a 2/3 vote was required and most of the Republicans did not care about the facts – but it is extraordinarily misleading to suggest there were no fact witnesses regarding Trump’s first impeachment. And once again Turley changes his standards on what is required for an impeachment depending on whether the President is a Republican or a Democrat.
You quoted it but you didnt bother to read it? He didnt say there was no impeachment trial. He said there was no hearing of fact witnesses wrt the grounds for an impeachment.
If its too complicated, you might wanna leave the discussion to the adults.
Turley specifically said “It now seems there was material evidence that would have been used at the impeachment trial,” which suggests the public has been prevented from seeing this evidence before now. There was an impeachment trial though – so nothing presented this evidence from being presented then. Trump was allowed to call whatever witnesses and evidence he wanted to – three years ago.
You mean like this evidence?
According to Hochstein’s testimony to the investigators, Vice President Biden told his son that he had met with Hochstein and discussed his work for Burisma.
@Weezer…
Perhaps you need to refine your reading skills.
The evidence which wasn’t allowed to be shown at Trump’s impeachment hearing would have opened the door to more questions. More importantly, the evidence which would have exonerated Trump was never handed over to his defense.
If this had been a real court, that would have been a Brady violation.
If Trump does win… I wonder if you could make a case of Sedition against Pelosi, et al.
They had the evidence, ignored it to continue the effort of taking down a sitting POTUS with a fictional crime.
(While Turley argues against Trump and the call, his point is that it didn’t rise to the level of a crime or an impeachable event.)
There is probably a stronger case against Pelosi and Schiff for sedition than you have against Trump.
-G
The laptop was exculpatory evidence.
Given the Durham Report, we can conclude that the FBI deliberately committed a Brady violation.
Uhm no.
You missed my point.
Impeachments are not criminal in and of itself.
It a political trial and thus things like Brady don’t exist.
Also this was Congress. Meaning if they brought forth evidence like they were supposed to… then that evidence would be scrutinized.
Counter evidence would be brought up.
Pelsoi in her zeal didn’t care. The goal was to get Trump at all costs.
-G
“I still do not believe Trump should have raised the matter in that call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky….”
I have to respectfully disagree. There comes a point where someone has to say out loud what everyone else is thinking. If it’s soft pedaled the bad behavior just continues — if it doesn’t grow worse. Joe Biden didn’t learn to be a bully, braggart, extortionist just recently. He’s been this for 50 years in public office and was likely something similar since the time he could first utter the phrase “come’on man”. As evidence I’d point to Yavanovich and Kent. Or of the thousands of FBI personnel who are likely disgusted by the broad gulf between their bureau’s bragging and actual behavior, only a couple are willing to speak about it out loud.
Finally, if no one speaks the dirty words out loud in public, then the public itself never believes that corruption, which they all learn about eventually, is actually handled appropriately. All they see are sweetheart deals. Broad cynicism is the result.
Kevin T Kilty,
That is a good point.
Seems pointing out the obvious has become verboten inside the DC beltway.
Perhaps that is why everyone in MSM faux rage about mean tweets and the rest of America said, “Yeah, no kidding.”
Well you know how the media will react. Their scenario is like a western of yesteryear. The wagons are encircled with the settlers and their families inside the ring. The “Indians” (it’s an old western) are furiously firing their rifles and arrows at the circled wagons and the settlers are firing back. A lot of noise and dust and confusion. However no one on either side has been hit and wounded or killed yet. So in effect, no provable attack has really happened. The settlers and Indians just seemed to be in the same area at the same time and some misunderstandings occurred. And the settlers were really “asking for it” anyway.
Nothing to see here, Move along.
New memos undercut Biden-Ukraine narrative Democrats sold during 2019 impeachment scandal
https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/hdfeds-urged-biden-give-ukraine-loan-guarantee-he
Just the News has a second story about this that adds nuance. It says that on Nov 22 two interagency memos, said to have involved Victoria Nuland, advocated for the removal of Shokin, but did not condition the aid on that happening. To the contrary, they said that Biden should announce the aid. No explanation is given for the different attitude to Shokin. Unfortunately the article does not provide a link to those memos.
The conclusion Solomon reaches is that even though the interagency view of Shokin had evolved, it was Biden who decided to make the aid conditional on Shokin’s removal.
The Dec 4 call by Hunter Biden “to D.C.,” at the urging of Zlochevsky and Pozharski and in their presence alone, seems likely critical to learning what happened. I do not understand why the House has not subpoenaed Hunter Biden’s phone records for that date, as well as those of Joe Biden’s private phone.
@Daniel,
Data retention issues. Those call records are probably gone.
Maybe just go ask the NSA? If Hunter was overseas… they could still have it unless they purged it since Hunter is a US citizen calling another US citizen.
-G
The Patriot Act authorizes data collection from those w/in three degrees of separation of the surveilled parties…..
@Don,
You have a phone call from Hunter to daddy.
Even though daddy is VP, the content of the conversation isn’t admissible and either the call would be wiped immediately or it would have been gone within a short period of time.
The law says you can’t surveil US citizens without a warrant. So those calls are dropped.
Do you realize how much data exists in those calls?
Retention of non important calls would be cost prohibitive.
-G
G, that could be right.
Hunter is still just a smokescreen, and Joe wasn’t wise enough to pull this off by himself for the money. The real story: This was what the EU needed to turn Ukrainian elections in their favor. This was one of the OFFENSIVE actions perpetrated by the EU/CIA covert alliance that alarmed President Putin and caused him to start pushing back against the EU & NATO DEfensively. The EU Ponzi Scheme had to gain more control of the resources in Ukraine, and this event was a key motivation for Russia to resist the inexorable aggression of the EU & NATO. We are stuck in the morass of the Ukraine war quite directly due to the actions of VP Joe, the CIA and the US State Department, in concert with the EU, NATO and the European banking system.
In this age of indictments, it is an “indictment” of the MSM and the foreign policy establishment that no one before now has seriouisly looked at the question of the special influence involved in V P Biden’s extortionate demand that Shokin be fired.
Nah, they’ve covered it. If you’re like Gigi, you can find all manner of news reports “debunking” the “conspiracy theory” that Biden acted unilaterally. They cite all sorts of nebulous “calls for Shokin’s ouster” by “various” entities, without one ounce of actual evidence that it was true. One even claimed that Congress supported the move, which is a blatant lie made from whole cloth.
I have challenged anyone to offer one piece of documentary evidence that Pedo Joe didnt act unilaterally, with authority he didnt have. If It existed, Joe (or someone in his orbit that actually has a working intellect) would have already produced it, to stop this “nonsense” in its tracks. Ask yourself why they havent.
Obama… Biden’s ethnic Spring series with “benefits”.
And yet the progressive clown remain ignorant. Go to msnbc, cnn, etc. all Trump still. Progressives are willfully ignorant morons.
Had Hillary won the Bidens would have blended into history with their money and name intact. Hunter turned up the heat believing Joe was done with politics. He was very good at using the tools available. Now they are screwed because Joe won. How far can plausible deniability go news reporters ?
@Post
No.
First you have to understand that had Hillary won, this wouldn’t have come to light. In fact everyone thought she was going to win. But the fact she didn’t go to WI.
Even w Trump in office… there’s a good chance this doesn’t come to light.
Its the fact that they went after Trump over the phone call that this came out.
This is where the Dems screwed up. In their zeal to go after Trump, they stirred up this mess. Hence the desire to skip looking at the evidence.
In light of all of this… you have sedition on their part. Pelosi, Schiff and others should have been charged and there’s a stronger case against them than there is against Trump if you think about it.
The question is when is playing dirty ok, and when does it become sedition? (A politician undermining the POTUS and the US?)
-G
Ian,
Well we do have evidence of Pelois and Milley conspiring together to under mind a president.
It is likely that even if Ukrainian authorities took a second look at the time, they would not have found anything.
All the media exposure as Vice President and President have exposed Biden as a crook and a “Despicable” human being.
Joe BIden has to go —- DEmocrats know it, his wife Jill knows it, in fact the only one in the room who doesn’t know it, yet, is Joe Biden.
Joe Biden has hairy legs.
Bless you, sir.
Corn Pop was just trying to keep him away from sniffing kids.
why do republicans continue to try to be honest and good….when the Democrats are OPEN Fascists!
Democrats are fighting their 2nd Civil War Against America!
the problems isn’t the BIDENS….it is OUR government…has become the DEMOCRATS government!
Nail, meet hammer… Until we clean out the infestation of prog/left politicians AND bureaucrats, nothing will ever change in the swamp.
many of the Bidens crimes are know!
The REAL problem is the 100% corrupt DOJ, FBI, etc
Anyone go to jail for the Russian Hoax?
Time for Republican Congress…to TAKE AWAY ALL THE MONEY
50% cut in federal spending…cut all city, state and college aid and loans!
move 75% of DC gov to the heartland!
The concept is apt and would work, but only after a small thermonuclear device has disinfected the swamp. Until then, nothing will change. It is up to “We the People” to make the changes happen from the outside in.
You say bragging, I say lying. Biden has been two things consistently in his political career: a bully and a liar. This is the most corrupt president in US history, and he only gets away with it because the mainstream media is his equal in lying.