Since the conspiracy theories about Biden are spreading on the internet, I wanted to start a seperate thread where we could discuss the particulars...
The Prosecutor that Biden is credited with getting rid of was named Viktor Shokin. To believe Trump's claim that Biden's campaign against Shokin was about "Hunter", then you first have to believe that Shokin was an honorable,well meaning man. And the evidence,from multiple sources says exactly the opposite...
"In an interview with The Intercept, Daria Kaleniuk, an American-educated lawyer who founded Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center, expressed frustration that two recent front-page stories in the New York Times, on how the conspiracy theory is being used to attack Biden, failed to properly debunk the false accusation. According to Kaleniuk, and a former anti-corruption prosecutor, there is simply no truth to the rumor now spreading like wildfire across the internet.
The accusation is that Biden blackmailed Ukraine’s new leaders into firing the country’s chief prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, to derail an investigation he was leading into a Ukrainian gas company that the vice president’s son, Hunter, was paid to advise.
The truth, Kaleniuk said, is that Shokin was forced from office at Biden’s urging because he had failed to conduct thorough investigations of corruption, and had stifled efforts to investigate embezzlement and misconduct by public officials following the 2014 uprising."
https://theintercept.com/2019/05/10...ndal-ukraine-absolute-nonsense-reformer-says/
There is no disputing the fact that Biden pushed for and succeeded in having Shokin fired. But the anti-corruption forces in the Ukraine dispute Trump's claim that it had anything to do with Hunter.
"There is no question that Biden did, during a visit to Kiev in late 2015, threaten to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees unless Shokin was dismissed. But the vice president, who was leading the Obama administration’s effort to fight corruption in Ukraine, did the country a favor by hastening Shokin’s departure, Kaleniuk said, since he had failed to properly investigate corrupt officials.
“Shokin was fired because he attacked the reformers within the prosecutor general’s office,” Kaleniuk said, “reformers who tried to investigate corrupt prosecutors.”
As Andrew Kramer explained in the New York Times when Shokin was finally dismissed in 2016, Biden had acted as the point man for a coordinated international effort:
The United States and other Western nations had for months called for the ousting of Mr. Shokin, who was widely criticized for turning a blind eye to corrupt practices and for defending the interests of a venal and entrenched elite. He was one of several political figures in Kiev whom reformers and Western diplomats saw as a worrying indicator of a return to past corrupt practices, two years after a revolution that was supposed to put a stop to self-dealing by those in power."
Kramer also points out that the irony of claiming Biden was somehow trying to benefit his son ignores the fact that the ousting of Shokin paved the way for Ukranian officials to prosecute the oligarch who owned the company Hunter had joined. In fact the oligarch (Zlochevsky) had actually hired Hunter in the first place,perhaps in the hope that having the US VP's son on his board would protect him and allow him to operate freely.
"To illustrate what he called “rot in the prosecutor’s office,” Kramer cited a notorious example, known in Ukraine as the case of the “diamond prosecutors,” in which “troves of diamonds, cash and other valuables were found in the homes of two of Mr. Shokin’s subordinates, suggesting that they had been taking bribes. But the case became bogged down, with no reasons given.”
Among the most prominent cases of official corruption Shokin had failed to pursue was against Yanukovych’s environment and natural resources minister, Mykola Zlochevsky, who had oversight of all Ukrainian energy firms, including the largest independent gas company, Burisma, which he secretly controlled through shell companies in Cyprus. After Zlochevsky was forced from office along with Yanukovych in 2014, his gas company appointed Hunter Biden to its board.
“Shokin was fired,” Kaleniuk observed, “because he failed to do investigations of corruption and economic crimes of President Yanukovych and his close associates, including Zlochevsky, and basically it was the big demand within society in Ukraine, including our organization and many other organizations, to get rid of this guy.
"By getting Shokin removed, Biden in fact made it more rather than less likely that the oligarch who employed his son would be subject to prosecution for corruption."
The article also points out that BEFORE Hunter was hired, Britain's Serious Fraud Office had frozen $23 MILLION of Zlochevsky's funds accusing him of money laundering. Shokin was assigned to the case,but records show that he had dragged his feet and the US was not happy. In fact one of his deputy Prosecutors, Vitaliy Kasko who had tried to get his associates to assist in the British inquiry described Shokin's office as a "hotbed of corruption"...
So instead of protecting the man who was paying his son,Biden and the US Govt actually went after him and the man (Shokin) who was protecting him. Sort of the Exact opposite of what Trump is claiming...
The Prosecutor that Biden is credited with getting rid of was named Viktor Shokin. To believe Trump's claim that Biden's campaign against Shokin was about "Hunter", then you first have to believe that Shokin was an honorable,well meaning man. And the evidence,from multiple sources says exactly the opposite...
"In an interview with The Intercept, Daria Kaleniuk, an American-educated lawyer who founded Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center, expressed frustration that two recent front-page stories in the New York Times, on how the conspiracy theory is being used to attack Biden, failed to properly debunk the false accusation. According to Kaleniuk, and a former anti-corruption prosecutor, there is simply no truth to the rumor now spreading like wildfire across the internet.
The accusation is that Biden blackmailed Ukraine’s new leaders into firing the country’s chief prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, to derail an investigation he was leading into a Ukrainian gas company that the vice president’s son, Hunter, was paid to advise.
The truth, Kaleniuk said, is that Shokin was forced from office at Biden’s urging because he had failed to conduct thorough investigations of corruption, and had stifled efforts to investigate embezzlement and misconduct by public officials following the 2014 uprising."
https://theintercept.com/2019/05/10...ndal-ukraine-absolute-nonsense-reformer-says/
There is no disputing the fact that Biden pushed for and succeeded in having Shokin fired. But the anti-corruption forces in the Ukraine dispute Trump's claim that it had anything to do with Hunter.
"There is no question that Biden did, during a visit to Kiev in late 2015, threaten to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees unless Shokin was dismissed. But the vice president, who was leading the Obama administration’s effort to fight corruption in Ukraine, did the country a favor by hastening Shokin’s departure, Kaleniuk said, since he had failed to properly investigate corrupt officials.
“Shokin was fired because he attacked the reformers within the prosecutor general’s office,” Kaleniuk said, “reformers who tried to investigate corrupt prosecutors.”
As Andrew Kramer explained in the New York Times when Shokin was finally dismissed in 2016, Biden had acted as the point man for a coordinated international effort:
The United States and other Western nations had for months called for the ousting of Mr. Shokin, who was widely criticized for turning a blind eye to corrupt practices and for defending the interests of a venal and entrenched elite. He was one of several political figures in Kiev whom reformers and Western diplomats saw as a worrying indicator of a return to past corrupt practices, two years after a revolution that was supposed to put a stop to self-dealing by those in power."
Kramer also points out that the irony of claiming Biden was somehow trying to benefit his son ignores the fact that the ousting of Shokin paved the way for Ukranian officials to prosecute the oligarch who owned the company Hunter had joined. In fact the oligarch (Zlochevsky) had actually hired Hunter in the first place,perhaps in the hope that having the US VP's son on his board would protect him and allow him to operate freely.
"To illustrate what he called “rot in the prosecutor’s office,” Kramer cited a notorious example, known in Ukraine as the case of the “diamond prosecutors,” in which “troves of diamonds, cash and other valuables were found in the homes of two of Mr. Shokin’s subordinates, suggesting that they had been taking bribes. But the case became bogged down, with no reasons given.”
Among the most prominent cases of official corruption Shokin had failed to pursue was against Yanukovych’s environment and natural resources minister, Mykola Zlochevsky, who had oversight of all Ukrainian energy firms, including the largest independent gas company, Burisma, which he secretly controlled through shell companies in Cyprus. After Zlochevsky was forced from office along with Yanukovych in 2014, his gas company appointed Hunter Biden to its board.
“Shokin was fired,” Kaleniuk observed, “because he failed to do investigations of corruption and economic crimes of President Yanukovych and his close associates, including Zlochevsky, and basically it was the big demand within society in Ukraine, including our organization and many other organizations, to get rid of this guy.
"By getting Shokin removed, Biden in fact made it more rather than less likely that the oligarch who employed his son would be subject to prosecution for corruption."
The article also points out that BEFORE Hunter was hired, Britain's Serious Fraud Office had frozen $23 MILLION of Zlochevsky's funds accusing him of money laundering. Shokin was assigned to the case,but records show that he had dragged his feet and the US was not happy. In fact one of his deputy Prosecutors, Vitaliy Kasko who had tried to get his associates to assist in the British inquiry described Shokin's office as a "hotbed of corruption"...
So instead of protecting the man who was paying his son,Biden and the US Govt actually went after him and the man (Shokin) who was protecting him. Sort of the Exact opposite of what Trump is claiming...
