Within a couple of days, a scandal broke out after the news of a whistleblower’s complaint became public. An anonymous member of the intelligence community described Donald Trump’s “troubling” conversations with another world leader, which – allegedly – included a promise Trump made to someone on the line. According to The Washington Post, the dialogue centered on Ukraine. The US President reportedly pressured Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his democratic rival Joe Biden and the activity of his son, Hunter Biden, in Ukraine. According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump asked Zelensky to look into the matter eight times.
At the same time, the new acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, failed to meet the deadline for submitting the whistleblower complaint’s materials to Congress – a step required to move forward with the report. Persisting, Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson then alerted Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who, in turn, subpoenaed Maguire to hand over the complaint to his committee. “You have neither the legal authority nor the discretion to overrule a determination by the IC IG,” he told the DNI.
"This would be the most profound violation of the presidential oath of office certainly during this presidency, which says a lot, but perhaps just about during any presidency," Schiff asserted. "There is no privilege that covers corruption. No privilege to engage in underhanded discussions."
While President Trump is currently on the receiving end of power abuse accusations, he and his close supporters were the ones to first accuse Joe Biden of corruption.
The whistleblower's report has renewed talks on potentially starting an impeachment process.
The Biden family and Ukraine: heavy corruption or an opponent’s witch-hunt?
Donald Trump’s confidant and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has actively accused the Biden family of deep corruption, with his story finding its roots in Ukraine. According to Giuliani, Joe Biden used his position to aid his son in laundering millions of dollars through a Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings.
In 2014, Hunter Biden took a seat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, owned by Mykola Zlochevsky. Zlochevsky was heavily affiliated with Ukraine’s former pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted by Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity (Euromaidan). After the revolution, Burisma’s owner found himself as a defendant in a series of criminal accusations. As Giuliani asserted, Vice President Biden utilized his position in order to push for Viktor Shokin’s – Prosecutor General at the time – resignation, as Shokin investigated the Burisma cases.
In May, Rudy Giuliani even scheduled a trip to Kyiv in order to push for the Biden family investigation and meet with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on the account. He, however, canceled his visit after a public backlash. In August, Giuliani met with Zelensky’s aide Andriy Yermak in Madrid for the very same reasons.
"If Dem party doesn’t call for an investigation of Bidens’ millions from Ukraine and billions from China, they will own it,” Giuliani has recently tweeted. "Bidens’ made big money selling public office. How could Obama have allowed this to happen? Will Dems continue to condone and enable this kind pay-for-play?"
Donald Trump, at the same time, told the reporters that "somebody ought to look into Joe Biden's statement, because it was disgraceful, where he talked about billions of dollars that he's not giving to a certain country unless a certain prosecutor is taken off the case.”
Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of Ukraine's Anti-Corruption Action Center, on the other hand, told The Washington Post in July that “…Shokin was fired not because he wanted to do that investigation, but quite to the contrary, because he failed that investigation."
Do, however, Giuliani and Trump’s accusations even make sense?
Then-Vice President Joe Biden – according to Biden himself – pushed President Petro Poroshenko to fire Shokin during his trip to Kyiv in December 2015. Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in the US loan guarantees unless the Prosecutor General was removed, which was America's official position. The resignation was confirmed and processed a couple months later – in March 2016.
“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 Ukraine’s former president, classifying it as one of his successful calls, “Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”
Shokin was widely criticized both in Ukraine and abroad for not solving corruption cases and slowing down reforms. Shokin’s very deputy, Vitaliy Kasko, resigned in February 2016 due to alleged corruption in the Prosecutor General’s Office. The International Monetary Fund, in turn, warned Ukraine that the country might lose its financial support unless it takes firmer actions against corruption.
Back to Mykola Zlochevsky and Burisma Holdings, there were two loud cases opened at the time Biden pressured Poroshenko into Shokin’s resignation.
The first one (№42014000000000805) – and the one closed by Shokin’s successor Yuriy Lutsenko in November 2016 – concerned illegal money laundering. The probe was initiated by the UK Serious Fraud Office after the officials discovered $23 million dollars of the unknown origin in Zlochevsky’s account. The money reportedly came from Serhiy Kurchenko in a suspicious series of transactions between the two oligarchs’ firms. At the time, Vitaliy Yarema served as Ukraine’s Prosecutor General. In response to the British probe, the Prosecutor General’s Office started its own investigation. It, however, has not notified Zlochevsky of suspicion until after the London court ruled the case lacking evidence in January 2015. Interestingly, Shokin assumed his position as Ukraine’s Prosecutor General only on February 10, 2015 – after the British case failed in court. In February of the same year, the experts concluded the case was unsolicited after analyzing the results of a forensic audit. While Shokin claimed his intentions to further the investigation, Pechersk District Court of Kyiv ruled the search of Zlochevsky illegal. In summary, the case legally failed nearly a year before Shokin was asked to resign.
The second investigation (№42015000000001142) concerned Zlochevsky – being the Minister of Ecology – allegedly abusing his power to issue special permits for subsoil usage to Burisma Group companies in 2010-2012. There are two interesting aspects here: 1) Firstly, the case was taken over by NABU (National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine) in 2015 and was closed by the Specialized Anti-corruption Prosecution in 2017. Thus, it has not been managed by the Prosecutor General’s Office; 2) Secondly, the case focused on Zlochevsky’s actions in 2010-2012, while Hunter Biden joined Burisma Holdings in 2014.
Lutsenko started another proceeding against Burisma Holdings in July 2016, yet it was soon closed in November. There were three more cases against Zlochevsky, all of which failed to further the prosecution. Currently, two abandoned proceedings are considered legally open albeit the investigations are dead.
Therefore, while Hunter Biden’s decision to join Burisma may be questionable – as well as Zlochevsky’s shady activities – and bordering the conflict of interest line, it is highly unlikely that Biden Sr. pushed for Shokin’s removal due to Burisma criminal cases.
$250 million in military aid: an interesting coincidence or applied pressure?
Politico reported on Donald Trump’s decision to freeze $250 million in military aid to Ukraine on August 28, 2019.
All the events prior to and after this point line up in a fascinating sequence, now stirring conversations about the possibility of impeachment.
With President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani pushing Ukraine on the Bidens’ investigation for months, the country’s newly elected leader Volodymyr Zelensky attempted to stay aside from the US political rivalry. A comedian and businessman, Zelensky entered the office with no experience of handling similar situations.
For a while, Zelensky appeared to be successfully extricating himself from the Trump-Giuliani-Biden saga – up until Donald Trump’s call on July 25. Allegedly, Trump pressured Zelensky to push the Burisma investigation and Joe Biden’s role in it. According to a whistleblower’s report, the “troubling” dialogue also included a promise.
The issue, however, has not been dropped. A couple of weeks later, Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani met with Volodymyr Zelensky’s aide Andriy Yermak in Spain. The topic at hand remained the same: Joe and Hunter Bidens, Burisma Holdings and the investigation.
A mere week after Giuliani’s trip to Madrid, it was announced that Donald Trump freezed $250 million in military aid to Ukraine despite the Congress’ approval. At the same time, the US President lobbied Russia’s return to G7 during the Biarritz summit, going as far as contemplating holding the next meeting at his Doral resort and inviting Russia as a guest. He also canceled his meeting with Zelensky in Warsaw on September 1, sending Vice President Pence instead.
On September 9, however, the Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Government Oversight committees announced their probe into Giuliani’s meetings with Ukrainian officials. Interestingly, the aid release followed only two days after. Moreover, as Zelensky proudly announced during his speech at the Yalta European Strategy Conference, the US even decided to provide extra $140 million.
When asked on Sunday why the aid was delayed, Donald Trump responded: "Why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?"
At the same time, he claimed all conversations with Zelensky were strictly professional and appropriate. Nevertheless, he admitted to discussing Biden and "the fact that we don't want our people, like Vice-President Biden and his son, creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Vadym Prystaiko denied there was pressure involved.
As Michael Cohen, Trump’s former associate and an important figure in Mueller’s investigation, however, noted in his testimony, “Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates,” he said. “…At the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me there’s no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing. In his way, he was telling me to lie," Cohen described Trump’s behavior. Such a characterization makes one wonder if President Trump used similar approaches with Zelensky.
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky are scheduled to meet on Wednesday, September 25.
The paradox of this story lies with the fact that Donald Trump involved himself in yet another loud scandal, currently trending as “Ukrainegate” and stirring talks of impeachment, in order to push the investigation that has very little potential to begin with. As the cases against Burisma Holdings do not match Trump and Giuliani’s narrative, they can hardly assist in taking down former Vice President Biden. In contrast, the new Giuliani-Ukraine-Trump investigation may seriously damage the president’s own campaign. If the probe does not lead to substantial conclusions, however, it may serve as yet another negative-PR tool to excite Donald Trump’s core electorate.
