A new – or a hardly forgotten old – scandal has emerged in the United States. President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his visa-revoked, sanctions-invoked associates have long teased the American public with “explosive” dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden. It appears as the cat is finally out of the bag: on Wednesday, October 14, the New York Post leaked a “smoking-gun” email exchange between Hunter Biden and Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of the infamous Burisma Holdings. Three weeks before Election Day, will the new allegations dry fire or hinder Mr. Biden’s growing success?
Burismagate – The Tale Growing Old?
Ever since Ukraine had unwillingly found itself between the devil and the deep blue sea, the country has been making American headlines at the speed of light. In his attempts to aid the incumbent president, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani has placed all his eggs in the Ukrainian basket, organizing a Kyiv-based smear campaign against the Democratic Party nominee.
For months, Giuliani and his foreign friends – including former diplomat Andrii Telizhenko, who had his visa canceled, and MP Andrii Derkach, a “Russian agent” designated by the U.S. Treasury – have been accusing the Biden family of international corruption and abuse of power. With dubious sources and overly biased allegations, the team’s efforts proved fruitless. Nevertheless, Giuliani & Co. were adamant to deliver a long-promised, “explosive” final blow, which was bound to swing the election results in Mr. Trump’s favor.
According to the New York Post, eager as ever, Mayor Rudy got ahold of the contents of Biden Jr.’s broken laptop. The computer was allegedly dropped off at a repair store in Biden’s home state of Delaware in April 2019, never to be picked up. In addition to explicit footage – including drug use and sexual content – Hunter’s external hard drive contained a “smoking-gun” email exchange with a Burisma top executive, Vadym Pozharskyi.
The said messages suggest that Hunter Biden introduced Mr. Pozhanskyi to his father, then-Vice President of the United States. Pozharskyi expressed his gratefulness for the never-before-revealed encounter with Biden Sr., at the same time inviting Hunter for coffee. If verified, the conversation would have occurred on April 17, 2015 – approximately a year after Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma Holdings.
“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [spend] some time together. It’s realty [really] an honor and pleasure,” the email reads.
Another letter, dated from May 2014, features Pozharskyi asking Hunter for “advice” on how the latter could use his “influence” to aid Burisma in light of the government’s “politically motivated actions” aimed at “destabilizing business”.
According to the Daily Beast, President Trump was aware of the hard drive’s existence, keen on making its contents public as soon as possible.
Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates, on the other hand, stated, “we have reviewed Joe Biden's official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place.”
Apostrophe was unable to verify the emails’ authenticity, yet their timing raises a myriad of curious questions. First things first...
Who is Vadym Pozhanskyi?
In Kyiv, Mr. Pozhanskyi is known as a vastly influential adviser to the board of Burisma Holdings, where Hunter Biden used to have a seat.
As Burisma’s top representative, Vadym Pozhanskyi is no stranger to high-level meetings with foreign actors. In particular, Pozhanskyi had met President Donald Trump’s then-special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker on at least two occasions – in 2017 and 2018.
On September 19, 2017, the Atlantic Council held its annual Global Citizen Awards in New York, where Mr. Pozhanskyi was invited as a guest. There, he and Mr. Volker discussed Ukraine’s prospects and challenges in the energy sector.
Kurt Volker and Vadym Pozharskyi
A year later, the two had once again shared a friendly encounter during an event organized by Atlantic Council.
A series of meetings between Mr. Volker and Pozharskyi underlines the discord between the Trump campaign’s accusations regarding Biden’s alleged, unverified introduction to the Burisma adviser and official commitments to enhancing cooperation with Ukraine’s government and business interests.
Kurt Volker is far from being the only official to have held meetings with Mr. Pozharskyi; in contrast, the former envoy is but one of the notable examples.
According to Apostrophe’s sources, the language utilized in the emails does resemble the one of Vadym Pozharskyi. Nevertheless, it is unclear if the exchange is authentic and if the meeting had actually taken place.
Apostrophe reached out to Vadym Pozharskyi, yet he was not immediately available for comment.
Curious Timing and Other Questions Left Unanswered
Rudy Giuliani and his Ukrainian sidekicks have long promised to deliver an attack substantial enough to affect Joe Biden’s election performance. Running out of influence tools, the latest leak appears to signify the team’s final attempts of swaying the voters with the so-called Burismagate saga.
As numerous “international corruption” presentations, the so-called “Derkach tapes”, and other Ukraine-focused instruments have proved in vain, Biden Jr.’s emails constitute the Trump campaign’s last chance of making Burismagate relevant.
The story, however, raises a plethora of questions that remain to be answered.
According to the New York Post, Hunter Biden had allegedly dropped off his laptop at a repair store in April 2019. At the same time, Delaware federal subpoena illustrates that the FBI seized both the computer and the hard drive in December of the same year, after receiving the information from the shop’s owner. Interestingly, the Post’s PDF documents, containing the emails, are dated from September 29 and October 10, 2019 – months before the FBI was alerted and around the time Giuliani’s proxies, Lev Parnas and Ihor Fruman, were arrested for breaking campaign finance law.
With 2019 marking a significant portion of Biden dirt-seeking, it’s rather odd that Hunter would leave a laptop – never to be picked up – with a series of compromising documents…Even more so, it would be highly bizarre to hand over the external hard drive as well.
Another factor up for discussion is Russia, which is bound to make an appearance in the story. As November 3rd approaches, the United States finds itself immensely vulnerable in its division. Similar to 2016 election, American society is greatly polarized: peaceful protests vs. violent lootings, the economy vs. the COVID-19 pandemic, Russian bounties on the heads of American soldiers vs. Burisma, Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump. Concerned with issues of basic survival in the light of both health and financial crises, Americans are agitated and susceptible to disinformation. With the origins of the leak remaining a mystery, one cannot rule out another attempt at foreign interference – especially including Mr. Giuliani’s close ties with individuals promoting Russian narratives.
Regardless, the said emails do not prove any wrongdoing by either Hunter or Joe Biden. While the Trump campaign has been chasing a ghost – a Ukrainian one – it forgot what truly concerns Americans today. With the Supreme Court nomination, the Affordable Care Act, and the sense of normality on the line, Giuliani and Co.’s distant Burisma story is not on the agenda of the American people. In Ukraine, in turn, the publication – akin to white noise in the background – went positively unnoticed.
