What Happened to the Nostradamus Family Hunter Hunter

Editor's note: John Solomon's columns regarding Ukraine became a subject of the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment inquiry against President Trump Donald TrumpExpel Russian federation from the WTO Senate Democrats telephone call on Biden admin to stop Trump-era immigration dominion Iran signals potential cooperation with UN'due south nuclear watchdog MORE . Any updated information tin can be plant at the stop of the column.

Two years after leaving role, Joe Biden couldn't resist the temptation concluding year to brag to an audition of foreign policy specialists about the time as vice president that he stiff-armed Ukraine into firing its top prosecutor.

In his ain words, with video cameras rolling, Biden described how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, sending the former Soviet democracy toward insolvency, if it didn't immediately burn down Prosecutor Full general Viktor Shokin.

"I said, 'Y'all're non getting the billion.' I'thousand going to be leaving here in, I recall it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: 'I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is non fired, you're not getting the coin,'" Biden recalled telling Poroshenko.

"Well, son of a bowwow, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time," Biden told the Council on Strange Relations event, insisting that President Obama was in on the threat.

Interviews with a vi senior Ukrainian officials confirm Biden'southward account, though they claim the pressure was applied over several months in late 2015 and early 2016, not just half dozen hours of ane dramatic mean solar day. Whatever the case, Poroshenko and Ukraine'south parliament obliged by catastrophe Shokin'southward tenure equally prosecutor. Shokin was facing steep criticism in Ukraine, and among some U.Southward. officials, for not bringing enough abuse prosecutions when he was fired.

Just Ukrainian officials tell me there was one crucial slice of data that Biden must have known but didn't mention to his audience: The prosecutor he got fired was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings that employed Biden's younger son, Hunter, as a board member.

U.Due south. banking records show Hunter Biden'southward American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts — normally more than than $166,000 a month — from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a menstruum when Vice President Biden was the principal U.Due south. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia.

The general prosecutor'south official file for the Burisma probe — shared with me past senior Ukrainian officials — shows prosecutors identified Hunter Biden, business organisation partner Devon Archer and their business firm, Rosemont Seneca, as potential recipients of money.

Shokin told me in written answers to questions that, earlier he was fired every bit general prosecutor, he had made "specific plans" for the investigation that "included interrogations and other criminal offense-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden."

He added: "I would like to emphasize the fact that presumption of innocence is a principle in Ukraine" and that he couldn't describe the evidence further.

William Russo, a spokesman for Joe Biden, and Hunter Biden did non respond to email messages Mon seeking comment. The phone number at Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC in Washington was no longer in service on Monday.

The timing of Hunter Biden's and Archer'south appointment to Burisma's board has been highlighted in the past, by The New York Times in December 2015 and in a 2016 book past bourgeois writer Peter Schweizer.

Although Biden made no mention of his son in his 2018 speech communication, U.S. and Ukrainian government both told me Biden and his function clearly had to know nearly the full general prosecutor'due south probe of Burisma and his son'south part. They noted that:

• Hunter Biden'south appointment to the board was widely reported in American media;
• The U.S. Diplomatic mission in Kiev that coordinated Biden'south work in the state repeatedly and publicly discussed the general prosecutor's case confronting Burisma;
• Great Britain took very public activity against Burisma while Joe Biden was working with that government on Ukraine issues;
• Biden's function was quoted, on the record, acknowledging Hunter Biden's function in Burisma in a New York Times commodity about the general prosecutor'due south Burisma case that appeared four months before Biden forced the firing of Shokin. The vice president'due south office suggested in that commodity that Hunter Biden was a lawyer complimentary to pursue his ain individual business organisation deals.

President Obama named Biden the administration's point man on Ukraine in February 2014, after a pop revolution ousted Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych and as Moscow sent military forces into Ukraine'southward Crimea territory.

Co-ordinate to Schweizer'southward book, Vice President Biden Joe BidenU.Due south., Poland consider deal to requite fighter aircraft to Ukraine: reports U.S. officials to run into with government of Russian marry Venezuela: study Visa, Mastercard suspend all Russian operations MORE met with Archer in Apr 2014 right as Archer was named to the board at Burisma. A calendar month subsequently, Hunter Biden was named to the lath, to oversee Burisma'south legal team.

But the Ukrainian investigation and Joe Biden's effort to burn down the prosecutor overseeing it has escaped without much public contend.

Most of the general prosecutor'southward investigative work on Burisma focused on three split cases, and about stopped abruptly once Shokin was fired. The nearly prominent of the Burisma cases was transferred to a different Ukrainian agency, closely aligned with the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, known as the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), co-ordinate to the case file and electric current General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko.

NABU airtight that case, and a second example involving alleged improper money transfers in London was dropped when Ukrainian officials failed to file the necessary documents past the required borderline. The general prosecutor'due south office successfully secured a multimillion-dollar judgment in a tax evasion case, Lutsenko said. He did non say who was the bodily accused in that case.

As a event, the Biden family appeared to have escaped the potential for an embarrassing inquiry overseas in the final days of the Obama administration and during an election in which Democrat Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonClinton Foundation reconvening Global Initiative to target 'steep' challenges Investigate Russia's covert funding of Us anti-fossil fuel groups Five things to spotter in Texas's primaries today More was running for president in 2016.

Merely and then, every bit Biden's 2020 campaign ramped upward over the past year, Lutsenko — the Ukrainian prosecutor that Biden in one case hailed as a "solid" replacement for Shokin — began looking into what happened with the Burisma case that had been shut down.

Lutsenko told me that, while reviewing the Burisma investigative files, he discovered "members of the Board obtained funds as well as another U.S.-based legal entity, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, for consulting services."

Lutsenko said some of the evidence he knows about in the Burisma instance may interest U.Southward. authorities and he'd like to present that information to new U.S. Attorney General William Barr Nib BarrBarr says Trump responsible for Jan. 6 riot 'in the broad sense of that word' The Hill'south Morn Report - Russia's state of war against Ukraine grinds on Barr says he told Trump that election fraud claims were 'bulls---' MORE , particularly the vice president's intervention.

"Unfortunately, Mr. Biden had correlated and connected this aid with some of the HR (personnel) issues and changes in the prosecutor's office," Lutsenko said.

Nazar Kholodnytskyi, the pb anti-corruption prosecutor in Lutsenko's role, confirmed to me in an interview that part of the Burisma investigation was reopened in 2018, later on Joe Biden made his remarks. "We were able to beginning this case again," Kholodnytskyi said.

Simply he said the split Ukrainian police bureau that investigates corruption has dragged its anxiety in gathering show. "We don't see any outcome from this instance ane twelvemonth subsequently the reopening considering of some external influence," he said, declining to exist more than specific.

Ukraine is in the middle of a difficult-fought presidential ballot, is a frequent target of intelligence operations by neighboring Russia and suffers from rampant political abuse nationwide. Thus, many Americans might accept the restart of the Burisma case with a grain of table salt, and rightfully and then.

But what makes Lutsenko's account compelling is that federal authorities in America, in an entirely different instance, uncovered financial records showing just how much Hunter Biden's and Archer's company received from Burisma while Joe Biden acted as Obama's bespeak man on Ukraine.

Betwixt April 2014 and October 2015, more than $3 million was paid out of Burisma accounts to an business relationship linked to Biden'south and Archer's Rosemont Seneca firm, co-ordinate to the fiscal records placed in a federal court file in Manhattan in an unrelated case against Archer.

The bank records show that, on most months when Burisma coin flowed, two wire transfers of $83,333.33 each were sent to the Rosemont Seneca–connected account on the same day. The same Rosemont Seneca–linked account typically so would pay Hunter Biden one or more payments ranging from $five,000 to $25,000 each. Prosecutors reviewed internal company documents and wanted to interview Hunter Biden and Archer about why they had received such payments, co-ordinate to interviews.

Lutsenko said Ukrainian company board members legally can pay themselves for work they practice if information technology benefits the company'south bottom line, but prosecutors never got to determine the merits of the payments to Rosemont considering of the fashion the investigation was shut down.

As for Joe Biden's intervention in getting Lutsenko'due south predecessor fired in the midst of the Burisma investigation, Lutsenko suggested that was a matter to talk over with Attorney General Barr: "Of grade, I would be happy to have a conversation with him virtually this issue."

Every bit the now-completed Russian federation collusion investigation showed us, every American deserves the right to be presumed innocent until evidence is fabricated public or a confidence is secured, peculiarly when some matters of a example involve foreigners. The same presumption should be afforded to Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Devon Archer and Burisma in the Ukraine case.

Still, some hard questions should be answered by Biden equally he prepares, potentially, to run for president in 2020: Was it appropriate for your son and his firm to cash in on Ukraine while you served as signal man for Ukraine policy? What piece of work was performed for the money Hunter Biden'due south house received? Did y'all know about the Burisma probe? And when it was publicly announced that your son worked for Burisma, should you accept recused yourself from leveraging a U.S. policy to force per unit area the prosecutor who very publicly pursued Burisma?

John Solomon is an accolade-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.South. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. xi attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves equally an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Colina.

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Editor'southward note: Subsequent to the publication of this op-ed and the election of a new president in Ukraine, Yuriy Lutsenko was removed from office and criminal proceedings opened against him for possible abuse of power; he also subsequently told the Los Angeles Times that he'd seen no prove of wrongdoing by the Bidens.

____________

During impeachment testimony, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs George Kent said there was the "possibility of a perception of a disharmonize of involvement" regarding Hunter Biden's role at Burisma and then-Vice President Biden'due south role in Ukraine affairs for the Obama administration.

 This post was updated at 7:15 AM on Feb. nineteen, 2020.

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Source: https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/436816-joe-bidens-2020-ukrainian-nightmare-a-closed-probe-is-revived

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