Daria Kaleniuk, executive director and co-founder of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre, a leading anti-corruption voice in Ukraine,
told PolitiFact in July that the complaint to which the OAN story refers was registered because it had been rejected by prosecutors.
"It doesn’t mean that Joe or Hunter Biden are suspects,” she said. “It means that, according to Ukrainian criminal procedure code, all formal criminal complaints have to be registered by law enforcement agencies, and if they don’t do so, the claimant can force prosecutors to start formal investigation through court.”
Under Ukrainian law, anyone can request an investigation if the State Investigative Bureau declines to open one, and courts often order law enforcement to launch criminal cases even if there is no evidence,
NBC News reported regarding the Biden probe.
The Kyiv Post, the newspaper in Ukraine’s capital, reported that the judge who issued the ruling has a “toxic reputation” and is one of the country’s most controversial judges.
Steven Pifer, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told USA TODAY that despite the court’s charge, there was no investigation of Biden so far as he knows.
“Ukrainian courts do some pretty bizarre things, and probably if you asked a lot of people, they would say the single most important thing Ukraine could do now would be to root out corruption in the judicial branch, and that’s from the constitutional court all the way down to the local courts,” he said.
The probe into Joe Biden was closed Nov. 10 after finding no evidence of wrongdoing, according to NBC News. USA TODAY found no evidence Biden is “wanted” in Ukraine, nor facing criminal charges for bribery.
As President-elect Joe Biden prepares to transition into the role of the president, news of a Ukrainian investigation has resurfaced.
www.usatoday.com