Please tell me how looking into the circumstances
surrounding Burisma holdings and it subsidiaries
is smearing a political rival?
When the investigation was already closed, and they tried to get it reopened by withholding funds.
If this was on the up and up, there should have been a formal request made, not this backdoor dealing by Guliani outside diplomatic channels to make it look like the Ukraine was opening this investigation on their own.
Biden wasn't going to approve the military aid
if they didn't fire Shokin, so what was the real strategic interest
The aid that Biden held up was at the insistence of the EU and IMF, which wasn't willing to commit more money until Shokin was gone. Oh, yeah, and it was economic aid, not military aid.