Read post #1,105.
and this below.
Investigation into Burisma Holdings[edit]
In 2012, the Ukrainian prosecutor general
Viktor Pshonka began investigating
Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, owner of the natural gas company
Burisma Holdings, over allegations of
money laundering,
tax evasion, and corruption during 2010–2012.
[39][40]
In 2015, Shokin became the prosecutor general, inheriting the investigation. The Obama administration and other governments and non-governmental organizations soon became concerned that Shokin was not adequately pursuing corruption in Ukraine, was protecting the political elite, and was regarded as "an obstacle to anti-corruption efforts".[24][41] Among other issues, he was slow-walking the investigation into Zlochevsky and Burisma and, according to Zlochevsky's allies, using the threat of prosecution to try to solicit bribes from Mr. Zlochevsky and his team – to the extent that Obama officials were considering launching their own criminal investigation into the company for possible money laundering.[39]
While visiting Kyiv in December 2015, then-U.S. Vice President
Joe Biden warned Ukrainian President
Petro Poroshenko that, if he did not fire Shokin, the Obama administration was prepared to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees. Biden later said: "I looked at them and said, 'I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money.' [...] He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time." Whether or not Shokin's successor was "solid" was never confirmed.
[42] Shokin was dismissed by
Parliament in late March 2016.
[43][44] In 2016,
The New York Times published an article that suggested that "the credibility of the vice president’s anti-corruption message may have been undermined" by
Hunter Biden’s dealings with the company.
[45][46]
In May 2019, Vitaly Kasko, who had been Shokin's deputy overseeing international cooperation before resigning in February 2016, provided documents to
Bloomberg News claiming that under Shokin, the investigation into Burisma had been dormant.
[47][48] Shokin himself claimed in May 2019 that he had been investigating
Burisma Holdings.
[33][49] This claim was supported by testimony Shokin provided on September 4, 2019 for an Austrian court.
[50] Testifying in support of his prior claims of investigating
Burisma Holdings, Shokin, in a sworn affidavit dated September 4, 2019
[50] for a court in Austria, stated that "The truth is that I was forced out because I was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into Burisma Holdings, a natural gas firm active in
Ukraine and Joe Biden’s son,
Hunter Biden, was a member of the Board of Directors."
[51] Shokin continued, stating that, "On several occasions President Poroshenko asked me to have a look at the criminal case against Burisma and consider the possibility of winding down the investigative actions in respect of this company, but I refused to close this investigation."
[52]
The investigation into Burisma only pertained to events happening before[53] Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, joined the board of directors of Burisma Holdings in 2014.[54] US President Donald Trump's
subsequent bid to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce an investigation of Joe Biden in relation to Burisma led to the December 2019
impeachment of Trump.[
citation needed]
On February 27, 2020, a Ukrainian court ruling forced investigators to open a probe on Joe Biden's pressure on Poroshenko to fire Shokin.[37] The investigation was closed in November 2020 after the
election of
Joe Biden as
President of the
United States.
[55]