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Conspiracy Theories (1 Viewer)

Ukraine Prosecutor Says No Evidence of Wrongdoing by Bidens

-5/16/19 Bloomberg

Ukraine’s prosecutor general said in an interview that he had no evidence of wrongdoing by U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden or his son, despite a swirl of allegations by President Donald Trump’s lawyer.

The controversy stems from diplomatic actions by Biden while his son, Hunter Biden, sat on the board of Burisma Group, one of the country’s biggest private gas companies. As vice president, Biden pursued an anti-corruption policy in Ukraine in 2016 that included a call for the resignation of the country’s top prosecutor who had previously investigated Burisma.

...

“I do not want Ukraine to again be the subject of U.S. presidential elections,” Lutsenko said in an interview Tuesday in his office in Kiev. “Hunter Biden did not violate any Ukrainian laws -- at least as of now, we do not see any wrongdoing. A company can pay however much it wants to its board.” He said if there is a tax problem, it’s not in Ukraine.

Diverging Reports

The prosecutor laid out a more detailed explanation about what was under investigation by his office after a flurry of diverging reports. While the prosecutor’s office hasn’t reopened a case against Burisma, it is pursuing information about the company’s owner in connection with a long-running criminal investigation of another mogul who fled the country five years ago. That matter concerns a transaction unrelated to Hunter Biden, he volunteered.

...

Back in March 2016, Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees if Ukraine failed to address corruption and remove its Prosecutor General, Viktor Shokin, who soon after left office amid widespread calls for his dismissal. Though Shokin had begun a probe into Burisma, it was dormant when he departed, according to a former prosecutor.

“At the end of the day, Shokin submitted his own resignation,” Lutsenko said.

...

Lutsenko said his prosecutors are now looking at Zlochevsky and dozens of other Ukrainians as part of one of the country’s biggest criminal investigations, which was begun in 2014. That inquiry focuses on the activities of Serhiy Kurchenko, who owned a group of gas companies and was a close associate of former President Viktor Yanukovych. Ukraine’s prosecutor general has accused Kurchenko of money laundering, tax evasion and theft of state assets.

After the Maidan revolution toppled Yanukovych in February 2014, Kurchenko fled Ukraine, reportedly to Russia. The U.S. and the European Union imposed sanctions on Kurchenko, and his assets were frozen. A lawyer for Kurchenko didn’t immediately comment.

As part of the five-year-old inquiry, the prosecutor general’s office has been looking at whether Kurchenko’s purchase of an oil storage terminal in southern Ukraine from Zlochevksy in November 2013 helped Kurchenko launder money. Lutsenko said the transaction under scrutiny came months before Hunter Biden joined the Burisma board.

“Biden was definitely not involved,” Lutsenko said. “We do not have any grounds to think that there was any wrongdoing starting from 2014.”

There is no additional investigation of Zlochevsky and Burisma, the prosecutor general said. A separate case focusing on Zlochevsky’s sale of the oil storage company should be opened in the next month, he said, calling it a “small episode” in the bigger investigation.

“As soon as a case will be separated against Zlochevsky, investigators will follow the procedure,” Lutsenko said. “As far as I know he is outside Ukraine, so he will be first put on a wanted list, then he will be put on an international wanted list. But for the time being, there is nothing in that regard.”

‘Notice of Suspicion’

Prosecutors sent Zlochevsky a “notice of suspicion” and requested he appear for questioning as part of the Kurchenko case, but he never showed up, Lutsenko said. Zlochevsky didn’t respond to requests for comment sent via Burisma, and his lawyer declined to comment.

The current probe “in no way” concerns Burisma, the prosecutor general emphasized.

Before he became prosecutor general in 2016, Lutsenko said, a probe into whether Burisma misappropriated gas licenses was transferred to Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and then closed. “I don’t understand why NABU closed the cases,” he said.

This year, at the request of Ukrainian MPs, NABU reopened the gas license case. The matter concerns licenses granted to Burisma when Zlochevsky was Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources and predates Hunter Biden’s time on the board.

Zlochevsky’s sale of the oil storage business to Kurchenko was part of a probe by the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office started in 2014, only to be dropped after Ukrainian prosecutors failed to provide information to support the case and closed their own investigation into the matter. Another probe into unpaid taxes by Burisma was settled in 2016.

“All cases against Burisma were closed,” Lutsenko said. “I do not see any wrongdoings of any foreigners who worked for Burisma in Ukraine.” ...


 

 
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Vitaliy Kasko was the "good guy" pro-democracy prosecutor who was constantly on the trail of Zlochevsky and Burisma, and it was his resignation who more than anything finally forced Shokin out

Timeline in Ukraine Probe Casts Doubt on Giuliani’s Biden Claim

5/6/19 Bloomberg

President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer is raising the specter that Joe Biden intervened in Ukrainian politics to help his son’s business.

But if that was Biden’s aim, he was more than a year late, based on a timeline laid out by a former Ukrainian official and in Ukrainian documents.

The official described to Bloomberg details about the country’s political dynamic in the run-up to early 2016 when Biden, then the U.S. vice president, threatened to hold up U.S. funding to Ukraine unless it cracked down on corruption. Biden’s chief demand was the ouster of a top Ukrainian prosecutor who he said had been ineffective. The episode has come under the spotlight in the last week because at one point, that prosecutor had been investigating a natural gas company where Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, sat on the board and received substantial compensation.

There’s little question that the Bidens’ paths in Ukraine held the potential for conflict, and in a tweet last week, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said the U.S. should investigate the matter. But what has received less attention is that at the time Biden made his ultimatum, the probe into the company -- Burisma Holdings, owned by Mykola Zlochevsky -- had been long dormant, according to the former official, Vitaliy Kasko.

“There was no pressure from anyone from the U.S. to close cases against Zlochevsky,” Kasko said in an interview last week. “It was shelved by Ukrainian prosecutors in 2014 and through 2015.”

Kasko’s assessment adds a wrinkle to one of the first political intrigues of the 2020 election season. It undercuts the idea that Biden, now a top Democratic presidential candidate, was seeking to sideline a prosecutor who was actively threatening a company tied to his son. Instead, it appears more consistent with Biden’s previous statements that he was pressing for the removal of a prosecutor who was failing to tackle rampant corruption: According to public reports and internal documents from the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office, U.S. officials had expressed concern for more than a year about Ukrainian prosecutors’ failure to assist an international investigation of Zlochevsky.

...

Hunter Biden joined the board in April 2014, two months after U.K. authorities requested information from Ukraine as part of a probe against Zlochevsky related to money laundering allegations. Zlochevsky had been minister of environmental protection under then-President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia in February 2014 after mass protests.

After the U.K. request, Ukrainian prosecutors opened their own case, accusing Zlochevsky of embezzling public funds. Burisma and Zlochevsky have denied the allegations.

The case against Zlochevsky and his Burisma Holdings was assigned to Shokin, then a deputy prosecutor. But Shokin and others weren’t pursuing it, according to the internal reports from the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office reviewed by Bloomberg.

In a December 2014 letter, U.S. officials warned Ukrainian prosecutors of negative consequences for Ukraine over its failure to assist the U.K., which had seized Zlochevsky’s assets, according to the documents.

Those funds, $23.5 million, were unblocked in 2015 when a British court determined there wasn’t enough evidence to justify the continued freeze, in part because Ukrainian prosecutors had failed to provide the necessary information.

No Action

Shokin became prosecutor general in February 2015. Over the next year, the U.S. and the International Monetary Fund criticized officials for not doing enough to fight corruption in Ukraine.

Shokin took no action to pursue cases against Zlochevsky throughout 2015, said Kasko, who was Shokin’s deputy overseeing international cooperation and helping in asset-recovery investigations. Kasko said he had urged Shokin to pursue the investigations.

The U.S. stepped up its criticism in September 2015, when its ambassador to Ukraine, during a speech, accused officials working under Shokin of “subverting” the U.K. investigation.

Kasko resigned in February 2016, citing corruption and lawlessness in the prosecutor general’s office.

The U.S. plan to push for Shokin’s dismissal didn’t initially come from Biden, but rather filtered up from officials at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation. Embassy personnel had called for U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine to be tied to broader anti-corruption efforts, including Shokin’s dismissal, this person said.

Biden’s threat to withhold $1 billion if Ukraine didn’t crack down on corruption reportedly came in March. That same month, hundreds of Ukrainians demonstrated outside President Petro Poroshenko’s office demanding Shokin’s resignation, and he was dismissed.

Shokin has denied any accusations of wrongdoing and declined to provide immediate comment for this article. In an interview with the Ukrainian website Strana.ua published on May 6, Shokin said he believes he was fired because of his Burisma investigation, which he said had been active at the time.

In October 2017, Burisma issued a statement saying Ukrainian prosecutors had closed all legal and criminal proceedings against it.

No Convictions

Earlier this year, Ukraine’s current prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, met with Trump attorney Giuliani, and the two discussed the Burisma investigation, according to Lutsenko’s spokeswoman Larysa Sargan.

Sargan said the prosecutor general hasn’t reopened the case into Burisma or Zlochevsky, contradicting a claim in the New York Times that the Ukrainian prosecutor is scrutinizing millions of dollars of payments from Burisma to the firm that paid Hunter Biden. Ari Isaacman Bevacqua, a Times spokeswoman said, “We stand by our reporting, which is detailed and well documented.”

Ukraine’s incoming president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is likely to appoint his own top prosecutor to replace Lutsenko. Under Poroshenko, Ukraine hasn’t convicted any high-ranking officials of corruption. ...


 

 
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SaintsInDome2006 said:
Ukraine Prosecutor Says No Evidence of Wrongdoing by Bidens

-5/16/19 Bloomberg

Ukraine’s prosecutor general said in an interview that he had no evidence of wrongdoing by U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden or his son, despite a swirl of allegations by President Donald Trump’s lawyer.

The controversy stems from diplomatic actions by Biden while his son, Hunter Biden, sat on the board of Burisma Group, one of the country’s biggest private gas companies. As vice president, Biden pursued an anti-corruption policy in Ukraine in 2016 that included a call for the resignation of the country’s top prosecutor who had previously investigated Burisma.

...

“I do not want Ukraine to again be the subject of U.S. presidential elections,” Lutsenko said in an interview Tuesday in his office in Kiev. “Hunter Biden did not violate any Ukrainian laws -- at least as of now, we do not see any wrongdoing. A company can pay however much it wants to its board.” He said if there is a tax problem, it’s not in Ukraine.

Diverging Reports

The prosecutor laid out a more detailed explanation about what was under investigation by his office after a flurry of diverging reports. While the prosecutor’s office hasn’t reopened a case against Burisma, it is pursuing information about the company’s owner in connection with a long-running criminal investigation of another mogul who fled the country five years ago. That matter concerns a transaction unrelated to Hunter Biden, he volunteered.

...

Back in March 2016, Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees if Ukraine failed to address corruption and remove its Prosecutor General, Viktor Shokin, who soon after left office amid widespread calls for his dismissal. Though Shokin had begun a probe into Burisma, it was dormant when he departed, according to a former prosecutor.

“At the end of the day, Shokin submitted his own resignation,” Lutsenko said.

...

Lutsenko said his prosecutors are now looking at Zlochevsky and dozens of other Ukrainians as part of one of the country’s biggest criminal investigations, which was begun in 2014. That inquiry focuses on the activities of Serhiy Kurchenko, who owned a group of gas companies and was a close associate of former President Viktor Yanukovych. Ukraine’s prosecutor general has accused Kurchenko of money laundering, tax evasion and theft of state assets.

After the Maidan revolution toppled Yanukovych in February 2014, Kurchenko fled Ukraine, reportedly to Russia. The U.S. and the European Union imposed sanctions on Kurchenko, and his assets were frozen. A lawyer for Kurchenko didn’t immediately comment.

As part of the five-year-old inquiry, the prosecutor general’s office has been looking at whether Kurchenko’s purchase of an oil storage terminal in southern Ukraine from Zlochevksy in November 2013 helped Kurchenko launder money. Lutsenko said the transaction under scrutiny came months before Hunter Biden joined the Burisma board.

“Biden was definitely not involved,” Lutsenko said. “We do not have any grounds to think that there was any wrongdoing starting from 2014.”

There is no additional investigation of Zlochevsky and Burisma, the prosecutor general said. A separate case focusing on Zlochevsky’s sale of the oil storage company should be opened in the next month, he said, calling it a “small episode” in the bigger investigation.

“As soon as a case will be separated against Zlochevsky, investigators will follow the procedure,” Lutsenko said. “As far as I know he is outside Ukraine, so he will be first put on a wanted list, then he will be put on an international wanted list. But for the time being, there is nothing in that regard.”

‘Notice of Suspicion’

Prosecutors sent Zlochevsky a “notice of suspicion” and requested he appear for questioning as part of the Kurchenko case, but he never showed up, Lutsenko said. Zlochevsky didn’t respond to requests for comment sent via Burisma, and his lawyer declined to comment.

The current probe “in no way” concerns Burisma, the prosecutor general emphasized.

Before he became prosecutor general in 2016, Lutsenko said, a probe into whether Burisma misappropriated gas licenses was transferred to Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and then closed. “I don’t understand why NABU closed the cases,” he said.

This year, at the request of Ukrainian MPs, NABU reopened the gas license case. The matter concerns licenses granted to Burisma when Zlochevsky was Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources and predates Hunter Biden’s time on the board.

Zlochevsky’s sale of the oil storage business to Kurchenko was part of a probe by the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office started in 2014, only to be dropped after Ukrainian prosecutors failed to provide information to support the case and closed their own investigation into the matter. Another probe into unpaid taxes by Burisma was settled in 2016.

“All cases against Burisma were closed,” Lutsenko said. “I do not see any wrongdoings of any foreigners who worked for Burisma in Ukraine.” ...


  Reveal hidden contents
Click to expand...
Except the video of Biden bragging about bullying them into firing the attorney investigating his son.

“You guys ain’t getting the billion if he isn’t fired in six hours.” Said Biden. Exactly the kind of thing the left wing pro Chicoms are trying to project on to Trump.

Looks like four more years of Trump are guaranteed as the left keeps the fake news going.

 
pinkham13 said:
Except the video of Biden bragging about bullying them into firing the attorney investigating his son.

“You guys ain’t getting the billion if he isn’t fired in six hours.” Said Biden. Exactly the kind of thing the left wing pro Chicoms are trying to project on to Trump. ...
Click to expand...
The US owns and should own pushing for the firing of Shokin.

 
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SaintsInDome2006 said:
Ukraine Prosecutor Says No Evidence of Wrongdoing by Bidens

-5/16/19 Bloomberg

Ukraine’s prosecutor general said in an interview that he had no evidence of wrongdoing by U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden or his son, despite a swirl of allegations by President Donald Trump’s lawyer.

The controversy stems from diplomatic actions by Biden while his son, Hunter Biden, sat on the board of Burisma Group, one of the country’s biggest private gas companies. As vice president, Biden pursued an anti-corruption policy in Ukraine in 2016 that included a call for the resignation of the country’s top prosecutor who had previously investigated Burisma.

...

“I do not want Ukraine to again be the subject of U.S. presidential elections,” Lutsenko said in an interview Tuesday in his office in Kiev. “Hunter Biden did not violate any Ukrainian laws -- at least as of now, we do not see any wrongdoing. A company can pay however much it wants to its board.” He said if there is a tax problem, it’s not in Ukraine.

Diverging Reports

The prosecutor laid out a more detailed explanation about what was under investigation by his office after a flurry of diverging reports. While the prosecutor’s office hasn’t reopened a case against Burisma, it is pursuing information about the company’s owner in connection with a long-running criminal investigation of another mogul who fled the country five years ago. That matter concerns a transaction unrelated to Hunter Biden, he volunteered.

...

Back in March 2016, Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees if Ukraine failed to address corruption and remove its Prosecutor General, Viktor Shokin, who soon after left office amid widespread calls for his dismissal. Though Shokin had begun a probe into Burisma, it was dormant when he departed, according to a former prosecutor.

“At the end of the day, Shokin submitted his own resignation,” Lutsenko said.

...

Lutsenko said his prosecutors are now looking at Zlochevsky and dozens of other Ukrainians as part of one of the country’s biggest criminal investigations, which was begun in 2014. That inquiry focuses on the activities of Serhiy Kurchenko, who owned a group of gas companies and was a close associate of former President Viktor Yanukovych. Ukraine’s prosecutor general has accused Kurchenko of money laundering, tax evasion and theft of state assets.

After the Maidan revolution toppled Yanukovych in February 2014, Kurchenko fled Ukraine, reportedly to Russia. The U.S. and the European Union imposed sanctions on Kurchenko, and his assets were frozen. A lawyer for Kurchenko didn’t immediately comment.

As part of the five-year-old inquiry, the prosecutor general’s office has been looking at whether Kurchenko’s purchase of an oil storage terminal in southern Ukraine from Zlochevksy in November 2013 helped Kurchenko launder money. Lutsenko said the transaction under scrutiny came months before Hunter Biden joined the Burisma board.

“Biden was definitely not involved,” Lutsenko said. “We do not have any grounds to think that there was any wrongdoing starting from 2014.”

There is no additional investigation of Zlochevsky and Burisma, the prosecutor general said. A separate case focusing on Zlochevsky’s sale of the oil storage company should be opened in the next month, he said, calling it a “small episode” in the bigger investigation.

“As soon as a case will be separated against Zlochevsky, investigators will follow the procedure,” Lutsenko said. “As far as I know he is outside Ukraine, so he will be first put on a wanted list, then he will be put on an international wanted list. But for the time being, there is nothing in that regard.”

‘Notice of Suspicion’

Prosecutors sent Zlochevsky a “notice of suspicion” and requested he appear for questioning as part of the Kurchenko case, but he never showed up, Lutsenko said. Zlochevsky didn’t respond to requests for comment sent via Burisma, and his lawyer declined to comment.

The current probe “in no way” concerns Burisma, the prosecutor general emphasized.

Before he became prosecutor general in 2016, Lutsenko said, a probe into whether Burisma misappropriated gas licenses was transferred to Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and then closed. “I don’t understand why NABU closed the cases,” he said.

This year, at the request of Ukrainian MPs, NABU reopened the gas license case. The matter concerns licenses granted to Burisma when Zlochevsky was Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources and predates Hunter Biden’s time on the board.

Zlochevsky’s sale of the oil storage business to Kurchenko was part of a probe by the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office started in 2014, only to be dropped after Ukrainian prosecutors failed to provide information to support the case and closed their own investigation into the matter. Another probe into unpaid taxes by Burisma was settled in 2016.

“All cases against Burisma were closed,” Lutsenko said. “I do not see any wrongdoings of any foreigners who worked for Burisma in Ukraine.” ...


  Reveal hidden contents
Click to expand...
Lutsenko?

Isn't he the guy who spent 3 years in prison for embezzlement and abuse of office? (prior to being appointed Prosecutor General)

And he was forced to resign after a Ukraine activist/politician died from an acid attack?

And he replaced the guy Biden ordered to be terminated with the threat of withholding a billion dollars?

Link

I am sure he is the epitome of credible.

Also, whether they were investigating Burisma or the oligarch, for actions before during or after Hunter Biden joining the board is secondary. The issue is the VP's crackhead son with zero energy experience was given a board position and collecting $50k/mo for 5 years. While his dad was the lead in US Ukraine relations and making billion dollar decisions.

If Ivanka Trump, who actually has business experience and is not a crackhead, was appointed to a board in one of the most corrupt countries in the world and received $50k/mo stipend for 5 years you would lose your mind. There would be a 500 page thread here.

 
Raylan said:
Lutsenko?

Isn't he the guy who spent 3 years in prison for embezzlement and abuse of office? (prior to being appointed Prosecutor General)

And he was forced to resign after a Ukraine activist/politician died from an acid attack?

And he replaced the guy Biden ordered to be terminated with the threat of withholding a billion dollars?

Link

I am sure he is the epitome of credible.

Also, whether they were investigating Burisma or the oligarch, for actions before during or after Hunter Biden joining the board is secondary. The issue is the VP's crackhead son with zero energy experience was given a board position and collecting $50k/mo for 5 years. While his dad was the lead in US Ukraine relations and making billion dollar decisions.

If Ivanka Trump, who actually has business experience and is not a crackhead, was appointed to a board in one of the most corrupt countries in the world and received $50k/mo stipend for 5 years you would lose your mind. There would be a 500 page thread here.
Click to expand...
I’m not sure you understand board members’ duties. And Hunter Biden went to law school and then worked for holding companies and transportation boards and worked as a lobbyist.   He was on the board of directors for Amtrak almost a decade before this board.

Eric Trump is on the board of St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. He’s got very little experience performing surgery. That’s okay, too. 

 
Raylan said:
Lutsenko?

Isn't he the guy who spent 3 years in prison for embezzlement and abuse of office? (prior to being appointed Prosecutor General)

And he was forced to resign after a Ukraine activist/politician died from an acid attack?
Click to expand...
^Raylan doesn't discuss/respond but I'll comment on this.

Yes Lutsenko was put in prison in the Yanukovych regime, which was notorious for imprisoning political opponents, as they did with Timoshenko. This of course was Manafort's gang who also notoriously tried to Putinize the government by embezzling everything they could get their mitts on. Lutsenko went to jail because he would not prosecute Timoshenko which at the time made him a hero and really still is a great thing.

That's why when Lutsenko was released it was hoped as a former political prisoner he would be an active reformer. That was not the case. At worse he was also corrupt, at best he was incompetent. Gien his prior history it's a mixed bag. However Lutsenko is part of the claim about Biden as supposedly not only was Shokin being suppressed somehow (per Giuliani-followers) but so was Lutsenko, and if you slavishly follow Trump you have to make that argument. Well here's Lutsenko saying that was absolutely not the case, and he is accurately stating the facts about Burisma and Hunter and that the Giuliani claims are false. 

edit - He did offer to resign as part of the Handziuk attack, but he did not resign because of that because Poroshenk turned down his resignation. I pointed out further up that Lutsenko was generally regarded as corrupt or incompetent himself. Ultimately he resigned not just because of the protests in general but also because Kasko forced his resignation.

 
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Raylan said:
Also, whether they were investigating Burisma or the oligarch, for actions before during or after Hunter Biden joining the board is secondary. The issue is the VP's crackhead son with zero energy experience was given a board position and collecting $50k/mo for 5 years. While his dad was the lead in US Ukraine relations and making billion dollar decisions.

If Ivanka Trump, who actually has business experience and is not a crackhead, was appointed to a board in one of the most corrupt countries in the world and received $50k/mo stipend for 5 years you would lose your mind. There would be a 500 page thread here.
Click to expand...
It's primary for Trump & Giuliani, not secondary at all. - Like I said further up the conflict of interest issue is worth discussing. However as explained above Rosemont is the investor and Hunter being on the board as gloss which is what happened is an entirely different thing from what you're saying. Hunter wasn't running the company. Equity investment firms getting members on boards is pretty standard stuff.

The TrumpKids are grifting all over the world - and in the US - just off their father's business, however their membership on boards is not an issue.

 
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I’m on the board for the Greater Lakewood YMCA girls Gymnastics program. This despite the fact that I’m not a girl and know absolutely nothing about girls’ gymnastics. 

Somebody needs to investigate this. And hopefully it will be soon before I have to attend the next annual dinner- so dull. 

 
This is just a basic timeline as there's obviously confusion on prosecutors and what happened when (and I may edit).

  • 2010 - Yanukovych (Regions Party, managed by Manafort) elected .
  • 2010 - Yanukovych names Zlochevsky Minister of Energy.
  • November 2013 - Zlochevsky basically just grants a bunch of mineral resource licenses to his own company.
  • 2014 - Maidan happens and Yanukovych flees to Russia.
  • April 2014 - UK is investigating Zlochevsky.
  • Assistant prosecutor Kasko is helping the UK, but he is obstructed by chief prosecutor Shokin.
  • May 2014 - Rosemont's Hunter joins Burisma board. 
  • 8/5/14 - Zlochevsky obtains a letter from the Prosecutor General's Office (Shokin) stating that no suspicions have been raised.
  • 11/20/14 - Report by assistant prosecutor Kasko to Prosecutor Zalisko.
  • 12/2/14 - Shokin's office writes a letter exonerating Zlochevsky.
  • 12/4/14 - Shokin completely removes jurisdiction for the case from his office and puts it exclusively under that of local police. 
  • December 2014 - US joins UK and asks Shokin to assist the UK.
  • 12/25/14 - Kasko writes a report exposing that Shokin is sitting on the case.
  • 12/29/14 - The deputy prosecutor joins Kasko and claims that Zlochevsky and Shokin are acting in collusion.
  • Up until now Shokin has been Deputy Prosecutor.
  • February 2015 - Shokin appointed to General Prosecutor in 2/2015. He refused to prosecute members of Yanukovych's admin, including Zlochevsky, refused to prosecute snipers that killed dozens of protestors at Maidan, refused to prosecute people in his own depart for bribery. 
  • March 2015 - David Sakvarelidze, a deputy prosecutor, accused other prosecutors of accepting bribes to help Zlochevsky.
  • 9/21/15 - On the basis of Shokin's letters, the UK court releases Zlochevsky's funds.
  • 12/6/15 - Biden visits Ukraine. The Burisma conflict is well known.
  • February 2016 - The IMF & Euro nations are clamoring for the removal of Shokin and for reform.
  • March 2016 - Kasko resigns, large scale protests over general corruption under Shokin. Kasko had stated that he urged Shokin to continue the Zlochevsky investigation, but Shokin refused. He said Shokin shelved the investigation.
  • 3/29/16 The Ukraine Parliament (Rada) ousts Shokin by a majority of 289 votes, the ruling party that appointed him overwhelmingly voted against him. There is consensus.
  • May 2016 - The new prosecutor Lutsenko comes in. However he too seems to do nothing.
  • June 2016 - Hunter Biden leaves Burisma.
  • 11/1/16 - The prosecutor's office officially reports that the Zlochevsky case is closed but does not specify when, it could have been as early as 2014, who knows.
  • Currently - Lutsenko has been removed by the new Zalensky administration, Zlochevsky is being looked at again. The current chief general prosecutor is the fourth since Zlochevsky’s self dealing under investigation first occurred in 2013.


- eta - I'll add this excellent summary just posted by MT as well.

Separating Fact from Fiction In the Biden Burisma Affair

 
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Book Alleging Biden Corruption in Ukraine Lifted Passages From Wikipedia

A book that has fueled corruption allegations at the center of an unfolding impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump appears to have lifted portions of text from news articles and Wikipedia pages without proper citation or attribution.

The Daily Beast found more than a dozen instances in which Secret Empires, the bestselling book by investigative journalist Peter Schweizer, copied complete sentences or sizable portions of them verbatim or near-verbatim from other sources. In a number of instances, those sources were uncited Wikipedia pages created before the book’s publication in early 2018.

Many of the passages included citations of the works from which language was drawn, but did not put that language in quotation marks. In one case, Schweizer’s book used language nearly identical to a post on a website of a prominent progressive think tank, but cited not that think tank, but a news article based on the same data.
Click to expand...

 
Schweizer is another guy who the right wing media treats like some sort of deity, despite the fact that he writes one garbage book after another filled with half lies and downright falsehoods. 

 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
The TrumpKids are grifting all over the world - and in the US - just off their father's business, however their membership on boards is not an issue.
Click to expand...
I don't think they have ever used crack.

I can't believe people are in here defending this at all.  The optics on this look terrible.  And "Trump's kids do it" just isn't going to cut it.

 
Punxsutawney Phil said:
I can't believe people are in here defending this at all.  The optics on this look terrible.  And "Trump's kids do it" just isn't going to cut it.
Click to expand...
They're not, or they shouldn't. I agree about TrumpKids, see the Emoluments thread for that, lots there and I agree about whataboutism in general. However this is ***not a conversation about conflicts of interest or appearance of wrongdoing flowing from politicians' children making dough off their name and inside baseball. - This is about Trump's and Giuliani's claims, which are most definitely not about that, they are about made up crap.

 
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The Republicans in my legislative district had their monthly meeting last night where the topic was “voter fraud in our county?” Then they raffled off an AR-15.

 
so I was reading up on the timeline (linked timeline is actually pretty good, IMO).  I note that there's been quite a bit of activity  between late 2018 and the Zalinskyy call.  It appears there is soo much more than just the phone call. It looks like Guliani has been pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Bidens (and setting up Manafort)  since then.  It appears that Guliani did make some headway with Yuriy Lutsenko, the prosecutor.

I'm having a hard time reading Lutsenkos motives here.  He does succumb to Guliani's pressure, and opens investigations:

“The decision to reopen the investigation into Burisma was made … by the current Ukrainian prosecutor general [Lutsenko], who had cleared Hunter Biden’s employer more than two years ago. The announcement … was seen in some quarters as an effort by the prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, to curry favor from the Trump administration for his boss and ally, the incumbent president,” the New York Times reported (in May 2019).

Lutsenko also tells the Hill’s conservative columnist John Solomon, “Today we will launch a criminal investigation about” the Manafort disclosure  in the 2016 election. (See following entry on March 20).

March 20, 2019 – The Hill’s conservative opinion writer John Solomon publishes an interview with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Lutsenko, who by this point has been widely criticized as ineffective and likely corrupt.

...

Lutsenko also reportedly says he would investigate the head of NABU for the 2016 Manafort disclosure. “Today we will launch a criminal investigation about this,” he says. Ukraine expert Melinda Haring of the Atlantic Council says Lutsenko is “woefully unqualified (he doesn’t have a law degree), has dragged his feet on every serious anti-corruption case since being installed, and protected his friends, including Poroshenko.”
Click to expand...
April 21st, Zelenskiyy is elected president.

May 14, 2019 – Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Lutsenko tells Bloomberg News that he has “no evidence of wrongdoing” by either of the Bidens and that neither Hunter Biden nor Burisma were the focus of any current investigation. He said he planned to give U.S. authorities information about Burisma board payments, so that the U.S. could check whether Hunter Biden had paid taxes on his income, though there were no restrictions in Ukraine on how much a company could pay to its board members.
Click to expand...
So - Guliani was successful in getting an investigation started.  New president is elected, and 3 weeks later Lutsenko shuts it down.  Guliani keeps pressure on Lutshenko and tries to gain access to Zalinskyy.

June 11, 2019 – Zelenskyy sends a motion to Parliament asking that it dismiss sitting Prosecutor General Lutsenko.
Click to expand...
Early to mid-July – Trump orders suspension and review of U.S. aid to Ukraine....Fox News reports that “the Pentagon, State Department and National Security Council were `unanimous’ in supporting the aid to Ukraine, and that Trump acted alone in withholding the aid over the summer.”
Click to expand...
and then on July 25, Trump asks Zalinskyy to re-open the Biden investigation.  (re-open is my words...the investigation had already been closed). 

===========================

My take:

Best case, this whole thing is Guliani going rogue, with the presidents blessing and eventual endorsement.  What Guliani was doing in Ukraine was all out in the open and IMO is fine, assuming he is acting as a private citizen.  He thought he was making headway, and was reporting back to Trump as such.  When Zalinksyy was elected, running on an anti-corruption platform, that all dried up.  He was desperate to get it started again, and Trump saw the value in what he was doing.  So, Trump put a little extra pressure on Zalinskyy to help out Guliani's "noble" cause.  No big deal, right?

Worst case, Guliani was acting on Trumps behalf, essentially running as a "shadow diplomat", coercing Lutsenko with the full weight of the American government behind him.  He did all of this with mike Pompeo's endorsement, as Guliani claims.  If this is true (and IMO Guliani isn't a liar - he gets carried away in his conspiracy theories and is prone to put all of his cards on the table), it means Trump has been pushing for the Biden investigation well before this latest phone call.

 
moleculo said:
June 11, 2019 – Zelenskyy sends a motion to Parliament asking that it dismiss sitting Prosecutor General Lutsenko.
Click to expand...
Fwiw I think one thing worth noting is that in Ukraine the President can't just fire the General Prosecutor, he has to get Parliamentary approval. So for instance when Shokin was finally driven out it was with a huge majority approval by the Rada. With Lutsenko, Zelensky tried to fire him, but Parliament would not let him. Before that it was not really clear what kind of person Zalensky was or even that he would win. At any rate Lutsenko at some point was gunning to save his job. It does confuse things.

There is a new prosecutor now, Ruslan Riaboshapka, who came in roughly very end of August. So this is actually the fourth General Prosecutor during this series of events with Zlochevsky - Yarema, Shokin, Lutsenko, and now Riaboshapka.

 
Cheese and Crackers said:
At least three Republican senators agreed that Shokin needed to go. 

Republican senators echoed Biden in urging Ukrainian president to reform prosecutor general's office
Click to expand...
This is February 2016, this is less than a month before Shokin was forced out and closer in time than Biden's visit, which was a good 2+ months before. Yes, Republicans were for it, Dems were for it, everyone was for pushing Shokin out. The guy had become an embarrassing disgrace even to his own party.

 
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SaintsInDome2006 said:
Fwiw I think one thing worth noting is that in Ukraine the President can't just fire the General Prosecutor, he has to get Parliamentary approval. So for instance when Shokin was finally driven out it was with a huge majority approval by the Rada. With Lutsenko, Zelensky tried to fire him, but Parliament would not let him. Before that it was not really clear what kind of person Zalensky was or even that he would win. At any rate Lutsenko at some point was gunning to save his job. It does confuse things.

There is a new prosecutor now, Ruslan Riaboshapka, who came in roughly very end of August. So this is actually the fourth General Prosecutor during this series of events with Zlochevsky - Yarema, Shokin, Lutsenko, and now Riaboshapka.
Click to expand...
What's your take on Lutsenko?  corrupt or nah?  I know that this isn't like comic books, good and bad can be blurred (ok, new comic books blur all the time).  Lutsenko did Guliani's bidding and opened an investigation into the Bidens...and closed it.  What's up here?  I know I'm asking for speculation but this IS the conspiracy theory thread, so go nuts.

 
McBokonon said:
The Republicans in my legislative district had their monthly meeting last night where the topic was “voter fraud in our county?” Then they raffled off an AR-15.
Click to expand...
Cool prize. Did you win?

 
moleculo said:
What's your take on Lutsenko?  corrupt or nah?  I know that this isn't like comic books, good and bad can be blurred (ok, new comic books blur all the time).  Lutsenko did Guliani's bidding and opened an investigation into the Bidens...and closed it.  What's up here?  I know I'm asking for speculation but this IS the conspiracy theory thread, so go nuts.
Click to expand...
I really don’t know, but as someone who used to read about this stuff offhand while it was going on my sense is that there were high hopes for Lutsenko when he came in but ultimately he was 1. incompetent and/or 2. basically intimidated or cowed into doing nothing, or 3. corrupt himself. Thing is he was a Yanukovych political prisoner and yet from  what I’ve read he too was perceived as corrupt and part of the problem by pro-democracy types because almost nothing had changed. So there was pressure on Zelensky to get rid of him domestically because corruption is a huge problem and there is still a big backlog of claims and cases against former regime oligarchs and nothing was happening, no one important was prosecuted or investigated. And that's really the big impetus behind Zelensky’s election. So I guess my perception of Lutsenko is ‘corrupt’.

 
Also have to remember that Giuliani has clients in Ukraine, including possibly competitors of Burisma. If Burisma is investigated/prosecuted then their competitors gain. 

Lutsenko Meanwhile was looking to keep his job. That could be furthered by appearing to be the favorite of the current American benefactors. 

And whether Giuliani was pushing Zelensky to keep Lutsenko is an important question to be answered. Giuliani is an American lobbying for Ukraine and American clients in Ukraine and he’s an American lobbying for Ukrainian clients in America via his connection to Trump.

 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
Also have to remember that Giuliani has clients in Ukraine, including possibly competitors of Burisma. If Burisma is investigated/prosecuted then their competitors gain. 

Lutsenko Meanwhile was looking to keep his job. That could be furthered by appearing to be the favorite of the current American benefactors. 

And whether Giuliani was pushing Zelensky to keep Lutsenko is an important question to be answered. Giuliani is an American lobbying for Ukraine and American clients in Ukraine and he’s an American lobbying for Ukrainian clients in America via his connection to Trump.
Click to expand...
but Lutsenko dropped the Biden investigation prior to being sacked.  I speculate that this investigation is like the least important thing to the Ukranians - a nuisance that they would rather not be dealing with.  I'm surprised the Ukranians even took Guliani's phone call - honestly, why would they, if they didn't know Trump was backing him?

This whole thing stinks.  The more I think about it, the more I believe Trump has been pushing for this since 2018, the vast majority of it being out in the open - that's why he's so shocked everyone interprets the phone call as a big deal. 

Why has no one put together what Guliani was doing prior?

 
moleculo said:
but Lutsenko dropped the Biden investigation prior to being sacked.  I speculate that this investigation is like the least important thing to the Ukranians - a nuisance that they would rather not be dealing with.  I'm surprised the Ukranians even took Guliani's phone call - honestly, why would they, if they didn't know Trump was backing him?

This whole thing stinks.  The more I think about it, the more I believe Trump has been pushing for this since 2018, the vast majority of it being out in the open - that's why he's so shocked everyone interprets the phone call as a big deal. 

Why has no one put together what Guliani was doing prior?
Click to expand...
I agree. Benczkowski came on around June of 2018 (and he apparently just snuffed the WB complaint at DOJ) and Barr wrote his memo on unitary presidential authority about the same time, and I think things have been flowing since then post 2018 election.

As to your question, my guess is because up until now it's been a Euro story. Reading stuff about the Ukraine War and EU politics several reporters and commentators have been  :eek: about Giuliani's trips to the east and who he's been meeting with.

 
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H/T to Bananfish on this article, which apparently is one in a series essentially about democracy.

It's complex but it ties in the connection between authoritarianism and conspiracism. It's a long and maybe difficult read but it's revelatory.

************

A Warning From Europe: The Worst Is Yet to Come

Polarization. Conspiracy theories. Attacks on the free press. An obsession with loyalty. Recent events in the United States follow a pattern Europeans know all too well.

The emotional appeal of a conspiracy theory is in its simplicity. It explains away complex phenomena, accounts for chance and accidents, offers the believer the satisfying sense of having special, privileged access to the truth. But—once again—separating the appeal of conspiracy from the ways it affects the careers of those who promote it is very difficult. For those who become the one-party state’s gatekeepers, for those who repeat and promote the official conspiracy theories, acceptance of these simple explanations also brings another reward: power.
Click to expand...



 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
Also have to remember that Giuliani has clients in Ukraine, including possibly competitors of Burisma. If Burisma is investigated/prosecuted then their competitors gain. 
Click to expand...
So this is confirmed now?

It strikes me that Guliani is working pro Bono for Trump, probably not for these characters.  So when Guliani is running around trying to get Burisma "investigated", whom is he really working for?  Could he be using Trump as a means to get phone calls/meetings with Ukrainian officials?

This is pretty ####ed up.

 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
H/T to Bananfish on this article, which apparently is one in a series essentially about democracy.

It's complex but it ties in the connection between authoritarianism and conspiracism. It's a long and maybe difficult read but it's revelatory.

************

A Warning From Europe: The Worst Is Yet to Come

Polarization. Conspiracy theories. Attacks on the free press. An obsession with loyalty. Recent events in the United States follow a pattern Europeans know all too well.
Click to expand...
It is a long but good article.

 
moleculo said:
So this is confirmed now?

It strikes me that Guliani is working pro Bono for Trump, probably not for these characters.  So when Guliani is running around trying to get Burisma "investigated", whom is he really working for?  Could he be using Trump as a means to get phone calls/meetings with Ukrainian officials?

This is pretty ####ed up.
Click to expand...
I keep saying this, but Guiliani is getting paid somehow, someway.  

 
moleculo said:
So this is confirmed now?

It strikes me that Guliani is working pro Bono for Trump, probably not for these characters.  So when Guliani is running around trying to get Burisma "investigated", whom is he really working for?  Could he be using Trump as a means to get phone calls/meetings with Ukrainian officials?

This is pretty ####ed up.
Click to expand...
MT has it above but for what it's worth also:

Global, Fruman and Parnas.

At the center of Giuliani’s back-channel diplomacy are the two businessmen, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who Giuliani has publicly identified as his clients.
Click to expand...
That payment was declared as coming from a Delaware company, Global Energy Producers LLC, set up by Fruman and Parnas just weeks before as part of their plan to sell gas to Ukraine.
Click to expand...
- OCCRP has been reporting on corruption in Europe in Europe since 2003.

 
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Maurile Tremblay said:
Giuliani is being paid by a Ukrainian-American Liquified Natural Gas company, Global Energy Producers.

Thread: https://twitter.com/theviewfromll2/status/1180626983421693953
Click to expand...
Susan Simpson

@TheViewFromLL2

Since 2016, Parnas and Fruman have gotten millions in funding from an unknown source, which they have used to donate millions of dollars to GOP campaigns and PACs. This, in turn, has given them a bit of access to some elected officials.

===========

Anyone care to speculate where Parnas and Furman received funding?

 
The President's current lawyer is actively working for a Ukrainian energy company, the President's current Secretary Of Energy is actively using his position to push for a Ukrainian energy company to hire his friends, but Joe Biden and his son are the real criminals who need to be investigated. :loco:

 
moleculo said:
so I was reading up on the timeline (linked timeline is actually pretty good, IMO).  I note that there's been quite a bit of activity  between late 2018 and the Zalinskyy call.  It appears there is soo much more than just the phone call. It looks like Guliani has been pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Bidens (and setting up Manafort)  since then.  It appears that Guliani did make some headway with Yuriy Lutsenko, the prosecutor.

I'm having a hard time reading Lutsenkos motives here.  He does succumb to Guliani's pressure, and opens investigations:

April 21st, Zelenskiyy is elected president.

So - Guliani was successful in getting an investigation started.  New president is elected, and 3 weeks later Lutsenko shuts it down.  Guliani keeps pressure on Lutshenko and tries to gain access to Zalinskyy.

and then on July 25, Trump asks Zalinskyy to re-open the Biden investigation.  (re-open is my words...the investigation had already been closed). 

===========================

My take:

Best case, this whole thing is Guliani going rogue, with the presidents blessing and eventual endorsement.  What Guliani was doing in Ukraine was all out in the open and IMO is fine, assuming he is acting as a private citizen.  He thought he was making headway, and was reporting back to Trump as such.  When Zalinksyy was elected, running on an anti-corruption platform, that all dried up.  He was desperate to get it started again, and Trump saw the value in what he was doing.  So, Trump put a little extra pressure on Zalinskyy to help out Guliani's "noble" cause.  No big deal, right?

Worst case, Guliani was acting on Trumps behalf, essentially running as a "shadow diplomat", coercing Lutsenko with the full weight of the American government behind him.  He did all of this with mike Pompeo's endorsement, as Guliani claims.  If this is true (and IMO Guliani isn't a liar - he gets carried away in his conspiracy theories and is prone to put all of his cards on the table), it means Trump has been pushing for the Biden investigation well before this latest phone call.
Click to expand...
Here's a timeline for you: the President of Ukraine is removed in February of 2014 by a military coup sponsored by Joe Biden.  Biden did this by backing far-right military outfits with close adjacency to neoNazi movements in Ukraine.  Two months later, in April of 2014, Joe Biden Jr. gets a cush job on a Ukrainian energy board making $50K a month.

Joe Biden helped overthrow a sovereign government in Ukraine, to shake the country down for himself and US interests.  Call it what you like, it was far more consequential and criminal than Trump's self-serving phone call.  It's not to say that what Trump did is right, it's to say that Biden is clearly not going to challenge systemic corruption, that he too is unfit for office, and this sort of corruption happens all the time in Washington on a scale much bigger than Trump himself.  Joe Biden is part of the same system that rewards and incentivizes people like Donald Trump.  

It doesn't take a genius to see impropriety here.  You don't even have to compare it to Trump- Joe Biden is not the president, he is a candidate running to be the Democratic Party nominee.  They have other options.  And if Joe Biden was engaged in the same sort of backdealing we've all come to loathe in DC, which he was, he needs to drop out and the Dems need to back a better candidate.  

 
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