Newly released documents which include court filings and notes from interviews conducted by Rudy Giuliani brings new scrutiny on the Biden family’s Ukraine dealings.
There are questions that the Trump Administration wants answers to, including how much money Hunter Biden made while serving on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas firm that is in is the topic of the controversy. The administration is estimating it is well into the “millions.”
Fox News reported on Wednesday that among the new documents produced were notes from an interview from Trump’s attorney Giuliani with fired Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin earlier in the year. Shokin said he was told by former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey R. Pyatt to “back off” on an investigation involving the gas firm Hunter Biden was associated with, Burisma Holdings, and its owner. Giuliani’s interview notes indicate that Shokin claimed Pyatt, the ambassador to Greece, told him to handle that investigation “with white gloves.” Shokin said his “investigations stopped out of fear of the United States.”
Shokin also claimed that former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told him he should not investigate Burisma, “as it was not in the interest of Joe and/or Hunter Biden.” He then said that Poroshenko told him that because of his investigation, Joe Biden withheld “up to one billion dollars in U.S. aid to Ukraine.” Soon after, Poroshenko requested Shokin’s resignation.
Naturally, Biden’s campaign and Democrats in Congress denied these allegations, saying that Biden was only involved due to corruption concerns surrounding Shokin and called Giuliani’s claims “debunked conspiracy theories.”
The interview notes, however, indicate Giuliani was correct, as they aligned with a European court affidavit from Shokin, published by The Hill last week, that was actually part of an Austrian extradition case that involved Dmitry Firtash, another wealthy Ukrainian businessman.
The sworn affidavit states that Poroshenko asked him to resign “due to pressure from the U.S. Presidential administration, in particular from Joe Biden.”
“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,” said Shokin, “But I refused to close this investigation.”
Shokin went on to state he was “forced to leave office, under direct and intense pressure from Joe Biden and the US administration.”
According to Shokin, “In my conversations with Poroshenko at the time, he was emphatic that I should cease my investigations regarding Burisma. When I did not, he said that the US (via Biden) were refusing to release the USD$ 1 billion promised to Ukraine. He said that he had no choice, therefore, but to ask me to resign.”
Poroshenko told reporters that Biden never asked him to open or close any cases. Fox News, however, has obtained notes from another interview that Giuliani conducted with Yuriy Lutsenko, the former Ukrainian prosecutor who took Shokin’s place… and ironically closed the Burisma probe.
The notes of the 2019 NYC interview indicate that Lutsenko said he “believes Mr. Viktor Shokin … is honest.” The notes also said that Lutsenko “believes Hunter Biden receives millions of dollars in compensation from Burisma.”
While it remains unclear how much money Hunter Biden made during his time on the board of the firm, reports have estimated he got paid up to $50,000 per month. Since he served for about five years, he would have earned millions.
