I just have a quick thought to share about Viktor Shokin, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General whom Democrats say was fired for not investigating corruption anywhere, including Burisma (the Ukrainian energy company that gave President Biden's crackhead son Hunter a no-show job at $50,000 a month); and whom Republicans and leftist critics say was fired BECAUSE he was investigating Burisma.
Reading about him just now, he certainly seems to have done a lot to assist the neo-con program for Ukraine, refusing to prosecute Yulia Tymoshenko (a US favourite) or to investigate the deadly snipers during the Maidan protests.
When all this talk about Biden bragging that he got rid of Shokin and Trump fans screaming that this was Democratic Party corruption out in the open (NOTE TO READERS: BOTH PARTIES SUCK!) I remember at the time a writer who I generally respect (don't remember who it was now) saying that Biden actually was standing up against corruption. Shokin had NOT been investigating Burisma. Biden, for whatever reason, was saying that the company that employed his son SHOULD be investigated.
If you read his Wikipedia page or do a simple google search the bulk of what you'll see is mainstream media attesting to this, with some other articles "de-bunking" the Republican "conspiracy theory."
However, besides hypocritical Trumpistas (who ignored not only Donald's corruption, but that of his son-in-law Jared Kushner) another contrarian to respectable opinion is Aaron Maté.
AARON MATÉ: ... So, let’s talk about Joe Biden. What did you witness when it comes to this whole controversy which still remains unresolved, and anytime someone tries to discuss it in the US they’re just accused of spreading Russian disinformation. But what can you tell us about Joe Biden’s role in firing this prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma, which is the energy company that gave a very lucrative board seat to Joe Biden’s son Hunter right after the US-backed 2014 Maidan coup?
ANDRII TELIZHENKO: Basically, what the backstory is of Burisma, the company itself was forming in a corrupt way like a lot of things in Eastern Europe, as you may say, but, no, this company was forming in a very specific way. The owner, Zlochevsky, was the Minister of Ecology [and Natural Resources], and he himself gave out his own company certificates for gas development, and that’s how the company became a monopoly based in the gas market in Ukraine, because they got most of the certificates because the owner [minister]was the head of the company.
And Biden joined already a corrupt company which was under investigation with the Prosecutor General’s office. There were four criminal cases opened in 2014 against Burisma, and two more additionally opened by Shokin when he became the Prosecutor General. So, whenever anybody says, ‘There were no criminal cases, nobody was investigating Burisma, this was all a lie, Shokin was fired because he was a bad prosecutor, he didn’t do his work,’ no, he did his work, but he went out against the wrong people, as you can say, because they went against him. Of course, these people aren’t going to be happy so they’re going to go against him, they’re going to fire him or they’re going to tell lies, but he did his job. He opened two more criminal cases on Burisma, which were later closed after Shokin got fired, after a new prosecutor, [Yuriy] Lutsenko, a politically-appointed prosecutor—attorney general in the US term—became attorney general without even a law degree. This guy doesn’t know law at all. They had to change the Ukrainian law for him to become the Prosecutor General. That’s how bad the situation was. And this Lutsenko guy was a very close aide to Poroshenko, basically, his relative in one way or another through a godson; he was the godfather to one of his children.
AARON MATÉ: Just, explain, sorry. Lutsenko is an anti-corruption bureau guy?
ANDRII TELIZHENKO: No, he was a politician close to Poroshenko, who became Prosecutor General, attorney general in US terms, of Ukraine without a law degree. They changed the law for him to become Prosecutor General specifically after Shokin got fired. And he closed the cases. Burisma just paid $200,000 of fees for some tax evasion, etc. That’s it.
But Shokin did his job. Shokin, because he was looking not only into Burisma and Zlochevsky, he was looking into Hunter Biden directly. There were red flags of the financial transactions of the payments to Hunter Biden to Cyprus from Latvian financial intelligence, that the money itself was corrupt, the money itself was coming from not legit sources. And Hunter Biden knew this fund was corrupt, because the people who are covering up for him, Blue Star Strategies—that’s the company which I was advising for after I worked in Washington—they were the ones who were basically covering up everything for Hunter Biden, between Joe Biden and Burisma. And Amos Hochstein [United States Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs under Obama Administration] was the person that Blue Star Strategies was working closely to get information to Joe Biden directly, because they cannot go see Joe Biden directly, so they had a person, an intermediary, Hochstein, who was a gas expert, to basically deliver all the official information to Joe Biden himself on Hunter Biden and Burisma, and what has to be done and how to save that company from being prosecuted, from being closed down, or being shaken up. So, this is why Hunter Biden was hired to this firm.
Maté was one of the few journalists to push-back against the journalistic abomination that was "Russiagate" whereas the bulk of the sources saying that Shokin's firing was anti-corruption on Biden's part knowingly peddled that Russiagate bullshit. Along with the WMD's bullshit. The "Hunter Biden lap-top story is Russian disinformation" bullshit. And this Ukraine proxy-war bullshit. And just all sorts of bullshit.
So, ... my little comment is that we look and see if what Telizhenko is saying about Lutsenko. Did he shut-down Shokin's investigations? Or did he actually pursue them? Was Shokin threatening Burisma-Biden or protecting them? Biden says he had a guy fired because he wasn't prosecuting corruption. Did the man who replace that guy then do a better job?
What does Wikipedia say about Lutsenko?
On 12 May 2016, the Verkhovna Rada appointed Lutsenko as Prosecutor General of Ukraine.[11] This followed amendments to legislation which allowed a person to hold the office without a law degree.[11] Lutsenko, who has no law degree,[94] was also stripped of his mandate as a People's Deputy.[11] The appointment was the culmination of nine years of Lutsenko expressing his desire to be appointed to the position, beginning during the 2007 Ukrainian political crisis.[95]
From August until December 2016, Lutsenko conducted an investigation into Ukraine-born Russian GRU agent Konstantin Kilimnik, but did not arrest Kilimnik.[96][97][98] Previously, Kilimnik managed Davis Manafort International in Kyiv.[98] Kilimnik had left Ukraine for Russia in June 2016.[96] Davis Manafort International in Kyiv had been accused of money laundering by Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation.[99] Mueller considered Kilimnik a vital witness in the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[96] The National Anti-Corruption Bureau informed the United States Department of State that Lutsenko had both thwarted Ukraine's investigation into Kilimink and allowed Kilimnik to leave Ukraine for Russia.[100]
Began in 2017, four investigations into Paul Manafort by the Head of the Special Investigation Department of the Prosecutor General's Office Ukraine Serhiy Horbatyuk were frozen by Lutsenko in April 2018.[96] In January 2018 Horbatyuk sent a letter to Mueller offering to cooperate with leads and evidence, however, Horbatyuk received no return letter from Mueller's special prosecuting team.[96] One investigation using subpoenaed records from banks in Ukraine involved Ukrainian shell company payments to Manafort.[96] Revealed in 2016 by Serhiy Leshchenko, who gave the records to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau,[101][102][h] the secret bookkeeping of Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions' Black Ledger or Barn Book involved another investigation into Manafort in which the handwritten records of 22 payments to Manafort, nine of which had been signed by Vitaly Kalyuzhny who was the Verkhovna Rada's foreign relations committee chairman.[96] Two other investigations of Manafort involve the Skadden Arps law firm's report to imprison Yulia Tymoshenko.[96][99][105] The National Anti-Corruption Bureau informed the United States Department of State that Lutsenko had thwarted both Ukraine's investigation into Manafort and Mueller's investigations into Manafort.[100]
After Ukrainian politician and activist Kateryna Handziuk died from complications from an acid attack on 4 November 2018, human rights organisations and NGOs demanded the resignation of Lutsenko and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.[106] "To prove that no one clings to power", Lutsenko announced his intention to resign as Prosecutor General on 6 November 2018.[106] He stated he considered the investigation of the case effective and that he was outraged by what he considered "'PR on blood' around the Handziuk case".[106][107] On 9 November 2018, President Petro Poroshenko refused to approve Lutsenko's resignation.[108]
Documents, provided by Lev Parnas to the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, outlined text exchanges in which Lutsenko pushed for the ouster of then U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and offered information related to former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in return.[109][110] It is thought that Lutsenko targeted Yovanovitch due to her anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.[111]
Following the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Lutsenko was dismissed by the Verkhovna Rada on 29 August 2019, and replaced by Ruslan Riaboshapka.[1]
I didn't see anything in there about Burisma. Did you?
Bloomberg says that Lutsenko didn't investigate Burisma or Hunter Biden.
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.
Yuriy Lutsenko, the current prosecutor general, said that neither Hunter Biden nor Burisma were now the focus of an investigation. He added, however, that he was planning to offer details to U.S. Attorney General William Barr about Burisma board payments so American authorities could check whether Hunter Biden paid U.S. taxes on the income.
“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.
In recent weeks, Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, has said that Joe Biden had a conflict of interest when he pressed Ukraine’s officials to crack down on corruption. Giuliani said that Biden could have been trying to help his son’s business dealings and that Ukraine needs to investigate.
Those comments have brought fresh scrutiny of Ukraine’s prosecutors and whether they are now investigating matters related to Burisma or taking other steps to curry favor with the U.S. administration.
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.
Lutsenko is essentially saying that Burisma can hire whomsoever it wants and pay them whatever it feels like paying them. But the important point is that the contention that Biden got Shokin fired and that Shokin was replaced by someone who would do what Shokin wouldn't, doesn't seem to hold water.
Both Shokin and Lutsenko appear to be corrupt men who spent most of their careers serving the interests of Washington strategists. Corruption all around.
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