Abstract: the Trump people accused Biden of pressuring Ukraine to fire prosecuter Viktor Shokin to protect his son, Hunter, from being involved in Burisma prosecution for corruption. But… first, Hunter was not hired until 3 years after the prosecutor who filed the charges had fled Ukraine for Russia. Second, Shokin, who was general prosecutor when Hunter worked for Burisma, never reopened the Burisma case, and third, the case was not against the firm Burisma, but its founder personally, Mikola Zlochevski.
The most progress in political matters cannot be made if too much time is spent refuting misinformation. Sometimes you just have to have faith that people won’t buy it. But I was duly inspired by the absurd spectacle of 89-year old senator Chuck Grassley at the lectern in congress sputtering about how the FBI refused to reveal the contents of a ”1023” FBI document which may have given evidence that Joe Biden took bribes to do what, nobody really knows, something in Ukraine, from whom, nobody really knows. Turns out the document predated the House investigation which found no wrongdoing by Biden and was confidential because it contained information about an active CIA operative. And about those tapes of Biden that some informant is said to have, but oversight committee chairman Comer now says he doesn’t know if they exist. ( Grassley well remembers the time in the last century when such partisan demagoguery of unsubstantiated accusations was totally unacceptable, below the dignity of the status of a congressman or the congress) So I decided to do an exercise in organization – arranging events and facts which create as concise as possible a picture of the Ukraine odyssey – politics at its worst. In 4 parts
1 Ukraine in the Putin era
2 Events of 2010 – 2015
3 Viktor Shokin and Joe Biden
4 Burisma and Hunter Biden
1 – Ukraine in the time of Putin
Although Urkrainian- and Russian-speaking Ukrainians intermarry, work together, and play together – and most all citizens understand Russian – there was a growing division and increasing tug of war between pro-western and pro- Russian sentiment after Putin’s ascension. Very much like the rising division between Democrats and Republicans in the US. The majority was pro- western. (92% had voted for independence in 1991 when Ukraine became a country.) They saw the west as a path towards democracy, personal freedom and a higher standard of living. The EU stood ready to advise and assist what was needed to to be eligible for membership. On the other side was Putin with his determination to regain control over Ukraine, with his willingness to finance and agitate. The conflict rose to a boiling point twice, a coup, a regional war, and finally to the Russian invasion of 2022.
The first boiling point, in 2005, was called the Orange Revolution. The pro-Russian candidate for president, Victor Yanukovych, was declared the winner which brought out huge protests for weeks. The election was widely viewed as corrupt, with polling places blocked or closed, and after a legal battle the Supreme Court agreed and called for a revote. This time Victor Yushchenko, (who had been poisoned by dioxin in his food early in the campaign) the pro west candidate, won handily and soon called for a road map to EU membership.
But the next election in 2010 went the other way. The pro-west party saw infighting for control and split into 2 factions both of which fielded candidates for president. Putin’s man Yanukovych hired Paul Manafort, (Trump’s future campaign manager) and with Manafort’s bag of election tricks, and vast funding from Moscow, Yanukovych won the election.
2 Time line 2010- 2015
Chronicling the political madness of the period 2010 – 2015 is beyond the scope of my story; it will be limited to the occurrences relating to the Bidens. But during this time Putin accelerated his push for hegemony in Ukraine by creating and funding marginal opposition groups, and economic pressure, bribing and pressuring. Natural gas prices from Russia increased 80%. Meanwhile the EU was conducting a program for Ukrainian admission. Here is a timeline of relevant developments:
2010 – Pro Kremlin Yanukovych becomes the 4th president of Ukraine. He appoints Viktor Pshonka as General Prosecutor
2012 – Pshonka opens an investigation – not of the Holding company of Burisma, – but of its founder and CEO Mikola Zlochevska, for tax evasion, money laundering, and corruption in the period 2010- 2012. (This is 3 years before Hunter Biden joins the board of directors.)
A short diversion
To explain the culture of corruption in this part of the world I will refer to my own experience across the border in Poland in the 1990’s. A woman slips a package of coffee and a box of sweets out of a bag to a bureaucrat, eliminating months of waiting for an appointment to arrange residency issues for her husband. A young woman learns that her surgery on her arm has been postponed for a week because the doctor, who earns the same as a coal miner, accepted a gift, and put another patient in front. A government official offers to put a medicine of a pharmaceutical company on the government subsidized list for a million dollars. The official, the Polish Minister of Health was reported and fired. Neither the woman, who was my wife, nor the doctor was affected. ( The young woman whose operation was delayed, a friend of mine, was very angry). Some of the corruption was deemed a necessary evil needed to grease the rusty wheels of government. If one could avoid a months long wait for small presents, why not do it. If a surgeon earned so little after years of training, a few presents were not begrudged. But of course it all made for the likelihood of more grievous corruption mentality. Post-communist capitalism, in its infancy suffered from inadequately written laws, ever changing laws to improve them, and changing norms with regard to obeying laws. New moguls of industry tended to bend the rules as they always had. When administrations changed, the new oligarchs may lose their favorable connections in the government, and become more likely to face prosecution.
2012 – 2014 – The Yanukovych (pro-Putin) administration was characterized by democratic backsliding, restrictions on press freedoms and personal freedoms. An opposition leader was jailed. Russia applied pressure by restricting imports from Ukraine, with Putin pulling the strings. The restrictions on the Berkut, the riot police were reversed, and tensions rose. A second boiling point was reached in February 2014. Diplomats from the EU and Ukraine had been working on an associate agreement, which was the next step toward full membership. It was passed overwhelmingly by the Ukrainian parliament and was soon to be signed. But a week before the signing, Yanukovych announced he was pulling out and instead signing a trade agreement with Russia.
Protests were sparked nationwide and the Maidan demonstrations occurred on Independence Square in Kiev. After several nights of protests, Yanukowych ordered the Berkut to fire live ammunition and 107 protesters were killed and many more injured. But the uprising was not deterred. Thousands more came to demonstrate, bring food and medical aid.
The police started switching sides. Overwhelmed, Yanukovych with corrupt Prosecutor Pshonka fled to Russia.
Beyond any argument about whether this was an illegal coup, it nevertheless was a milestone in Ukrainian history. The fate of Belarus, with its puppet regime of Aleksandr Lukasienko, was avoided in Ukraine. And although a livid Putin invaded Crimea within days of this coup, his domination of Ukraine suffered a huge setback, hopefully for good. Within days of the Yanukovich defection to Russia a new government was set up in Kiev.
3 Joe Biden and General Prosecutor Viktor Shokin
2015 – Prosecutor General Vitaly Yarema was elevated to Vice Prime Minister and Viktor Shokin was appointed the new Prosecutor General February, 2015. From the beginning he was criticized for his inaction, especially for refusing to prosecute people in connection with the massacre of Maidan Square the year before. He refused to prosecute allies and influential people and was seen as hindering the fight to curtail corruption in Ukraine, necessary to become an EU member. He was accused of soliciting bribes and two prosecutors in his office were caught with stashes of diamonds, cash and valuables in their homes, indicating bribery. One of his few actions was to raid the offices of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, claiming they had misappropriated aid funds. A new, young prosecutor in his office, Vitaly Kasko, quit after 2 months protesting the ”complete lawlessness” and corruption of Shokin’s operation. Later that year Kasko joined the board of Transparency International Ukraine. But one thing Shokin did not do was to follow up on the investigation of Burisma’s owner Mikola Zlochevski. Kasko later provided documents which proved that the Mikola Zlochevski case was dormant under Shokin – he never touched it.
Joe Biden, carrying out the Obama policy toward Ukraine was one of many pressuring President Poroshenko to fire Shokin, including the EU, the World Bank and the United States diplomatic corps. It was left to the Parliament which voted overwhelmingly to remove him in March 2015, which was roundly welcomed by the EU. But this vote was not binding and it took 10 more months to get rid of him. Why didn’t Poroshenko dismiss him? Poroshenko, although pro-western, was himself was an ‘oligarch’, a man who became rich in investments and there is a good chance that Shokin, however corrupt, was a trusted ally and they were protecting each other.
4 Hunter Biden and Burisma
The Republicans and their operatives have made a cottage industry of making false and derogatory statements about Biden. “Hunter Biden doesn’t have a shred of business talent,” I heard one head say. It doesn’t really matter if Hunter Biden was qualified for his position at Burisma. Just like it didn’t matter if the Trump children and Jared Kushner were qualified for their positions in the White House. There was nothing illegal, But here are his qualifications –
First and least important is the name. Companies do not need 20 directors to run their business. Some are ostentatiously serving a ceremonial position. Shaquille O’Neil is on the board of directors of Papa John’s Pizza, Emma Watson is a board member of Gucci, and Oprah Winfrey is on Weight Watchers’ board. The list of celebrity board members is extensive.
Biden’s name alone, in this corporate universe, qualified him to be a board member, but here are a few thing that he possesses that the aforementioned do not. He has a business law degree from Yale and has executive, business and internationl experience. Far before his father was vice president, he was a legal consultant to MBNA, a financial sevices corp, and worked his way up to executive vice president. He was on the board of World Food Program, a non-profit charity which supported the UN World Food Program and became vice chairman. In 2008 he started his consulting firm Seneca Global Consultants. They offered help in expanding their clients oversees exports. Here is what Reuters News Service wrote in Oct 2019 about Biden’s role at Burisma. “Interviews with more than a dozen people, including executives and former prosecutors in Ukraine, paint a picture of a board member who provided advice on legal issues, corporate finance and strategy during a five-year term on the board, which ended in April of this year.”
Reviewing the claim that Joe Biden pressured for the prosecutor Shokin to be fired in order to protect his son: The chief of Burisma was investigated for issues in the period of 2010 – 2012. Biden jr was hired in 2015.. Shokin became Prosecutor General in 2015. The investigation from the former prosecutor remained dormant while Shokin remained prosecutor. International pressure was applied to remove Shokin, the Ukrainian parliament voted to dismiss him. Hunter Biden, apparently qualified to be a board member, was never accused of any wrongdoing, and needed protection from no one.
It is convenient to dismiss the issue as just more disinformation . But, sadly, the massive effort that went into this venture to discredit the Bidens – by Americans – well known and hidden from sight – was costly. By the taxpayer dollars that it cost and in the way Americans became a little bit more inured to demagoguery by people they seem to have no control over. It was an unfortunate chapter in American politics.
