By Shipwreckedcrew
On December 6, 2015, Joe Biden ordered Ukraine President Petr Poroshenko to fire Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, threatening to withhold $1 billion in US aid to the Poroshenko government if he did not do so.
The media has propagated a fictional account of why Biden demanded Shokin’s firing, and that account has been repeated over and over again to the point that it is now conventional wisdom. The reason for the fictional account was to provide a rationalization for Joe Biden’s demand that appeared to support a crackdown on corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs by blaming Viktor Shokin for inaction and thereby justifying Biden’s demand that he be fired.
That story is a lie. It was a cover story offered to divert attention from the fact that Joe Biden demanded the firing of Shokin so that an allegedly corrupt Ukraine oligarch could be quietly exonerated, which was a plan all along because the Oligarch in question was paying Hunter Biden nearly $1 million a year for the benefit of having access to such influence. And we now know that Hunter Biden was the frontman for illicit streams of income going to several members of the Biden family, including Joe Biden himself.
The cover story has been fashioned over time as Joe Biden’s actions have come under more scrutiny. It begins with the freezing of $23 million in an account held by Burisma Holdings at PNB Paribas Bank in London on April 16, 2014.
By 2014 Burisma had become a leading producer of natural gas in Ukraine, holding lease rights or ownership of three of the most lucrative natural gas fields in Ukraine. Burisma was owned by Nikolay Zlochevskyi, a wealthy Ukraine businessman who had been in and out of Ukraine government positions for more than a decade, and at one time held a Minister’s position overseeing all Ukraine’s natural resources, including energy. Controversy had surrounded him for more than a decade over the fact that Burisma managed to acquire some of its leases to national gas resources on government property while he served in that capacity. But over the course of that decade, there were many efforts in Ukraine Administrations through the Ukraine courts to strip Burisma of the holdings – all unsuccessful.
In February 2014, the “Orange Revolution” drove pro-Russian “Party of Regions” President Yanukovych from office in Ukraine, and new elections were set for May 25, 2014. On April 21, 2014, Joe Biden visited Ukraine, and announced anti-corruption aid and technical assistance to help boost Ukraine’s energy output.
Not known publicly at that time, on April 14, 2014, Burisma had made Hunter Biden a member of its Board of Directors.
The Order of the British court freezing the $23 million in a Burisma account came about at the request of the UK’s “Serious Fraud Office” (SFO). Burisma’s CFO had sent instructions to BNP Paribas to transfer the funds to an account at a bank in Cyprus. The Orange Revolution had financial authorities in the West closely monitoring movements of funds connected to Ukraine businesses or individuals. The transfer request caused the SFO to request the UK Court to freeze the assets until the request could be investigated. Without notice to Burisma, the freeze on the funds in the account was ordered on April 16, 2014. Eventually, in January 2015, the UK Court – at the request of the SFO – released the hold on the funds, and the money was transferred to a Cyprus bank as had been previously requested.
The story that has been told in the media is that Prosecutor General Shokin did not adequately cooperate with an investigation in the UK, and the result of his failures was that the UK Court was forced to release the funds. Joe Biden seized on the story that Shokin was corrupt and therefore was to blame for the failure to crack down on corrupt Ukraine oligarchs who had looted Ukraine natural resources under the Yanukovych government. The “proof” was Shokin’s failure to cooperate in the UK investigation of Burisma and its owner between April 2014 when the funds were frozen, and January 2015 when the UK court ordered the funds released due to insufficient documentary evidence provided by the Ukraine Prosecutor General. During his visit to Ukraine on December 6, 2015 – 11 months AFTER the funds were released by the UK Court, Biden demanded that Shokin to be fired, or the Poroshenko government would face the possible loss of $1 billion in US aid to Ukraine if that didn’t happen. Poroshenko obliged, and Shokin was fired.
The cover story is a lie. Shokin was fired because Burisma wanted him fired. Shokin’s replacement met with Burisma’s attorneys, and “resolved” all outstanding matters that Bursima and its owner Zlochevskyi from the time before the Poroshenko government took office
Here is the timeline for what actually happened leading up to Biden getting Shokin fired.
On March 11 and 25, 2014, Burisma’s CFO sent instructions to PNB Paribas to transfer the funds in the accounts to another bank in Cyprus. The request triggered the UK’s “Serious Fraud Office” (SFO) inquiry as Burisma was already on the radar of governmental entities tracking financial misconduct out of Ukraine.
April 16, 2014: The SFO applied for and was granted by a UK Court the order freezing the funds in the Burisma accounts at PNB Paribas based on a suspicion they were the product of money laundering activity by Zlochevskyi.
According to UK Court records in the case, between December 19, 2012, and August 6, 2014, five separate investigations of Zlochevskyi were opened by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, but none of the five progressed to the point where evidence of wrongdoing was discovered that would have required the Prosecutor General to advise Zlochevskyi that he was suspected of crimes, which was the procedure employed under Ukrainian law. The records showed that search warrants were executed in April and May 2014, but that does not mean sufficient evidence discovered to make Zlochevskyi a criminal suspect.
The corruption is deep. Biden is as much a money whore as Hillary and there is NO DOUBT that Hunter was selling Daddy’s influence, and Joe was using the power of the Vice President to do Hunter’s bidding, at the behest of Burisma. All that is lacking is the proof of Joe getting his 50% cut Hunter wrote about.
But, of course, the left doesn’t care about corruption. They only care about using corruption as a weapon.