Appearing on Fox News, Lindsey Graham called for the DOJ to investigate “the Biden-Ukraine connection.”
WATCH:
Per VanityFair, in short, the story is this: in the final year of the Obama presidency, Vice President Joe Biden “threatened to withhold $1 billion in United States loan guarantees if Ukraine’s leaders did not dismiss the country’s top prosecutor”—Viktor Shokin—“who had been accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in his own office and among the political elite.”
The pressure campaign also just so happened to benefit Biden’s younger son, Hunter, who was then getting paid as much as $50,000 to sit on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company that was in Shokin’s sights. The question the Times raises, but does not answer, is: were Joe’s and Hunter’s overlapping interests in Ukraine coincidental, or corrupt?
The Bidens say Joe acted “without any regard” for the impact on his son, and that Hunter never discussed private business with his father. But of course, that seems unlikely to put this story to rest. The current Ukrainian prosecutor general recently decided to reopen the investigation into Burisma, which could unearth new details about Hunter’s work.
No surprise, the story is also being heavily promoted by Donald Trump and his allies, including lawyer Rudy Giuliani. According to the Times, Giuliani has met repeatedly with both the ousted Ukrainian prosecutor and the new prosecutor, and has discussed his findings with Trump—who then suggested he would like Attorney General William Barr to look into the matter. (Perhaps that is why Barr was at a loss for words on Wednesday, when Senator Kamala Harris asked whether “the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone.”)
WashingtonExaminer reports Sen. Lindsey Graham called on the Justice Department to investigate “all things Ukraine” Sunday amid controversy about a secretive whistleblower complaint likely regarding a phone call between President Trump and Ukraine’s president.
The South Carolina Republican and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said he was, “hoping that the Department of Justice will look at the Biden-Ukraine connection the way that we looked at Trump-Russia connection” in a Fox News interview, and called for DOJ to appoint an investigator. Graham also brought up Republican claims that Ukrainian officials tried helping Hillary Clinton win in 2016.
Biden bragged in 2018 that, as vice president, he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if Ukraine did not fire its top prosecutor Viktor Shokin. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani alleged for months that Biden wanted Shokin fired because Shokin reportedly undertook an anti-corruption investigation into Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma Holdings, which employed Joe Biden’s lobbyist son Hunter as a board member starting in 2014, reportedly paying him $50,000 a month. The Biden camp countered that Shokin was widely seen by the U.S. and Europe — and inside Ukraine — as ineffective, corrupt, and a hindrance to Ukraine’s progress. Ukraine’s parliament removed Shokin in 2016.
“We looked at all things Russia and Trump, his family, everything about his family, everything transaction between the Trump campaign and Russia. Now is time to see whether or not the Ukrainians released information regarding Paul Manafort, who was Trump’s campaign manager,” Graham said. “What relationships, if any, did the Biden world have with the Ukraine? What role, if any, did the Ukraine play in the 2016 election?”
This article was written by the staff of TheConservativeOpinion.com
By Jon Heltzel
Source: theconservativeopinion
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