On Bidens and Ukraine, Wild Claims With Little Basis

[Mainecat]

On Bidens and Ukraine, Wild Claims With Little Basis

By Stephanie Baker, Zachary R. Mider and Daryna Krasnolutska | Bloomberg

Oct. 20, 2020 at 9:20 a.m. EDT

The phone call that led to the impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump was supposed to cause a headache for his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son,” Trump said during that July 25, 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, steering the conversation toward what Trump depicted as a scandal that could bring down Biden, now the Democratic nominee for president in the November election. When it comes to the Bidens and Ukraine, however, there’s little to back up the suspicions.

1. What did Biden’s son do in Ukraine?

After his father became vice president in 2009, Hunter Biden, a lawyer by training, pursued business opportunities with foreign parties, often in ways that intersected with his father’s work. In 2014, Cyprus-registered Burisma Holdings, one of the largest private natural gas companies in Ukraine, announced that Hunter Biden was among several prominent foreigners who were joining its board. The company said that Hunter Biden would advise on “transparency, corporate governance and responsibility, international expansion and other priorities.” He remained on the board until earlier this year, and court records suggest he was earning at least $50,000 a month for his service.

 

2. What was wrong with that?

There’s nothing illegal (or even that unusual) about people with impressive last names accepting lucrative gigs as corporate directors -- though the younger Biden has been called out for, as one article put it, his “attempts to cash in on the family name.” Even Joe Biden seemed to have been aware that the optics weren’t ideal. Hunter Biden told the New Yorker that on the only occasion they discussed Burisma, “Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing.’” Hunter Biden now says that in hindsight, serving on Burisma’s board may have been “poor judgment,” though he maintains he didn’t do anything improper.

3. Why did Burisma come under scrutiny?

Its founder, Mykola Zlochevsky, served as Ukraine’s minister of ecology and natural resources under President Viktor Yanukovych, who was swept from office by mass protests in 2014. Following that uprising, Western governments pressed Ukraine’s new leaders to investigate corruption. One of the initial subjects was Zlochevsky, who was accused of money laundering and abuse of power. Zlochevsky has denied any wrongdoing.

 

4. What criminal charges came out of this?

None. Burisma issued a statement in 2017 saying that “all legal proceedings and pending criminal allegations” against it and Zlochevsky were closed and that it paid an extra 180 million hryvnias ($7 million) in taxes. There’s also no known evidence that any of the investigations ever involved Hunter Biden. Ukraine’s former prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, told Bloomberg News in May that there was no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens.

5. What does Trump say?

Without substantiation, Trump has said and tweeted that the Biden family “was paid off, pure and simple” and accused the family of corruption, extortion and “pillaging” foreign countries. He’s called them “stone-cold crooked” and publicly urged Ukraine and China to open criminal investigations of them. (Trump’s contention that Hunter Biden flew to Beijing aboard the vice president’s aircraft and left a billionaire -- the episode he wants China to investigate -- isn’t supported by the available facts, either. Still, Hunter Biden resigned from the board of a Chinese-backed private equity company and said he would forgo all foreign work if his father is elected president.)

 

6. Where does Joe Biden fit in?

Biden, as the Obama administration’s point person on Ukraine, pressed successfully for the ouster of Viktor Shokin as Ukraine’s prosecutor general in 2016. At the heart of the allegation by Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is that Biden did so to derail an investigation into Burisma. “Joe Biden promised Ukraine $1 billion if they fired the prosecutor investigating his son’s company,” the Trump re-election campaign said in a television commercial running in states holding early presidential primary elections.

7. What evidence suggests that was Biden’s motive?

Pretty much none. The problem with Shokin -- in the eyes of U.S. leaders, their Western allies, the International Monetary Fund and many Ukrainians -- wasn’t that he was being too aggressive about corruption, but that he was being far too lax. In May, Bloomberg News reported that prosecutors in Ukraine had shelved the investigation into Zlochevsky by 2015, meaning Hunter Biden didn’t stand to benefit from the prosecutor’s ouster. Vitaliy Kasko, who pursued the case against Burisma’s owner as deputy prosecutor and is now first deputy prosecutor in the new government, told Bloomberg News that there had been no U.S. pressure to close that case. Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko also told Bloomberg News that Biden never asked him to close any cases.

 

8. Where did all these allegations come from?

The notion that Hunter Biden and his father could be complicit in Ukrainian corruption was first aired in a 2018 book, “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends.” Its author, Peter Schweizer, is an editor at Breitbart News and president of the Government Accountability Institute, a nonprofit group founded by former Trump political adviser Steve Bannon. The group’s board chairwoman is Rebekah Mercer, a prominent Trump supporter. Trump has cited Schweizer by name in some of his Twitter attacks on the Bidens. But even Schweizer’s book doesn’t allege that any laws were broken.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/on-bidens-and-ukraine-wild-claims-with-little-basis/2020/10/14/0e46f656-0e45-11eb-b404-8d1e675ec701_story.html

 

[JEFF]

Yet you hung your hat for 4 years on  made up charges that had absolutely no basis. Weird eh?

[Mainecat]

1 hour ago, JEFF said:

Yet you hung your hat for 4 years on  made up charges that had absolutely no basis. Weird eh?

The ones that impeached Trump? Yeah those charges Jeffy.

[spin_dry]

It’s as laughable as russiagate 

[FrankieJames7]

2 minutes ago, spin_dry said:

It’s as laughable as russiagate 

Except its true

[spin_dry]

2 minutes ago, FrankieJames7 said:

Except its true

 

[DriftBusta]

22 minutes ago, spin_dry said:

It’s as laughable as russiagate 

you seem quite invested

[jtssrx]

3 hours ago, Mainecat said:

On Bidens and Ukraine, Wild Claims With Little Basis

By Stephanie Baker, Zachary R. Mider and Daryna Krasnolutska | Bloomberg

Oct. 20, 2020 at 9:20 a.m. EDT

The phone call that led to the impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump was supposed to cause a headache for his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son,” Trump said during that July 25, 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, steering the conversation toward what Trump depicted as a scandal that could bring down Biden, now the Democratic nominee for president in the November election. When it comes to the Bidens and Ukraine, however, there’s little to back up the suspicions.

1. What did Biden’s son do in Ukraine?

After his father became vice president in 2009, Hunter Biden, a lawyer by training, pursued business opportunities with foreign parties, often in ways that intersected with his father’s work. In 2014, Cyprus-registered Burisma Holdings, one of the largest private natural gas companies in Ukraine, announced that Hunter Biden was among several prominent foreigners who were joining its board. The company said that Hunter Biden would advise on “transparency, corporate governance and responsibility, international expansion and other priorities.” He remained on the board until earlier this year, and court records suggest he was earning at least $50,000 a month for his service.

 

2. What was wrong with that?

There’s nothing illegal (or even that unusual) about people with impressive last names accepting lucrative gigs as corporate directors -- though the younger Biden has been called out for, as one article put it, his “attempts to cash in on the family name.” Even Joe Biden seemed to have been aware that the optics weren’t ideal. Hunter Biden told the New Yorker that on the only occasion they discussed Burisma, “Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing.’” Hunter Biden now says that in hindsight, serving on Burisma’s board may have been “poor judgment,” though he maintains he didn’t do anything improper.

3. Why did Burisma come under scrutiny?

Its founder, Mykola Zlochevsky, served as Ukraine’s minister of ecology and natural resources under President Viktor Yanukovych, who was swept from office by mass protests in 2014. Following that uprising, Western governments pressed Ukraine’s new leaders to investigate corruption. One of the initial subjects was Zlochevsky, who was accused of money laundering and abuse of power. Zlochevsky has denied any wrongdoing.

 

4. What criminal charges came out of this?

None. Burisma issued a statement in 2017 saying that “all legal proceedings and pending criminal allegations” against it and Zlochevsky were closed and that it paid an extra 180 million hryvnias ($7 million) in taxes. There’s also no known evidence that any of the investigations ever involved Hunter Biden. Ukraine’s former prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, told Bloomberg News in May that there was no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens.

5. What does Trump say?

Without substantiation, Trump has said and tweeted that the Biden family “was paid off, pure and simple” and accused the family of corruption, extortion and “pillaging” foreign countries. He’s called them “stone-cold crooked” and publicly urged Ukraine and China to open criminal investigations of them. (Trump’s contention that Hunter Biden flew to Beijing aboard the vice president’s aircraft and left a billionaire -- the episode he wants China to investigate -- isn’t supported by the available facts, either. Still, Hunter Biden resigned from the board of a Chinese-backed private equity company and said he would forgo all foreign work if his father is elected president.)

 

6. Where does Joe Biden fit in?

Biden, as the Obama administration’s point person on Ukraine, pressed successfully for the ouster of Viktor Shokin as Ukraine’s prosecutor general in 2016. At the heart of the allegation by Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is that Biden did so to derail an investigation into Burisma. “Joe Biden promised Ukraine $1 billion if they fired the prosecutor investigating his son’s company,” the Trump re-election campaign said in a television commercial running in states holding early presidential primary elections.

7. What evidence suggests that was Biden’s motive?

Pretty much none. The problem with Shokin -- in the eyes of U.S. leaders, their Western allies, the International Monetary Fund and many Ukrainians -- wasn’t that he was being too aggressive about corruption, but that he was being far too lax. In May, Bloomberg News reported that prosecutors in Ukraine had shelved the investigation into Zlochevsky by 2015, meaning Hunter Biden didn’t stand to benefit from the prosecutor’s ouster. Vitaliy Kasko, who pursued the case against Burisma’s owner as deputy prosecutor and is now first deputy prosecutor in the new government, told Bloomberg News that there had been no U.S. pressure to close that case. Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko also told Bloomberg News that Biden never asked him to close any cases.

 

8. Where did all these allegations come from?

The notion that Hunter Biden and his father could be complicit in Ukrainian corruption was first aired in a 2018 book, “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends.” Its author, Peter Schweizer, is an editor at Breitbart News and president of the Government Accountability Institute, a nonprofit group founded by former Trump political adviser Steve Bannon. The group’s board chairwoman is Rebekah Mercer, a prominent Trump supporter. Trump has cited Schweizer by name in some of his Twitter attacks on the Bidens. But even Schweizer’s book doesn’t allege that any laws were broken.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/on-bidens-and-ukraine-wild-claims-with-little-basis/2020/10/14/0e46f656-0e45-11eb-b404-8d1e675ec701_story.html

 

 

23 minutes ago, spin_dry said:

It’s as laughable as russiagate 

Biden is on tape admitting to extortion. Either fire the prosecutor or you’re not getting the billion dollars. This is essentially what they accuse trump of and Ukraine. Only to have Trump release the transcript from the phone conversation and blow them out of the water. But as I said you have Biden on video admitting as a matter of fact bragging that he held $1 billion over their head in order to get the prosecutor who was investigating very smart and his son fired. 

[spin_dry]

1 minute ago, jtssrx said:

 

Biden is on tape admitting to extortion. Either fire the prosecutor or you’re not getting the billion dollars. This is essentially what they accuse trump of and Ukraine. Only to have Trump release the transcript from the phone conversation and blow them out of the water. But as I said you have Biden on video admitting as a matter of fact bragging that he held $1 billion over their head in order to get the prosecutor who was investigating very smart and his son fired. 

No they don’t. 

[jtssrx]

3 hours ago, spin_dry said:

No they don’t. 

You’re dumb just dumb

 

 

 

 

[Sleepr2]

6 hours ago, Mainecat said:

On Bidens and Ukraine, Wild Claims With Little Basis

By Stephanie Baker, Zachary R. Mider and Daryna Krasnolutska | Bloomberg

Oct. 20, 2020 at 9:20 a.m. EDT

The phone call that led to the impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump was supposed to cause a headache for his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son,” Trump said during that July 25, 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, steering the conversation toward what Trump depicted as a scandal that could bring down Biden, now the Democratic nominee for president in the November election. When it comes to the Bidens and Ukraine, however, there’s little to back up the suspicions.

1. What did Biden’s son do in Ukraine?

After his father became vice president in 2009, Hunter Biden, a lawyer by training, pursued business opportunities with foreign parties, often in ways that intersected with his father’s work. In 2014, Cyprus-registered Burisma Holdings, one of the largest private natural gas companies in Ukraine, announced that Hunter Biden was among several prominent foreigners who were joining its board. The company said that Hunter Biden would advise on “transparency, corporate governance and responsibility, international expansion and other priorities.” He remained on the board until earlier this year, and court records suggest he was earning at least $50,000 a month for his service.

 

2. What was wrong with that?

There’s nothing illegal (or even that unusual) about people with impressive last names accepting lucrative gigs as corporate directors -- though the younger Biden has been called out for, as one article put it, his “attempts to cash in on the family name.” Even Joe Biden seemed to have been aware that the optics weren’t ideal. Hunter Biden told the New Yorker that on the only occasion they discussed Burisma, “Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing.’” Hunter Biden now says that in hindsight, serving on Burisma’s board may have been “poor judgment,” though he maintains he didn’t do anything improper.

3. Why did Burisma come under scrutiny?

Its founder, Mykola Zlochevsky, served as Ukraine’s minister of ecology and natural resources under President Viktor Yanukovych, who was swept from office by mass protests in 2014. Following that uprising, Western governments pressed Ukraine’s new leaders to investigate corruption. One of the initial subjects was Zlochevsky, who was accused of money laundering and abuse of power. Zlochevsky has denied any wrongdoing.

 

4. What criminal charges came out of this?

None. Burisma issued a statement in 2017 saying that “all legal proceedings and pending criminal allegations” against it and Zlochevsky were closed and that it paid an extra 180 million hryvnias ($7 million) in taxes. There’s also no known evidence that any of the investigations ever involved Hunter Biden. Ukraine’s former prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, told Bloomberg News in May that there was no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens.

5. What does Trump say?

Without substantiation, Trump has said and tweeted that the Biden family “was paid off, pure and simple” and accused the family of corruption, extortion and “pillaging” foreign countries. He’s called them “stone-cold crooked” and publicly urged Ukraine and China to open criminal investigations of them. (Trump’s contention that Hunter Biden flew to Beijing aboard the vice president’s aircraft and left a billionaire -- the episode he wants China to investigate -- isn’t supported by the available facts, either. Still, Hunter Biden resigned from the board of a Chinese-backed private equity company and said he would forgo all foreign work if his father is elected president.)

 

6. Where does Joe Biden fit in?

Biden, as the Obama administration’s point person on Ukraine, pressed successfully for the ouster of Viktor Shokin as Ukraine’s prosecutor general in 2016. At the heart of the allegation by Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is that Biden did so to derail an investigation into Burisma. “Joe Biden promised Ukraine $1 billion if they fired the prosecutor investigating his son’s company,” the Trump re-election campaign said in a television commercial running in states holding early presidential primary elections.

7. What evidence suggests that was Biden’s motive?

Pretty much none. The problem with Shokin -- in the eyes of U.S. leaders, their Western allies, the International Monetary Fund and many Ukrainians -- wasn’t that he was being too aggressive about corruption, but that he was being far too lax. In May, Bloomberg News reported that prosecutors in Ukraine had shelved the investigation into Zlochevsky by 2015, meaning Hunter Biden didn’t stand to benefit from the prosecutor’s ouster. Vitaliy Kasko, who pursued the case against Burisma’s owner as deputy prosecutor and is now first deputy prosecutor in the new government, told Bloomberg News that there had been no U.S. pressure to close that case. Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko also told Bloomberg News that Biden never asked him to close any cases.

 

8. Where did all these allegations come from?

The notion that Hunter Biden and his father could be complicit in Ukrainian corruption was first aired in a 2018 book, “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends.” Its author, Peter Schweizer, is an editor at Breitbart News and president of the Government Accountability Institute, a nonprofit group founded by former Trump political adviser Steve Bannon. The group’s board chairwoman is Rebekah Mercer, a prominent Trump supporter. Trump has cited Schweizer by name in some of his Twitter attacks on the Bidens. But even Schweizer’s book doesn’t allege that any laws were broken.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/on-bidens-and-ukraine-wild-claims-with-little-basis/2020/10/14/0e46f656-0e45-11eb-b404-8d1e675ec701_story.html

 

Irony....

[DriftBusta]

3 hours ago, spin_dry said:

No they don’t. 

Seek help.  Surely, you must be able to get discounted fees for service, being in your line of work   

[racinfarmer]

So if you are a Ukrainian natural gas company in 2014 looking for a new board member, what makes you say "I want that American crack head on my board" over 1,000's of other people?

[DriftBusta]

49 minutes ago, racinfarmer said:

So if you are a Ukrainian natural gas company in 2014 looking for a new board member, what makes you say "I want that American crack head on my board" over 1,000's of other people?

Craigslist.   I'm sure thats how Hunter found the position.  

[Jimmy Snacks]

 

[Mainecat]

11 hours ago, jtssrx said:

You’re dumb just dumb

 

 

 

 

And your video as everything you promote as truth was taken out of context. Do some research before you post Russian propaganda......unless your a troll?

[Snake]

 

[Tinker]

"Trump was impeached"

It's still laughable and sad it at the same time. So blind Stevie Wonder shakes his head.