The Real Ukraine Scandal
Once again, the mainstream media have drummed up another empty scandal against President Trump. As CNN, MSNBC and others hound the president over a conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, they will continue to ignore the true crime surrounding former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
I first drew attention to the Biden Ukraine scandal on my national talk show on May 12th of 2014. During that broadcast, I said the following,
“Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden has taken a position on the board of a Ukrainian energy producer. In any other time this would not have been done because people would fear that there would be an indictment or a government would fall, the FBI would investigate, there would be a press outrage, the opposition party would stop all business on the floor of Congress and demand an immediate investigation as to how the vice president’s son could take a job with a foreign power with whom were an ally with against Russia. Without seeing this for what it is, you are blind. It doesn’t matter whether Biden is a Democrat or a Republican. This is crony capitalism. This is the oligarchy. This is nepotism.”
Earlier this year, I returned to this topic in an interview on The Savage Nation with John Solomon of The Hill. In our conversation, I questioned how Ukraine became so critical to this corruption.
Solomon explained,
“It's (Ukraine) the hub. And so at that very moment where there's a transition of power and there's also that very tense moment of the invasion of Crimea by Russian forces, so a sovereign territory of Ukraine being invaded by Russia at the beginning of 2014. President Obama defers his authority and says, ‘I'm making Joe Biden my point man in Ukraine. He's going to take care of this crisis. He's going to build out the government, we're going to get this situation dealt with.’ And so Biden starts jumping across the pond and visiting Ukraine on a regular basis, meeting with the president.“Well, a funny thing happened. Not just a few weeks after Biden takes over the portfolium, a natural gas company called Burisma Holdings in Ukraine, hires Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden to join its board. And that in and of itself is a little suspicious, right? There's no evidence that Hunter Biden had any experience in Ukraine law or Ukraine natural gas, but he's suddenly added to the board. So his son cashes in and gets a great job in Ukraine and it goes on for a couple of years.”
Solomon explained that later Ukrainian authorities began investigating transfers being made to Hunter Biden:
“They have a wide ranging and criminal investigation and they determined in late fall 2015 according to the very records I've seen in Ukrainian court, that they want to interview Hunter Biden. "Why are you taking this money as a board member? What is it for and is there any chance the money is really to influence your father who is a vice president in charge of Ukraine policy?"“It is at that moment that Joe Biden steps into the picture in a different role. He has a conversation with president Poroshenko, now the Western friendly president, and tells him, ‘I want you to fire the general prosecutor in your country. I want him gone.’Poroshenko questions, ‘Why? What has he done wrong?’Biden tells him, ‘Don't worry, he's done something wrong. Just get rid of them.’Well, the president doesn't oblige and continues to leave that prosecutor general, named Viktor Shokin, in charge for several months. Multiple requests come in from both the vice president and the US embassy demanding that they fire this prosecutor. President Poroshenko doesn't have a reason to fire him.”
Viktor Shokin (YouTube screen grab via Wikipedia)
Here is where the true scandal is revealed, Solomon explained that Biden continued to pressure the Ukrainian leader. In March of 2016, four months after Joe Biden made the first request for the prosecutor to be fired, Vice President Joe Biden makes a call and says, "If you do not fire that prosecutor, I am going to withhold the next $1 billion in US loan guarantees to the Ukraine."
This is a devastating threat because Ukraine is so cash short. At that point, President Poroshenko finally obliges and fires the prosecutor.
Of course, this has largely gone unreported by the media.
Even with the recent drama attempting to use this to bring down the Trump administration, newsrooms have given Democrats a pass. If we still had reporters and editors in the leftist media they would expose the truth for the American people.
Lindsey Graham Calls On The DOJ
To Investigate Joe Biden's Connections To Ukraine
Giuliani Raises
Alleged 'Corruption' by Joe Biden and Son As Whistleblower Controversy Swirls
Lindsey Graham Calls On The DOJ
To Investigate Joe Biden's Connections To Ukraine
Senate
Judiciary Committee Chairman on Sunday called on the Department of Justice to investigate
former Vice President Joe Biden's relationship to Ukraine.
"You
are calling for a probe, by the DOJ, into all things Ukraine," Fox News'
Maria Bartiromo said during an interview.
"Yeah,
I want the Department of Justice to appoint someone to look at the role Ukraine
played, if any, in the 2016 elections," Graham explained. "There are
a lot of allegations out there about Ukraine may have fed information to the
Democrats [and the] Department of Justice against Trump campaign managers and
others. And I think it's fair after what the Trumps are going through regarding
Russia, that somebody look at the connection with the Bidens while the vice
president was a sitting vice president, the Biden connection to the Ukraine
through its son."
"Now
you can't have it one way and look at one family and not the other. And I don't
trust the media to do this and I'm hoping somebody that the Department of
Justice will appoint an investigator to look at all things Ukraine, like we
looked at all things Russia," Graham said.
Graham's
call for an investigation comes after reports of President Donald Trump's calls
with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Zelenski to work with Rudy
Giuliani to investigate Biden over widely discredited allegations of
impropriety, the Wall Street Journal reported. Giuliani has suggested that the vice president
used his power to shied a Ukrainian gas company from an investigation. Biden's
son, Hunter, is on the gas company's board of directors.
Giuliani Raises
Alleged 'Corruption' by Joe Biden and Son As Whistleblower Controversy Swirls
(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)
told reporters on Thursday he does not know the "specifics" of the
"urgent" whistleblower complaint that Acting Director of National
Intelligence Joseph Maguire has so far withheld from Congress.
"I
don't know what the complaint has to say in terms of its specifics,"
Schiff told a news conference on Thursday after a four-hour, closed-door
hearing with Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who
deemed the whistleblower complaint "urgent."
"But
I can tell you that the speculation about whether this involves a presidential
communication -- even if it involved a presidential communication, and I don't
know at this point -- that doesn't mean that the (executive) privilege covers
it, if that communication is about a crime or fraud," Schiff said.
Schiff
has said he will go to court, if necessary, to force the release of the complaint
to Congress.
The
Washington Post, which broke the story, said the whistleblower complaint made
by someone in the intelligence community involves a "promise"
President Trump supposedly made to Ukraine. Trump held a July telephone call
with the new president of Ukraine, a few weeks before the whistleblower
complaint was filed.
By
Friday morning, speculation swirled that this has something to do with the
Trump administration urging the new president of Ukraine to look into alleged
corruption by former Vice President Joe Biden, now one of Trump's potential
Democrat rivals in the 2020 election.
(CNN's
Alisyn Camerota framed it this way Friday morning: "So did President Trump
threaten to withhold billions in aid from Ukraine for political gain?"
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, speaking hypothetically, told CNN on
Friday morning: “[I]t is unprecedented for an American president to contact a
foreign government for the purpose of initiating an investigation of a
political rival.” And Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat on the House intelligence
committee, told CNN Friday morning: "What we know is zero. So if in fact
what is being reported is true, that means that the president of the United
States is using taxpayer money to try and have opposition research for his 2020
campaign determined by how much money he gives to a foreign country.")
Enter
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who went on several cable news shows Thursday
night to make the case against Biden:
Giuliani
noted that for two years, "there have been allegations from Joe Biden's
own mouth," and Giuliani quoted Biden as saying, 'I told the president of
the Ukraine you're not going to get your $1.2 billion loan guarantee unless you
fire the prosecutor." The Ukrainian prosecutor in question was investigating
Biden's son Hunter for corruption.
Giuliani
told "Fox News," "What I was urging the Ukrainian government to
do was not to do something embarrassing to Joe Biden. I was urging the
government of the Ukraine to investigate extraordinarily serious allegations of
corruption."
Former
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe set the speculation swirling Thursday night
in an interview with CNN's "Anderson Cooper."
McCabe
was discussing why the Acting Director of National Intelligence did not refer
the whistleblower complaint to Congress, which normally happens, but instead
involved the Justice Department:
So
for instance, we don't know this, this is speculation. But if the department
and the dni made the conclusion that the president's conduct was potentially
criminal conduct, they could then argue that's not an intelligence matter and
therefore not under the purview of the DNI.
Now a scenario in which that
might take place could be if, for instance, the president had a conversation
with a foreign leader in which he promised some sort of assistance to that
country for, let's say, return of assistance in his re-election campaign. That,
of course, would likely be criminal activity and could be qualified by the
Department of Justice as not an intelligence matter.
"Right,"
Anderson Cooper replied. "We should just point out again, we do not know
the nature of this."
"We
do not," McCabe agreed.
Schiff
is particularly annoyed that the whistleblower complaint was withheld from
Congress, as he told PBS Thursday night:
We
got answers to the fact that this is, for example, the first time that a
director of national intelligence has ever withheld a complaint from Congress.
Whether the inspector general finds it credible or not credible, the practice
has always been to provide it to Congress.
Here,
it was found to be credible, it was found to be urgent. And it is unprecedented
to be deprived this way.
It
was also clear from the testimony that the Department of Justice has weighed
in, in a way that it never has before in a whistle-blower complaint. It's also
clear, I think, that the issue is not the classification of the intelligence.
Many people have said, well, other presidents have asserted that they have the
right to declassify intelligence or provide classified information to the Congress.
That's
apparently not the issue either. And so the question is, why is this being
withheld from Congress? Is this an effort to cover up impropriety? Who does the
complaint involve?
And, most seriously, if this is
urgent, and they're not allowing Congress to deal with it, and they're not
allowing the inspector general to deal with it, then it's going unaddressed and
we're at risk.
"Forget
Biden," Giuliani told Fox News's Laura Ingraham Thursday night.
"The
vice president of the United States bribed a foreign official, isn't that a
matter of grave concern to this country? Whether it's Joe Biden or not? I will
tell you what Joe Biden did out of his own mouth.
"Joe
Biden said to the president of the Ukraine, you're not going to get your $1.2 billion
loan guarantee unless you fire the prosecutor. The crime of bribery is defined
in the Ukraine, as well as all of the world, as the following: You cannot offer
something of value in exchange for official action. The something of value is
the $1.2 billion loan guarantee. The official action is telling him he's got to
fire the prosecutor. That's a crime. Prima fascia," Giuliani said.
"We
have a motive. The prosecutor was investigating Joe Biden's son for over two
years, taking $5 million in money that went from Ukraine to Latvia, to Cyprus,
to Joe Biden's little crazy company that he had. Which follows $1.5 billion
that went into that same company from China. The partners of the company are
Joe Biden's son, John Kerry's son, and "Whitey" Bulger's nephew. I
didn't make that up, Laura."
Appearing
with CNN's Chris Cuomo Thursday night, an angry Giuliani said this all began as
he investigated "a tremendous amount of collusion" between the
Hillary Clinton campaign, the DNC and Ukraine: In the course of that investigation,
"I found out this incredible story about Joe Biden, that he bribed the
president of the Ukraine in order to fire a prosecutor who was investigating
his son.
"That
is an astounding scandal of major proportions which all of you have covered up
for about five or six months," Giuliani told Cuomo. "You've also
covered up the fact that Biden and his son took $1.5 billion out of China. And
that's why the president thinks you're a corrupt media, because if this were
President Trump and Donald Trump Jr. and they took millions of dollars from a
corrupt oligarch in the Ukraine and they took $1.5 billion out of China while
the president was negotiating with China, you would be screaming and yelling
and going crazy about how corrupt it is.
"And
because it's Joe Biden and he's a protected Democrat, you don't cover it. This
scandal is a scandal of major proportions," Giuliani said.
Cuomo
accused Giuliani of "going after political opponents of Mr. Trump."
"I'm
the president's attorney," Giuliani explained. "Joe Biden is presumed
innocent. But somebody has got to investigate him..."
"Did
you ask the Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden?" Cuomo asked.
"No,
actually I didn't," Giuliani said. "I asked Ukraine to investigate
the allegations that there was interference in the election of 2016 by the
Ukrainians for the benefit of Hillary Clinton for which there already--"
"You
never asked anything about Hunter Biden?" Cuomo interrupted. "You
never asked anything about Joe Biden to the prosecutor?"
"The
only thing I asked is to get to the bottom of how it was that the guy
(Ukrainian prosecutor) who was appointed dismissed the case against Antac (a
George Soros group).
"So
you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden," Cuomo said.
"Of
course I did," Giuliani said.
"You
just said you didn't," Cuomo noted.
"No,
I asked them to look into the allegations which related to my client, which
tangentially involved Joe Biden in a massive bribery scheme. Not unlike what he
did in China. Explain how the kid (Hunter) got $1.5 billion from China."
The
two men argued about whether Giuliani had contradicted himself, and Giuliani
tried to clarify: "What I said is this. I asked them to investigate the
allegations that relate to the false charges against the president of the
United States. Those allegations tangentially involve Biden --" Giuliani
started to say.
After
some insults back and forth, Giuliani continued: "These are crimes of
major proportions, and because they're Democrats, you won't cover it...And you
were standing up for two systems of justice. Joe Biden can be involved in
bribery. Joe Biden's son can get $1.5 billion from China and you won't cover
it. And you want to cover some ridiculous charge that I urged the Ukrainian
government to investigate corruption. Well, I did and I'm proud of it."
"Did
the president (Trump) ask the president of Ukraine to do the same thing?"
Cuomo asked.
Biden's
eventual answer was this: "I have no idea. I never asked him that. I don't
know if he did, and I wouldn't care if he did. He had every right to do it if
he was the president of the United States. He had every right to say to the
Ukrainian president, we have two outstanding allegations of massive
corruption--"
"Did
he (Trump) ask you to do what you were doing?" Cuomo cut in.
"No,"
Giuliani said. "I did what I did on my own. I told him (Trump) about it
afterwards because I'm his lawyer and know how to investigate."
House
Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) discouraged people from jumping to
conclusions on Thursday:
"Look, I know the media always wants to rush when they think
something sensationalist, and 9 times out of 10 we find out a lot of that is
not true. I think the New York Times has experienced that just in the last
week. This is not something I'd ever see the president doing, and I--I would
instead of jumping to conclusions, actually get the facts first," he told
a news conference
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