Joe Biden / Hunter Biden / Ukraine

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Joe Biden / Hunter Biden / Ukraine - timeline

POSTED BY: 1KIKI
UPDATED: Tuesday, September 12, 2023 19:40
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Wednesday, September 25, 2019 2:12 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I summarized the linked stories for the reading-intolerant. At first glance I noticed significant discrepancies between the various re-tellings of the history.

Here's the timeline as best I can gather:

February 2014
Viktor Yanukovych president removed by a coup/ Burisma's founder Mykola Zlochevsky was a close ally

March 11, 2014
London branch of the French bank BNP Paribas received a request to close Mykola Zlochevsky's accounts and transfer their ~ $23M balances to Cyprus.

between March 11, 2014 and the end of April 2014
Britain’s attorney general freezes the ~ $23M and initiates a money-laundering investigation. (Various news accounts indicate Burisma was already under investigation when Hunter Biden joined the board)

April 2014
Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, joined the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma

Spring of 2014
Joe Biden began his trips to Ukraine (to initiate cooperation and address corruption concerns)

February 2015
Shokin became Ukraine’s prosecutor general

before April 2015
the British investigation collapses and a judge orders the money returned to Mykola Zlochevsky

2016
Ukrainian embassy officials suggest the Obama administration push for Shokin’s ouster

March 2016
Biden tells the country's leaders to get rid of Shokin or risk $1 billion in U.S. aid

March 2016
Bloomberg reports the investigation into Burisma was already dormant

In March/April 2014 the British freeze Zlochevsky's (Burisma's owner) accounts and launch an anti-corruption investigation.

During the British investigation, nothing (apparently) happens on the Ukraine side between and March/April 2014 and February 2015 (approximately 12 months), at which point Shokin becomes Ukraine's attorney general.

Some time between February 2015 and March/April 2015 (days minimum to 3 months maximum under Shokin's direction) Britain drops its case.

In March 2016, one year after Britain has already dropped its case, Biden tells Ukraine to get rid of Shokin due to non-performance on the Zlochevsky (Burisma) case.

After a year of inaction in Ukraine, Shokin is expected to make the British investigation into Burisma good, within days to 3 months; at which point Britain drops its investigation. A year later he's fired because of an issue which has been dormant for at least a year.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ukraine-likely-to-reopen-probe-of-hunter
-biden-firm-sources
A new team of independent prosecutors is supposed to re-open investigations of past cases and answer questions about the corruption in post-revolutionary Ukraine over the last five years.
During much of that time, investigations were launched against various powerful oligarchs, then quietly shut down when, it was widely assumed, the prosecutors were paid off. As a result it has been hard to know if the investigations were justified or merely launched for purposes of extortion.
Valentin Nalyvaichenko, a former head of Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency and a member of Ukraine’s parliament, says he expects the corruption case of the Burisma gas company—two cases were opened and dropped by various prosecutors over the years—to be revisited. Hunter Biden, the son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, was a board member.

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/24/763502822/what-were-the-bidens-doing-in
-ukraine-5-questions-answered
1. So what did Joe Biden do in Ukraine?
Then-President Barack Obama's administration was prepared to work with the new government, a position shared with European governments and international institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. But they were all concerned about the country's endemic corruption ... Obama made then-Vice President Biden the point man, and he became a frequent visitor to Ukraine.
2. What role did Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden play in Ukraine?
In the spring of 2014, as Joe Biden began his trips to Ukraine, Hunter Biden took a position on the board of the country's largest private gas company, Burisma. He was reportedly paid up to $50,000 a month.
The question of a possible conflict of interest — with Hunter Biden profiting in a country where his father was actively working with the government — was raised publicly at the time.
Joe Biden said that he followed government ethics regulations and that his son was a private citizen who made his own decisions.
3. Is there any sign of wrongdoing by either Joe Biden or his son Hunter Biden?
This is what Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, are suggesting. But they have not provided evidence of illegal actions. Multiple fact checks have called Trump's accusations of corruption by the Bidens misleading.
Joe Biden ... called for the ouster of the top Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, for what was widely seen as his failure to investigate corruption ...(and) ... in March 2016, Biden ... told the country's leaders that they had to get rid of the prosecutor if they wanted $1 billion in U.S. aid.
4. How do Trump and his supporters see Joe Biden's work?
They argue that Joe Biden wanted the prosecutor ousted to protect his son from being investigated. But there has been no evidence of wrongdoing, and Joe Biden was tasked as vice president with helping to weed out corruption in Ukraine.
5. What's next?
Democrats are demanding to see a transcript of Trump's July 25 conversation with Ukraine's president, which the White House has declined to release.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/23/20879611/joe-biden-h
unter-biden-ukraine-corruption-prosecutor-burisma-donald-trump-whistleblower-complaint
Hunter Biden joined the board of a Ukrainian company while it was under investigation
In the midst of these troubles, Hunter Biden accepted a Burisma board seat, and was paid for his trouble, sometimes as much as $50,000 per month. It is unclear what he did for the company.
In February 2015, Shokin became Ukraine’s prosecutor general, and promised critics of his country’s anti-corruption efforts at home, in the US, and at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that a clean-up was on the way. And he claimed Burisma was in his sights. (Due to apparent non-response by Shokin to Britain's request for documents related to its own investigation of Burisma) ... Concern at the embassy mounted, and by 2016, officials there began suggesting the Obama administration push for the prosecutor general’s ouster. In particular, the embassy suggested that $1 billion in loan guarantees the country hoped to receive from the US in order to stay solvent should be tied to a tougher anti-corruption strategy that involved removing officials seen as blocking progress, namely Shokin.
“I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours,” Biden told his audience. “I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’”
The question of whether Shokin’s investigation against Burisma was in fact a serious one is disputed, however. His deputy has said it was not, as have US officials based in Ukraine; and according the New York Times, some US and Ukrainian officials believe the former prosecutor was pantomiming an investigation in effort to solicit a bribe from Zlochevsky.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/peter-schweizer-biden-familys-foreign-
dealings-7-essential-facts
1. Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, joined the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma in April 2014, according to RSB bank records. Hunter Biden had little background in energy. Over a 16-month period, Burisma paid $3.1 million to a bank account associated with Hunter’s business.
2. Joe Biden led the Obama administration’s policy toward Ukraine when he served as vice president. Biden helped shape Ukraine’s energy and anti-corruption policies, issues that directly impact Burisma.
3. Burisma sought to capitalize Hunter Biden’s name and relationships. According to The New York Times, Hunter Biden helped assemble the company’s legal team, which consisted of American attorneys and consulting firms, including a former Obama Justice Department official.
4. Burisma is led by an oligarch named Mykola Zlochevsky. Zlochevsky served as ecology minister under pro-Russia former Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovich, leading to allegations that he used his office to benefit Burisma.
5. Burisma was under legal scrutiny. Shortly before Hunter Biden was appointed to Burisma’s board, British authorities froze $23 million of Zlochevsky’s assets as part of a corruption investigation. Ukraine opened its own probe later that year.
6. Financial records from Morgan Stanley show numerous lines of money going into the account of “Robert H. Biden.” The funds originated from oligarchs and anonymous LLCs in Ukraine, China, Kazakhstan and elsewhere.
7. In 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew aboard Air Force Two to China. Ten days later, Hunter Biden’s firm scored a $1.5 billion deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China.

https://www.apnews.com/9d4595ba4f3140c6bb6a3473a91f4a4c
Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s Russia-friendly president, who was driven out in February 2014 by mass protests, was an ally of Burisma's founder.
Hunter Biden was named a paid board member of Burisma Holdings in April 2014.
... Biden’s move in March 2016 to pressure the Ukrainian government to fire its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who had previously led an investigation into Burisma’s owner.
Bloomberg also reported that the investigation into Burisma was dormant at the time Biden pressed for Shokhin’s ouster.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/12/the-money-machine-how-a-
high-profile-corruption-investigation-fell-apart
On 11 March 2014, a London branch of the French bank BNP Paribas received a request from a Ukrainian lawyer. He asked the bank to close accounts belonging to his client and transfer their balances to Cyprus.
At the end of April 2014, London hosted a summit ... (and) Britain’s then-attorney general, Dominic Grieve QC, made a dramatic announcement: the UK had already joined the fight. A transfer had been flagged as suspicious, and British authorities had frozen the account and initiated a money-laundering investigation.
... the case of the $23m collapsed within a year – when a British judge ruled that the (UK’s Serious Fraud Office) SFO had built its case on “conjecture and suspicion”, and ordered the money returned to its owner.
(The owner was Mykola Zlochevsky, owner of Burisma.)

https://theintercept.com/2019/09/25/i-wrote-about-the-bidens-and-ukrai
ne-years-ago-then-the-right-wing-spin-machine-turned-the-story-upside-down/
But the British money-laundering investigation was stymied by Ukrainian prosecutors’ refusal to cooperate. The Ukrainian prosecutors would not turn over documents needed in the British investigation, and without that documentary evidence, a British court ordered Britain’s Serious Fraud Office to unfreeze the assets.

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Saturday, September 28, 2019 4:47 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Thanks for posting this. Should help to keep the facts straight.

Minister of Ecology? What would be the job description of that one? And filled by an energy tycoon?

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Saturday, September 28, 2019 5:06 PM