User talk:2600:1702:2380:3250:5D79:D976:F827:EC0A
- LaptopFromHell
Key takeaways
• Hunter Biden did hold a directorship for a Ukrainian gas company while his father was vice president. Experts agree that Hunter Biden's acceptance of the position created a conflict of interest for his father. • Vice President Joe Biden did urge Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, with the threat of withholding U.S. aid. But that was the position of the wider U.S. government, as well as other international institutions. • We found no evidence to support the idea that Joe Biden advocated with his son's interests in mind, as the message suggests. It's not even clear that the company was actively under investigation or that a change in prosecutors benefited it.
What was Hunter Biden’s role?
Hunter Biden did hold a directorship with a natural gas company called Burisma Holdings, beginning in the spring of 2014. Reuters reported at the time that a statement on the company’s website said the younger Biden "would help the company with "transparency, corporate governance and responsibility international expansion," and other issues. The company also retained the law firm where Biden had been working, Boies Schiller Flexner. The position with Burisma came at a time when the younger Biden had joined with Christopher Heinz (the stepson of then-Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.) and Devon Archer (a Kerry family friend) in a string of investment and consulting firms. Firms run by Biden and Archer "pursued business with international entities that had a stake in American foreign policy decisions, sometimes in countries where connections implied political influence and protection," the New York Times reported. Biden’s Burisma directorship attracted attention because Burisma was owned by Mykola Zlochevsky, a minister under Russia-friendly President Viktor F. Yanukovych who subsequently went into exile after a popular revolution. After Yanukovych was ousted, Zlochevsky faced a variety of corruption-related investigations involving his business. In 2015, Ukraine’s newly appointed prosecutor general Viktor Shokin inherited some of the investigations into Zlochevsky and his company. (Zlochevsky and the company have denied the allegations.) Shokin was ousted as prosecutor in 2016. Shokin is the prosecutor the viral post is talking about (more on that later).
Did Joe Biden know about his son’s Ukrainian ties?
The Biden campaign told PolitiFact that the vice president learned about his son's role on the board through media reports and never discussed anything related to this company with his son. In a White House press briefing on May 13, 2014, spokesman Jay Carney was asked about it, and whether it presented the appearance of a conflict of interest. Carney said, "I would refer you to the Vice President’s office. I saw those reports. Hunter Biden and other members of the Biden family are obviously private citizens and where they work does not reflect an endorsement by the administration or by the Vice President or President. But I would refer you to the Vice President’s office." A year and a half later, the New York Times published an article that suggested that "the credibility of the vice president’s anti-corruption message may have been undermined" by Hunter Biden’s dealings with the company Did Biden make a threat to Ukraine?
The post said Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion unless the prosecutor -- Shokin -- was fired. Biden didn’t just make a threat to withhold aid unless Shokin was sacked -- it succeeded.
Biden proudly recounted the moment during an event sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations on Jan. 23, 2018. Here’s the relevant portion of Biden’s remarks, which at points were accompanied by laughter from the audience: "I remember going over (to Ukraine), convincing our team … that we should be providing for loan guarantees. … And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from (then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko) and from (then-Prime Minister Arseniy) Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor (Shokin). And they didn’t. ... "They were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, ... we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, ‘You have no authority. You’re not the president.’ … I said, call him. I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. ... I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time." Shokin’s ouster came in March 2016, when he was stripped of his position by a wide margin in the legislature.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=380399920575625&id=100058168597660
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