Needless to say (when you consider the source), the Biden connection is utterly concocted. Like the famous Uranium One “scandal” there is not one word of truth to the whole Biden/Ukraine story, other than that Joe Biden did tell Ukraine they needed to remove the prosecutor in order to get US loan guarantees.
Trump’s phone call, and the Republican talking point, is that Biden demanded the resignation or firing of the prosecutor Shokin because Shokin was investigating Hunter Biden, Joe’s son.
I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what’s happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.
Donald Trump, in conversation with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, July 25, 2019
1. Hunter Biden was never under investigation.
This point has been ridiculously concocted by (1) manipulating the timeline and (2) lying outright.
- The prosecutor general’s office was suspicious that a transaction, the sale of an oil storage facility in southern Ukraine in November, 2013, between Sergei Kurchenko and Mykola Zlochevsky, was a front for money laundering. Zlochevsky was a plutocrat who ran, among other things, a company called Burisma.
- Hunter Biden joined the Burisma board of directors in May of 2014.
That’s about it.
In other words, the Burisma company was part of an investigation about something that happened before Hunter Biden became involved. There was never any evidence of any wrongdoing on Hunter Biden’s part, and he was never under investigation! But it’s not just that there was no evidence one way or the other. Ukraine’s subsequent prosecutor stated definitively, “Biden was definitely not involved.” (Bloomberg, May 16, 2019)
And one final irony. The prosecutor was fired by the Ukrainian Parliament – not because he was investigating Burisma – but because he wasn’t!
“Shokin was not investigating. He didn’t want to investigate Burisma,” Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center, told the Washington Post for a July article. “And Shokin was fired not because he wanted to do that investigation, but quite to the contrary, because he failed that investigation.”
In other words, if Biden had actually wanted to somehow help his son’s company, he would have insisted on keeping that corrupt prosecutor in place!
As it turns out, I guess there wasn’t really any fire underneath the smoke, because the next prosecutor dropped the case officially in January, 2017.
2. Joe Biden was not representing his personal position to Ukraine’s leaders.
Biden did demand that Prosecutor Shokin be replaced, and he did say the US would make loan guarantees contingent on it. Biden has admitted this.
The point, however, is that the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, the United States and just about every major foreign investor were unified on the position that prosecutor Shokin had to be replaced, or Ukraine would not get loans or investments.
The Obama administration policy (as opposed to personal Biden diplomacy) was to push for Shokin to go. This position was shared by many European leaders, multilateral lending institutions, and the pro-democracy factors in Ukraine. Biden merely conveyed the US position forcefully.
Shokin was a holdover from the administration of the former president who was run out of town by the Maidan Revolution. He, like his former boss, was notoriously corrupt, and failed to indict anyone from the former administration which had been bilking billions from the country’s coffers.
Many reform-minded top Ukrainian officials resigned simply because Shokin had not been dismissed, including Shokin’s own top deputy. In early 2016, when Deputy General Prosecutor Vitaliy Kasko resigned in protest of corruption within Shokin’s office, he declared: “Today, the General Prosecutor’s office is a brake on the reform of criminal justice, a hotbed of corruption, an instrument of political pressure, one of the key obstacles to the arrival of foreign investment in Ukraine.”
Anyway, the major thrust here is that Biden (1) was representing the position of the USA, not his personal thoughts; (2) was simply repeating the same point which had already been made by Europe, the IMF, and reform-minded Ukrainians; (3) did the right thing!
GOP consultant Mike Murphy is now claiming that 30 Republican senators would vote to impeach “if they could do so anonymously”. There is no control of the Republicans because they have no courage or integrity.
As for Trump, I suspect that when his back is against the wall he’ll revert to his tried-and-true go-to move, which is to galvanize his base against the darkies.
Actually, fwald, I would have thought that the Republicans in Congress could be controlled by big donations and sweetheart deals BECAUSE they had no courage or integrity. But as McChesney points out in this thread, it is more complicated than that.
Besides, the Republicans do have principles. Big tax cuts for the rich as the solution to every economic problem, for instance. Karl Rove was DEDICATED to privatizing Social Security. Denying gay people the right to marry, and keeping transsexuals out of public bathrooms – are these not high and lofty ideals? Well, the Republicans want you to believe they are, so get on with it.
Biden Ukraine myth debunked. My pornographer comes through with more informative journalism than the entire press yet again. You get more straight forward information from your fellow perverts than the news these days.
Scoop you really do a great job on your in depth posts. From one bird watcher to another the tit posts are impressive too. 🙂 Thanks
Trump=traitor
My perspective on this whole ordeal. Trump is notorious for saying or doing outlandish things to distract us from even worse things. So what is this distracting us from?
Don’t forget the Manafort/Yanukovych/Putin connection in trying to figure out where the Orange Buffoon is coming from in regard to Ukraine. It will be interesting if we can find out what he may have been trying to pull on
Mr. K St.’s behalf.
Trump is just not smart enough to understand what is legal and what isn’t. I never believed he colluded with Russia, not because I believed he would decline if he saw an advantage to collusion, just that it didn’t seem like Russia would need his active participation. The Mueller report bore that out, but he still tried to fire him on multiple occasions, not to cover up a crime, but because he resented the investigation.
Roger, I would share your hope that “the people who control the Republican Party will decide the time has come to dump Trump” but I don’t think there is anyone controlling the party. The GOP elites didn’t want Trump, but his populist message was able to overcome a highly divided field. What we have now are too many GOP elected officials afraid to come across as insufficiently loyal to Trump because of the fear of a primary challenge. Trump is popular with the GOP base in large part because of the way Trump has been attacked. In our increasingly tribalistic society there is an instinct to unite around a tribe member attacked by the other tribe. I think there is also a bit of the boy who cried wolf. Every Republican president and presidential candidate during my adult life has been attacked as a racist and a fascist. I think many Republicans ignore those attacks today as a matter of course.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Trump doesn’t deserve the criticism, he deserves it. Well a large amount of it at least. There are Republicans who criticize Trump. Jonah Goldberg has been highly critical. Former prosecutor David French has a piece up on National Review Online entitled “The Trump–Ukraine Transcript Contains Evidence of a Quid Pro Quo.” I think there are at least a few GOP Senators that would vote to convict Trump if he is impeached. The two that spring to mind are Mitt Romney and Ben Sasse. But I think it will take more than this to oust him.
As a fallback position, I suggest the Democrats nominate someone that isn’t promising to turn the US into Venezuela. Otherwise, we may end up with Trump for 5 more years instead of just 1.
Michael McChesney, you are probably right that there is no group really in control of the Republican Party. I think it is heavily influenced by its biggest donors, who are some of the wealthiest people in America, but that is not the same thing.
I am afraid that there are things we disagree on. What do you mean, for example, when you “suggest the Democrats nominate someone that isn’t promising to turn the US into Venezuela”? Who, in your opinion, is promising to do that?
And as for all Republican presidents in your lifetime being called racists and fascists, well, sure they have. By extremists and people who angry at them. As I recall, all Democratic presidents up to and including FDR have been called Communists, by nut cases and extremists on the other side. And now the Democratic candidates are apparently being accused of wanting to turn the US into Venezuela. So what? Sticks and stones, and so on. Are you saying this is equivalent to the accusations against Trump?
Also, I don’t know if Trump really had a populist message, because I am not sure what that is. I think that Trump’s message was that he was highly successful and competent (will anyone argue if I say he is not?), and that he would “make America great again”, by which he seems to have meant returning to a past that was great for straight white males (no others need apply). Non-college educated white males are still the bedrock of his support, probably because he is their last good hope of a return to such a past. I would guess they do not care about his lies and personal corruption because they assume all politicians are like that. They simply like how he enrages people they despise, or have been taught to despise.
I am sorry to differ with you so much, because, from what you have said on this website, you are a good person. I cannot really say it matters what I think, and I have next to no chance in changing what anyone else thinks. Yet it seems wrong, these days, not to speak out, if only in little ways. Thanks for your comment.
(PS – I agree with you about our increasingly tribalistic society. I used to think America’s obsession with professional sports was a sign of that, but I suppose that’s just because I have no interest in pro sports and resent the public money spent on stadiums and such. THAT is bad socialism, to me.
Donor’s have influence, certainly. But they have less influence over Trump than on any other president of either party. While Trump isn’t nearly as successful as he has claimed, he is still among the wealthiest (if not the wealthiest) major party nominees. During the 2016 primaries, pundits were shocked when outrageous Trump statements (such as questioning Sen. McCain’s status as a war hero) or scandals (Access Hollywood) didn’t end his campaign. They would have if his campaign ran primarily on donations (as almost all do) instead of free press and self financing.
My “turn us into Venezuela” comment was hyperbole, but in my opinion only mildly so. I agree that calling FDR a socialist was as much a lie as calling (either) George Bush a fascist. But Bernie Sanders calls himself a socialist. Yes, I know a “Democratic socialist” though to the best of my memory he only became a “Democratic socialist” when he first ran for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Trump’s populist message appeals to more than white nationalists and racists. In the 8+ years prior to the 2016 election we’d had a “great recession” followed by an anemic recovery. many people suffering economic hardship heard “Make America Great Again” and heard “I will restore economic prosperity. People with concerns about illegal immigration, the vast majority of whom are not concerned because of racism, hear “build a wall” and find the sheer simplicity of the answer appealing. We’ve known for a long time it is far more difficult to be the candidate responding to demagoguing with nuanced reasoned answers.
Btw, thanks for the kind words.
Because Trump is so busy filling his own pockets.
Thanks for your reply, Michael McChesney. I agree with just about everything in it, particularly the last paragraph, where your view is a better explanation of how Trump got so close to 50% of the popular vote than mine.
The only thing I would question is whether Trump self-financed his campaign, and that is because I am simply ignorant. I did not think Trump used his own money for anything that he could avoid, and he seems to be far less wealthy than was assumed in 2016.
My understanding is that he did significantly self finance, but was able to get away with spending less than expected because he was able to get so much free media coverage.
OK, I googled it. Trump apparently claimed he invested $100 million in his campaign, but in reality it was $66.1 million. I think he probably saw it as an investment that would make his brand more valuable while allowing him to have a good time speaking to adoring crowds and insulting people his didn’t like. It’s amazing he was elected while spending so little, but without his self financing his campaign would have had it’s lights turned off long before the convention. Or maybe not. I didn’t think a Republican that I found so repugnant I would vote against them in a general election could win that election anyway. My late mother thought it could happen and I told her he could never even win the nomination. On the other hand, I still maintain my nieces (whose father is of Mexican descent) are in no danger of being deported by Trump. On the other hand, I am a bit less confident her prediction of a violent civil war in the near future is wrong. Just a bit…
You really made the”they say all Republicans are racist” thing and “trying to make us Venezuela” thing… Without a hint of grasping the irony.
Impressive.
My point about the ”they say all Republicans are racist thing” is that because people on the left have made the charges so often against Republicans, the charges have less power. I wasn’t saying people shouldn’t believe the accusations because it’s the same old thing the Dems always say about Republicans. Rather, I think there is definitely a boy who cried wolf thing going on here in that Trump supporters have learned to ignore such accusations. As for Venezuela, if Bernie Sanders was able to enact the program he is campaigning on it would do significant serious damage to our economy. It wouldn’t turn us into Venezuela overnight, but Venezuela didn’t reach it’s current condition overnight either.
The GOP has been racist since Nixon and his Southern strategy.
This is a key point: “Trump is just not smart enough to understand what is legal and what isn’t.”
That point was really driven home by Trump’s belief that releasing that tape would show that he did nothing wrong.
I think that to Trump, there is no actual distinction between legal and illegal. You just hire someone like Michael Cohen or William Barr and do whatever you want to do. No matter what you do, someone will claim it is illegal or sue you anyway. Of course, that is because he sees no reason not to cheat anyone he possibly can, but that is probably not how he would put it.
I had no idea that Scoopy was part of the deep state conspiracy against our President and his pro-American policies!!
The amazing thing is that I am both a pro-Trump fascist and a pinko anti-Trump commie. I really get around!
Nice job, Scoopy!
When you look up “renaissance man” in the dictionary…
I am glad to know the facts about this. I am also glad that Trump might be removed from office because of his own credulity with regard to right-wing conspiracy theories. Acting without regard to reality has consequences.
Of course, the facts are going to bounce off many of Trump’s supporters like marbles off armor plate. And if all you care about is your own millions or billions of dollars, and not the United States and the large majority of its people, Trump may still be your guy.
I would hope that the people who control the Republican Party will decide the time has come to dump Trump in order to try and save their hold on the Senate. But maybe they think that lying hard enough will win the day, as it did when Trump got elected in the first place. Who am I to say they are wrong?