OPINION | This article contains the author's opinion.
Bombshell records revealed what happened behind closed doors just weeks before then-Vice President Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire Prosecutor Viktor Shokin.
Hunter Biden’s business partner and fellow Burisma board member, Devon Archer, secured a meeting through Biden with then-Secretary of State John Kerry.
A State Department email reads: “Devon Archer coming to see S today at 3:00pm – need someone to meet/greet him at C Street.”
A lawsuit filed through the Freedom of Information Act revealed the redacted email from March 2, 2016.
Despite having no personal or business ties to Ukraine, and no experience in the energy sector, Hunter and Archer were placed on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.
They received millions in this position. In exchange, Archer testified that Hunter was required to get help from then-Vice President Joe Biden “regarding the Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin.”
Shokin was investigating Burisma on corruption charges. Biden publicly admits that he demanded that Shokin is fired. An FBI informant says Burisma CEO Zlochevsky paid off the Bidens with $10,000,000 for this service.
Democrats as well as left-wing “fact-check” articles, including one from CNN, have claimed that Shokin was not investigating Burisma or considered a threat to the company.
“He was a threat,” Archer said of Shoken. “He ended up seizing assets of [Burisma owner] Nikolai [Zlochevsky] — a house, some cars, a couple properties. And Nikolai actually never went back to Ukraine after Shokin seized all of his assets.”
Shokin won a court order on Feb. 2, 2016 and seized Zlochevsky’s property. Shokin was fired roughly two months later on March 29. Biden later bragged that he demanded that Ukraine fire Shokin or else the U.S. would withhold $1 billion in aid.
“Well, son of a b****. He got fired,” Biden said gleefully.
“You understood me correctly. This is how it was,” Shokin told Fox News. “There were no complaints whatsoever and no problems with how I was performing at my job. But because pressure was repeatedly put on Poroshenko, that is what ended up in him firing me.”
When asked if Joe Biden or Hunter Biden received bribes, Shokin said, “My firm personal conviction is that, yes, this was the case. They were being bribed.”
“And the fact that Joe Biden gave away $1 billion in U.S. money in exchange for my dismissal, my firing — isn’t that alone a case of corruption?” he asked.
Democrats notoriously impeached former President Donald Trump on far less in December 2019. Democrats claimed Trump allegedly threatened to withhold military aid and a White House meeting from Ukraine if the country failed to investigate corruption within its government. Democrats claimed this was “abuse of power and obstruction of Congress,” which led to his impeachment on December 18, 2019.
In comparison, Biden has openly admitted to threatening to withhold aid while his son raked in millions as part of an international influence-peddling scheme.