Joe Biden’s 2016 threat to withhold $1 billion in aid money from Ukraine unless prosecutor Victor Shokin was fired came shortly after Burisma Holdings sought a meeting with the Obama State Department to end Shokin’s corruption investigation into Burisma and its founder, Mykola Zlochevsky.
New documents obtained this week through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit prove Burisma name-dropped employee Hunter Biden when seeking a meeting with the State Department.
It is unclear whether the meeting took place, “but the records do indicate that Hunter Biden’s fellow American board member at Burisma – Devon Archer – secured a meeting on March 2, 2016 with Secretary of State John Kerry,” writes John Solomon, who filed the FOIA lawsuit.
On March 16th, roughly one month after Burisma reached out to the White House, then-Vice President Joe Biden successfully pressured then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire Shokin, thus ending the corruption investigation into Burisma.
“Biden has said he forced Shokin’s firing because he and Western allies believed the prosecutor wasn’t aggressive enough in fighting corruption,” writes Solomon.
But Shokin claims he was fired because he would not halt the Burisma investigation. In fact, he was preparing to interview Hunter Biden when he was let go.
This is a major conflict of interest for Joe Biden, who is currently running for president.
Hunter Biden resigned from Burisma earlier this year and promised not to work for any foreign companies if his father is elected president. Last month, a source close to Zlochevsky said Hunter only got the job at Burisma to “protect” the company from foreign scrutiny.
Hunter and Archer were hired in 2014, around the same time British officials began investigating Burisma and Zlochevsky.
We can expect to see more documentation emerge regarding the Biden/Ukraine controversy as Solomon presses forward with his FOIA lawsuit.