OAN’s Brooke Mallory
3:34 PM – Monday, August 28, 2023
In order to “provide protection” for Burisma CEO and founder Mykola Zlochevsky from criminal investigations, Hunter Biden was added to the board of the Ukrainian gas business, according to Ukrainian former prosecutor general Viktor Shokin.
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“I have no doubt that there were illegal activities engaged in by Burisma,” Shokin told host Brian Kilmeade through a translator on Saturday night. “It continued to expand and Zlochevsky, who at the time held the post of minister … started bringing in people who could provide protection for him. Hunter Biden was among them and the corruption network expanded as a result,” he said.
Shokin’s allegations, if proven to be true, may fuel calls for the House to begin an impeachment investigation into the president as early as next month.
In 2016, during an inquiry into Burisma Holdings and Zlochevsky, Shokin maintained that he was forced out of office by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, “at the insistence of then-Vice President Joe Biden.”
Shokin believed that Biden was delaying crucial funding for Ukraine in exchange for kickbacks to have him ousted.
“I do not want to deal in unproven facts, but 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 said.
Shokin was forced to resign by Biden’s threat to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, which he publicly credited for the move.
Beginning in April 2014, Hunter Biden worked for Burisma as a board member, earning up to $1 million annually.
“It was on a list of cases to merit special attention because Hunter Biden was involved with Burisma and of course, his father, the vice president. Biden at the time oversaw Ukraine affairs for the White House,” he continued.
Zlochevsky also alleged in 2016 that he was “coerced” into paying a $10 million bribe to the president and his son in return for Shokin’s dismissal, according to an FBI informant file that was made public last month.
Devon Archer, a 2014 board member and previous business associate of Hunter Biden, said before the House Oversight Committee this month that Burisma appointed Hunter on the board so that “people would be intimidated to mess with them… legally.”
Vadym Pozharskyi, a board adviser for Burisma, and Joe Biden met in Washington, D.C., in 2015 and spoke over the phone with Hunter when they were both present at a meeting in Dubai the same year, according to Archer.
According to Shokin, his office “would have found the facts about the corrupt activities that they were engaging in,” and as a result, he was sacked. “That included both Hunter Biden and Devon Archer and others.”
In an effort to remove Shokin, Joe Biden called the then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko five times in February and March 2016 and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk once.
On February 2nd, 2016, the Kyiv Post reported that Shokin’s office had successfully obtained a court order to take Zlochevsky’s property. On March 29th, Shokin was let go.
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