New Evidence of Biden Quid-Pro-Quo in Ukraine

By Hans Mahncke & Jeff Carlson

A new batch of emails released by journalist John Solomon provides the most compelling evidence to date that Joe Biden abused his position as Vice President to protect a Ukrainian oligarch who was under investigation for corruption and bribery. The oligarch, Nikolay Zlochevsky, is the owner of Burisma, the firm that paid Hunter Biden $1 million a year for a no-show job. 

The emails, whose origin remains unclear but which may have been obtained via the House Oversight committee, also show Zlochevsky planned to use Hunter to set up a $120 million venture in Liechtenstein. However, while the Liechtenstein story has been the focus of attention, the real story buried in the new email batch has nothing to do with Liechtenstein. That story centers around an email from Hunter’s business partner, Devon Archer, that shows that Burisma unambiguously demanded that the corruption investigations into Zlochevsky be shut down. 

While a previous email with a similar message had been recovered from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, the language used in the new email is even more blunt in conveying that Burisma was demanding direct intervention from US authorities to end the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s investigation into Burisma. Within a few weeks of the email, Joe Biden ordered the president of Ukraine to dismiss his prosecutor general.

In the new email, which is dated October 20, 2015, Archer discusses Burisma’s demand with Jesica Lindgren. Lindgren is an operative with Blue Star Strategies, a Democrat-linked lobbying company in Washington DC. Hunter had previously advised Burisma to hire Blue Star, presumably to create a layer of deniability regarding his and his father’s behind-the-scenes activities. The demand from Burisma, which came via its CFO, Vadym Pozharsky, is quoted as follows (note that NZ refers to Nikolay Zlochevsky):

“Target: Us ambassador communicates to Ukraine officials I.e. President administration formally/informally that he/U.S. government is ok with NZ, supports him and Burisma. Other U.S. High ranking officials communicate this message to President Administration. President Administration and other agencies ( general prosecutors office ) do not pursue NZ. NZ freely travels home. Ambassador Pyatt loves NZ-)”

Shortly after the October 20, 2015 email, Pozharsky personally traveled to Washington DC to meet Hunter. Interestingly, this was not Pozharsky’s first visit to Washington DC. He had already visited in April 2015. During that visit, he not only met Hunter but also the then-Vice President Joe Biden. It was this April 2015 meeting that became the subject of the now infamous New York Post story that first reported on Hunter’s abandoned laptop.

After his October 2015 visit with Hunter, Pozharsky followed up with a November 2, 2015 email addressed to Hunter and Archer. In that email, Pozharsky demanded the infamous “deliverables”: “I would like us to formulate a list of deliverables, including, but not limited to: a concrete course of actions, incl. meetings/communications resulting in high-ranking US officials in Ukraine (US Ambassador) and in US publicly or in private communication/comment expressing their ‘positive opinion’ and support of Nikolay/Burisma to the highest level of decision makers here in Ukraine: President of Ukraine, president Chief of staff, Prosecutor General, etc."

Pozharsky ended by stating that the “ultimate purpose” was to “close down any cases or pursuits” against Zlochevsky.

That same day, November 2, Hunter urgently sought a meeting with Amos Hochstein, Obama’s Energy Czar. Hochstein promptly agreed to the meeting. It is not known what was discussed at the meeting but it is known that Hochstein repeatedly lied to Senate investigators about events surrounding Shokin and Burisma. (Hochstein has subsequently received multiple high-profile appointments in the Biden administration.)

On November 22, Joe Biden demanded the firing of General Prosecutor Shokin for the first time. Initially, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko resisted, correctly arguing that Shokin had done nothing wrong. However, Biden eventually succeeded in getting Shokin fired by leveraging $1 billion in US taxpayer loan guarantees.

The implications of this timeline are further reinforced by the fact that US authorities had been praising Shokin before suddenly changing course around the time Joe Biden intervened to have Shokin fired. Additionally, the loan guarantee had been approved by US authorities based on several minor conditions. Firing Shokin was not a condition at the time the loan was approved, nor was it subsequently made a condition. It was never a US government demand nor US government policy. It was always Joe Biden’s personal demand.

While the overall story isn’t new to those familiar with the Biden family corruption scandal in Ukraine, the starkness of the demand is. Burisma's owner explicitly demanded that the US government intervene and stop the pursuit of Burisma. Within a few weeks of this demand, Joe Biden did just that. It is as clear a quid pro quo as one could ask for.

Meanwhile, Democrats, led by House member Daniel Goldman, have persistently claimed that Biden dismissed Shokin because he was not investigating Burisma. The new email should put an end to that false narrative once and for all.