Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) on Oct. 7 said he felt President Donald Trump should not have mentioned “the Biden issue” in a July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but that what Trump did is not an impeachable offense.
“I don’t view it as an impeachable offense,” he added. “I think the House frankly rushed to impeachment assuming certain things.”
Over the weekend, Trump posted on Twitter a quote from Peter Schweizer, who is the author of the book “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends,” which details Hunter Biden’s activities in China and Ukraine.
He wrote: “‘President Trump would be negligent if he did not bring this matter, Biden, up. If the V.P. of the U.S. is self enriching & engaged in criminal behavior, at a minimum corrupt behavior, it ought to be looked at.’ Peter Schweizer, author, ‘Secret Empires.’”
“I would think if they were honest about it they would start a major investigation into the Bidens. It’s a very simple answer. They should investigate the Bidens,” Trump said when asked whether Ukraine should probe the Bidens.
“And by the way, China should start an investigation into the Bidens. Because what happened with China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine.”
Impeachment Inquiry
The Trump-Zelensky July 25 phone call is the focus of an impeachment inquiry into Trump, which was announced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Sept. 24. Pelosi alleged that Trump “seriously violated the Constitution.”“This week, the president has admitted to asking the president of Ukraine to take actions which would benefit him politically,” Pelosi announced on Sept. 24. She alleged that Trump’s presidency “revealed dishonorable facts of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of national security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections.”
The person—who did not hear the phone call firsthand—said they’d spoken to more than six U.S. officials who have conveyed information supporting the claim, and they specifically mentioned the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky.
Multiple Requests in Phone Call
According to the transcript, Trump in a part of the call asked Zelensky to look into CrowdStrike—a technology firm that was hired by the Democratic National Committee (DNC)—to probe what happened to its computer network after a potential hack of a DNC server. In the call, Trump mentioned that one of the DNC servers is possibly being held in Ukraine.In another part of the call, Trump asked Zelensky to look into the firing of a top Ukrainian prosecutor, Victor Shokin, in 2016.
“I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair,” he told Zelensky. “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.”
He then said that he would have his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani call Zelensky. Trump also mentioned that the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, “was bad news.”
Trump then said in the phone call: “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. Biden went about bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me.”
In response, Zelensky said, “I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor,” referring to Shokin. Zelensky later added that, “It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100 percent,” referring to Yovanovitch. Zelensky added that the next prosecutor, whose appointment started in September, “will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this case.”
Zelensky also asked Trump, “If you have any additional information that you can provide to us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country,” with regard to Yovanovitch.
“There are 15 cases where Zlochevsky, Biden, Kurchenko, and other people and companies could be involved or could be targets for investigation,” Ryaboshapka said. “We are now looking again at all cases that were closed or broken up or were investigated earlier to make a decision to reconsider those instances where illegal procedural decisions were made.”
Ryaboshapka said he was not aware of any evidence of wrongdoing by the younger Biden and that he had not been contacted by any foreign lawyers about the case.
Former Prosecutor Claims Pressure to Drop Biden Probe
Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, sat on the board of Burisma from 2014 to 2019. Schweizer had previously said that Hunter was paid $83,000 a month to sit on Burisma’s board of directors as an advisor and consultant, even though he had no background in energy.
Shokin was in charge of an investigation into Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Shokin was fired in April 2016. In March of the same year, Joe Biden had threatened to cut off $1 billion in guaranteed loans to Ukraine unless Shokin was dismissed.
Giuliani’s notes, as cited by Fox, say that “Mr. Shokin attempted to continue the investigations but on or around June or July of 2015, the U.S. Ambassador [to Ukraine] Geoffrey R. Pyatt told him that the investigation has to be handled with white gloves, which according to Mr. Shokin, that implied do nothing.” According to the notes, Shokin was told Biden had held up U.S. aid to Ukraine over this investigation.
Shokin then said that Yovanovitch denied him visa travel to the United States, and claimed it was because “she is close to Mr. Biden.” When he was fired in April 2016, his case was “closed by the current Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko,” Giuliani’s notes of the January conversation said, according to Fox.
“The truth is that I was forced out because I was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into Burisma Holdings, a natural gas firm active in Ukraine, and Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was a member of the Board of Directors,” Shokin wrote.
Shokin said former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko came to him multiple times and asked him to close down the probe into Burisma but he refused.
“In my conversations with Poroshenko at the time, he was emphatic that I should cease my investigations regarding Burisma. When I did not, he said that the U.S. (via Biden) were refusing to release the $1 billion promised to Ukraine. He said that he had no choice.”
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