Former Prosecutor General of Ukraine Viktor Shokin, dismissed in 2016, in an interview Fox News He accused incumbent US President Joe Biden of corruption. According to him, Biden, who was the vice president at that time, had Shokin fired due to the investigation opened against Burisma, where his son Hunter was on the board of directors.
“Isn’t that a case of corruption that Joe Biden gave me a billion US dollars in exchange for my dismissal?” said Shokin.
He explained that then-President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko dismissed him because if the investigation continued, the truth about Burisma’s corrupt activities would come to light. According to the former Attorney General, the current US President and his son took bribes for the work of the company. He did not provide evidence for his words.
“I don’t want to deal with unproven facts, but my personal opinion is that yes, it was exactly that. They were bribed,” he said.
Reaction to accusations
Commenting on Fox News, White House spokesman Ian Sams said allegations of Biden Sr.’s corrupt ties to Burisma were false and had already been debunked “over the years”.
The American administration explained Shokin’s dismissal with his extremely loyal stance against corruption. The White House also said that Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office did not investigate Burisma when she was sacked in 2016.
After Shokin’s statements, US Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Green was reinstated. persistently To blame Biden.
“We should launch an impeachment inquiry as soon as Congress meets in September.” He wrote on social network X (formerly Twitter).
The congressman has been advocating the impeachment of the incumbent US president since he was elected in 2020. Green is a supporter of former president Donald Trump and supports the version that his election votes were “stolen” during the count. The Republican has repeatedly opposed the provision of assistance to Ukraine on the background of the Russian military operation.
Biden did not comment on Shokin’s accusations.
Bidens and Burisma
Joe Biden’s youngest son, Hunter, joined the board of energy company Burisma in 2014, while his father oversaw US policy towards Ukraine under President Barack Obama. Soon, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine launched an investigation into the activities of Burisma, the company was suspected of corrupt activities. In May 2016, Attorney General Şokin was dismissed.
At the Council on Foreign Relations event in January 2018, Biden Sr. declarationHe said that before he dismissed Shokin, he threatened the Ukrainian side with freezing the $1 billion aid allocation if the Prosecutor General remained in office. At that time, he said, “You can’t get paid unless the prosecutor is dismissed.”
According to US officials, Biden demanded the prosecutor’s dismissal because he failed to hold Ukrainian politicians accountable for corruption crimes. At the same time, former US President Donald Trump claimed that Biden tried to help his son’s business in this way during his tenure and that he himself was involved in corruption. Trump tried to restart investigations into Burisma and Hunter Biden in Ukraine, which led to his initial impeachment.
2020 edition New York post He published Hunter Biden’s correspondence in 2015 stating that he could arrange a meeting between his father and company president Vadim Pozharsky. The current US president denies any connection to his son’s work in Ukraine.