The ex-Ukraine prosecutor who was fired at the demands of Joe Biden told Rudy Giuliani in January of this year that he was told to back off the investigation of Burisma and that his investigations were stopped out of fear of the US:
FOX NEWS – The fired prosecutor at the center of the Ukraine controversy said during a private interview with President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani earlier this year that he was told to back off an investigation involving a natural gas firm that was linked to Joe Biden’s son, according to details of that interview that were handed over to Congress by the State Department’s inspector general Wednesday.
Fox News obtained a copy of Giuliani’s notes from his January 2019 interview with fired Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin in which he claimed that his “investigations stopped out of fear of the United States.”
“Mr. Shokin attempted to continue the investigations but on or around June or July of 2015, the U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey R. Pyatt told him that the investigation has to be handled with white gloves, which according to Mr. Shokin, that implied do nothing,” the notes from the interview stated. The notes also claimed Shokin was told Biden had held up U.S. aid to Ukraine over the investigation.
Shokin was fired in April 2016, and his case was “closed by the current Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko,” according to the notes.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that by the time of Biden’s intervention, the Burisma probe had been dormant.
However, Shokin, at the time, according to the interview, was investigating Mykola Zlochevsky, the former minister of ecology and natural resources of Ukraine — also the founder of Burisma. Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of the firm, which Shokin claimed was an appointment made by Zlochevsky “in order to protect himself.”
While I certainly believe Shokin is telling the truth, I’m not really sure what all this proves. The fact that the testimony was gathered by Giuliani this year will probably be reason enough for Democrats to just ignore it, as if they needed any reason.
Giuliani told Fox News he wasn’t investigating Joe Biden at the time, but that he is the one who gave the documents to the State Department Inspector General:
The interview purportedly conducted by Giuliani took place on Jan. 23, 2019 at an office on Park Avenue in New York City. Shokin was interviewed over the phone, and interpreters were used — one in Ukraine and one in New York, according to the notes obtained by Fox News.
In a statement to Fox News after this report was first published, Giuliani said the details were gathered before Biden announced his presidential run and the allegations were brought to him.
“I explored them as part of my duty as an attorney to show that the crimes committed, were not by my client, but by Democrats. I was not seeking to investigate Joe Biden. I was not investigating Joe Biden,” Giuliani said.
He also confirmed that he brought the documents to the State Department, saying that he was disappointed they had not been investigated.
“Maybe they will now,” he said.
These documents were shared with Democrats on Capitol Hill yesterday as they met with the State Department Inspector General:
The new documents were shared with Fox News by sources familiar with the “urgent” briefing held by State Department Inspector General Steve Linick on Wednesday.
Linick gave a closed-door briefing on Ukraine to aides from the Senate committees on Intelligence, Foreign Relations, Appropriations and Homeland Security, as well as aides from the House committees on Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, Appropriations and Oversight. The briefing lasted over an hour and took place in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) on Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon.
Linick shared a file with those who attended the briefing, containing multiple folders with the Trump Hotel logo on them. Inside the folders were notes from an interview conducted by Giuliani in January 2019 with Shokin, as well as Lutsenko. Another folder contained news clips, as well as several timelines about investigations related to Burisma.
A State Department spokesman on Wednesday confirmed to Fox News that the “relevant” materials Linick shared with Congress “were provided by the Department to the Inspector General on May 3, 2019 for his review and for such action as the Inspector General deemed appropriate.”
Linick told aides in the meeting that he received the package of information in the spring but did not know the sender. Linick sent it to the FBI because it included allegations of improper activities in Ukraine that were outside of his jurisdiction, according to sources familiar with the meeting. Last week, though, Linick was given permission by the FBI to share the files with Congress and said they were relevant to the congressional interviews being conducted, according to sources.
I’m not sure this will amount to much but it is pretty funny that Giuliani’s notes were given to Democrats on the Hill yesterday for them to see what Shokin had said. Both they and the media have proven they aren’t interested in investigating Joe Biden’s suspicious involvement in Shokin’s firing, so I just don’t see much coming from this.