President Donald Trump - Formal Impeachment Inquiry Announced

Overheal

notobtuse wrote: »

Document showing Ukrainian prosecutor saying under oath he was fired for investigating Hunter Biden:

https://www.scribd.com/document/427618359/Shokin-Statement

Take notice to points 8-12. Isn't this enough to start an investigation into the matter?

In points 8-12 he tries to implicate Hunter Biden in a scheme at Burisma relating to allegation that took place before Biden joined the firm.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-whistleblower-ukraine-buris/ukraine-agency-says-allegations-against-burisma-cover-period-before-biden-joined-idUSKBN1WC1LV

More specifically he's trying to blame Biden for his firing, because Biden on behalf of the State Department, EU, and IMF, was the point man for pressuring Ukraine to keep Dmytro Firtash from returning to Ukraine, where he bankrolled Pro-Russian Ukranian politicians. This was all within the year following the Annexation of Crimea.

Biden's role in Obama's government was anti-corruption in the Ukraine.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukrainians-see-conflict-in-bidens-anticorruption-message-1449523458?mod=article_inline&mod=article_inline&mod=article_inline

This was all reported on at the time. Shokin (the prosecutor) was seen as an obstacle to anti-corruption efforts in the Ukraine: https://www.rferl.org/a/us-ambassador-upbraids-ukraine-over-corruption-efforts/27271294.html according to the US Ambassador to Ukraine at the time.

There's also the investigation in London that Shokin fudged up: the UK had frozen assets of the Burisma head.

The owner of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, has been under the scrutiny of prosecutors. A minister of natural resources until 2012, Mr. Zlochevsky was accused of improperly granting gas extraction licenses to firms affiliated with him, and at times was investigated for alleged abuse of power, illegal enrichment and money laundering. Mr. Zlochevsky was never convicted of any crimes and denied any wrongdoing. His lawyer also denied that Mr. Zlochevsky ever benefited from his position in government.

Mr. Shokin had dragged his feet on those investigations, Western diplomats said, and effectively squashed one in London by failing to cooperate with U.K. authorities, who had frozen $23.5 million of Mr. Zlochevsky’s assets. In a speech in 2015, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, called the Ukrainian prosecutor “an obstacle” to anticorruption efforts, and mentioned the U.K. case, which he said led to the escape of illicit assets.

But Ukraine’s government was slow to fire Mr. Shokin, despite warnings from the International Monetary Fund and others that Western aid to the country would be cut off if it didn’t act. Mr. Biden, in one of his trips to Ukraine in 2016, pressured the government, telling them the U.S. would withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees. At an event at the Council on Foreign Relations two years later, Mr. Biden said he told Ukraine officials: “If the prosecutor is not fired you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”

Mr. Shokin denied any misconduct, and said he was fired illegally. In an interview with a Ukrainian news service, he blamed his dismissal on Ukrainian “grant-eaters”—nonprofit groups seeking to curry favor with the West.

Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., said that Mr. Biden was making the same demands that other lenders to the Ukrainian government were making.

“Everyone in the Western community wanted Shokin sacked,” he said. “The whole G-7, the IMF, the EBRD, everybody was united that Shokin must go, and the spokesman for this was Joe Biden.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-anticorruption-effort-in-ukraine-overlapped-with-sons-work-in-country-11569189782

I've no doubt the WSJ's summary can be vetted (I've done some checking, above in the post), but if you find countermanding evidence please share

The Phantom Jipper

Overheal wrote: »

Veritas Libertas wrote: »

It just seems hypocritical to me that Biden is exculpated so quickly, yet everyone knows Trump did it for his own purposes. They did the same thing, what is in question is "was it for their personal gain?". Biden surely stood to gain by not having his son investigated. So why the exculpation?


So it is more becoming an abundance of evidence rather than 'smoking gun' evidence. This doesn't sit well with me.

In fact, the prosecutor wasn’t investigating. That’s why the state department, the EU and the IMF backed the action to hold up the loan. Biden didn’t take action alone and didn’t really stand to benefit; if it was Investigation he wanted to avoid keeping the prosecutor on would have been better for him. As you said, he would have something to gain if the aim was to shield Burisma from investigation but it’s the opposite.

This is a key point and one that they can't acknowledge because it undermines the whole silly argument.

It isn't even consistent with their other arguments. They also seem to be trying to suggest Hunter Biden was a clueless buffoon who got the job through sheer nepotism and knew nothing about the business or the industry (which may well be true) but at the same time was so heavily involved that he would have been in jeopardy from this non-existent corruption probe. Doesn't quite ring true.

Overheal

The Phantom Jipper wrote: »

This is a key point and one that they can't acknowledge because it undermines the whole silly argument.

It isn't even consistent with their other arguments. They also seem to be trying to suggest Hunter Biden was a clueless buffoon who got the job through sheer nepotism and knew nothing about the business or the industry (which may well be true) but at the same time was so heavily involved that he would have been in jeopardy from this non-existent corruption probe. Doesn't quite ring true.

It doesn't matter though because this is how gaslighting works. I mean **** just try and trace everything Rudy has said on television in the past 2 years, it's full of willful contradictions in both honest-mistake and deliberate slip-ups, and pushing of dual narratives so that even if someone reports on the truth, that there are enough alternative-facts out there for supporters to defer to their own narrative and to cast enough doubt for everyone in the middle.

Overheal

TCT theory explained from its origins

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/01/government-by-conspiracy-theory-rides-again/

It’s hard to overstate the extent to which President Trump’s time in politics has been defined by conservative media broadly and Fox News specifically.

For years before his decision to seek the presidency in 2015, he was a regular, promoted guest on “Fox & Friends.” His Twitter feed reflected his political views, views generally squarely in line with the Fox News orthodoxy of the moment. His campaign launch centered on the sorts of issues that were sidelined in the Republican establishment but were central to conservative media: the dangers of immigration and immigrants, an America that was falling behind.

As president, he spends hours each week in the mornings and evenings tuning in to Fox News. He and Fox News host Sean Hannity reportedly speak regularly. Through July 25 of this year, more than a third of all of the interviews he has granted as president were to Fox-parent News Corp. companies. Eight of the nine people who have interviewed Trump most frequently work for Fox News or Fox Business Network. (The ninth works for News Corp.’s Wall Street Journal.) By that point, he had given six fewer interviews to the two Fox networks than he had to every other television network and local television station combined.

Trump constantly lifts up Fox News’s coverage — or, really, its opinion segments. In the past week, Trump’s personal account has shared 29 videos. Seven were made by Trump’s team, his campaign or supporters. Two were news clips from non-Fox networks. The other 22 were from Fox News or Fox Business. As president, Trump has mentioned or retweeted Fox properties more than 500 times.

Staffers move between Fox and the White House regularly. As of late August, according to the liberal watchdog group Media Matters, 18 current or former administration staffers had previously worked at a Fox property. Five current Fox staffers came from the Trump administration.

Trump’s strategy in winning the 2016 election and as president has been to echo and drive what’s being talked about on Fox News in particular, recognizing that his political success derives from fervent support among those conservative voters. During the 2018 midterm campaign, he on several occasions rolled Fox News interviews into campaign rallies. Fox News, in return, has helped spin or ignore unflattering news stories. When Fox has dared to interview Democrats or release objective polls showing Trump’s unpopularity, Trump has lashed out.

It’s worth detailing this because of how it informs what the president does. The feedback goes both ways, with Trump often lifting up and echoing Fox’s coverage. There have been scores, perhaps hundreds, of times when Trump has tweeted out something he saw on Fox News, regardless of accuracy.

To put a fine point on it: Trump lives in and relies upon a conservative-media and Fox News presidency. Which brings us to Attorney General William P. Barr.

On Monday, The Washington Post reported that Barr was personally engaging with foreign leaders in an effort to get assistance in an investigation being conducted by the Justice Department. In the abstract, that’s understandable; the federal government relies on international assistance with investigations regularly.

In this case, though, Barr’s efforts are in service to a sprawling conspiracy theory targeting Barr’s own organization along with other components of the U.S. intelligence community. In other words, Barr is asking foreign countries to dig around for evidence of malfeasance by U.S. agencies.

Why? Fox News. Not entirely or exclusively Fox News but mostly Fox News.

For months, Fox News and Fox Business Network — ostensibly a business-centered channel — have embraced the idea that the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election was predicated on bias by anti-Trump actors. That the investigation was predicated on undermining Trump specifically.

To call this theory “sprawling” is to undersell it. But if you were curious about why Trump was talking servers with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in their now-infamous July 25 call, it’s because Trump has long embraced a claim that the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s network in 2016 wasn’t a function of Russian interference but instead — maybe something else. Maybe some rich guy in Ukraine, given that a rich Ukrainian guy gives money to an organization for which another guy works and the other guy’s company did initial analysis of the DNC hack. Trump’s been on this long enough that he reportedly got then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo to talk to one of the proponents of the theory — a guy who had of course appeared on Fox News numerous times.

This whole theory was rendered moot by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation and indictment of a dozen Russian intelligence agents. But Trump starts from a position of “undermining the Russian interference narrative” and ends up at “ask Ukraine’s president if he can maybe dig something up.” That Trump himself reportedly told Russian officials directly that he didn’t care about their interference is irrelevant to the politics at play.



This server thing shows one direction of sprawl, and a narrow one. But it shows the flow: Start from a position of exonerating Trump and work backward, introducing whatever viable rhetoric you can. The linchpin of this effort is a warrant obtained in October 2016 targeting a guy named Carter Page for surveillance. The theory around this is that biased FBI agents and other officials used faulty information to target Page to spy on the campaign. There are a number of ways in which this quickly falls apart, including that 1) targeting an ancillary adviser to the campaign is a weird way to spy on “the campaign”; 2) Page had already been on the FBI’s radar before joining the campaign; 3) he wasn’t on the campaign at the time the warrant was obtained; and 4) information about the Russia probe wasn’t used to try to impede Trump’s election. But Fox News personalities such as Hannity and his cadre of guests were simply walking backward, trying to find a hole in the wall. This is the hole they found, and they ran with it.

Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that the DNC hack wasn’t committed by Russia. What changes? Russia still accessed Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman’s email account, the hack that provided weeks of fodder (particularly for Fox News) right before the 2016 election. Russians were still deeply involved in the effort to sow disruption on social media. Russian actors still reached out to and engaged with Trump campaign officials. What Trump gets out of Ukraine stumbling onto something that Mueller missed is — bragging rights? Vindication, if only partial? Evidence that the FBI was at best incompetent and at worst employed agents who acted on bias?

For this, Barr and Trump are leveraging the United States’ relationships with other countries. Because Fox News has been talking for months about former FBI agent Peter Strzok and misinterpreting his text messages, and because Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) keeps showing up on Fox News to offer up smoking guns that aren’t actually smoking.

Two years ago, I spoke with an expert on conspiracy theories to figure out why Trump’s allies were so eager to embrace them.

“Powerful people can’t use conspiracy theories very well. They’re tools of the weak to attack the powerful,” Joseph Uscinski, associate professor of political science at the University of Miami and the co-author of “American Conspiracy Theories,” told me. “But what we’ve seen in this instance is: Because Trump has built his entire machine on conspiracy theories, that’s why we have dueling conspiracy theories.”

It’s Trump lashing out at the establishment he still sees as trying to hold him down. It’s Fox News embracing its ongoing role as the political underdog. That the former is president and the latter the best-rated network on television doesn’t change the calculus. Together, and with Barr’s help, they’re taking on the world.

Or, at least, taking on their enemies with whatever arguments they can gin up.

Overheal

The Federalist doubles down on debunked conspiracy theory about changes to the whistleblower form.

https://www.mediaite.com/online/the-federalist-doubles-down-on-thoroughly-debunked-whistleblower-bombshell/

I don't think that angle is going to gain Trump any more traction; I suspect he will start to lose support among moderates who will read into this bs.

Overheal

In their letter of response, the chairmen accused [Secretary of State] Pompeo of “stonewalling” the inquiry, noting that if he was in fact on the Trump call with Zelensky, “he is now a fact witness in the House impeachment inquiry. He should immediately cease intimidating Department witnesses in order to protect himself and the President.”

Doesn't just sound like rhetoric, either. That looks like a legal declarative.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/pompeo-says-state-dept-officials-wont-show-up-for-scheduled-impeachment-depositions-this-week/2019/10/01/b350f8a2-e459-11e9-a331-2df12d56a80b_story.html

You may recall that on Friday Pompeo was subpoenaed for Ukraine documents; now it would seem they are poised to subpoena Mike Pompeo himself as a witness of interest in the impeachment inquiry of the president.

Veritas Libertas

Overheal wrote: »

In fact, the prosecutor wasn’t investigating. That’s why the state department, the EU and the IMF backed the action to hold up the loan. Biden didn’t take action alone and didn’t really stand to benefit;

But he did take action(others also); and he did stand to benefit.
This is why I see it as odd that Biden has been cleared so readily. Similar to Trudeau with the 'blackface' Biden seems to be getting a pass on this with his base in all the MSM.

notobtuse wrote: »

Document showing Ukrainian prosecutor saying under oath he was fired for investigating Hunter Biden:

Everyone 'knows' biden did it; not for personal reason. Everyone 'knows' Trump did it; for personal reasons.

mcmoustache

Veritas Libertas wrote: »

But he did take action(others also); and he did stand to benefit.

If I'm reading this right, Biden got rid of the person who could have investigated the company but didn't. If Biden didn't want his son investigated, Shorkin was the best guy to have in there.


Instead he pushed to get rid of him, with bipartisan and international support. The bipartisan support part is important - if the republicans had any reason to think that this was corrupt, they could have objected because it's not like they didn't know who Hunter Biden was and where he was working. They supported this too at the time.



Pushing to get rid of him meant that a more thirsty prosecutor would replace him, one who might look into that company for whom his son worked.

Overheal

Veritas Libertas wrote: »

But he did take action(others also); and he did stand to benefit.
This is why I see it as odd that Biden has been cleared so readily. Similar to Trudeau with the 'blackface' Biden seems to be getting a pass on this with his base in all the MSM.

2 things here: 1st: there is nothing odd about someone being cleared, readily, when exculpatory evidence is readily producible - in fact, nothing wrong with it. Hypothetically, if new incriminating evidence comes out against Biden of course the People should review it. But that's not what's happening here afaik. I have listened to the GOP playbook against Biden this weekend and I have done my own fact-finding and found no veracity to any of their claims, though they do make some crafty innuendos. My last few posts include the case against Biden and why it doesn't hold water. If I missed something someone should contribute that as well.

2nd: Trudeau is another case. Personally IDGAF about Canadian affairs. Or Trudeau. But he owned it (1) there was a *smoking gun* (several actually)(2) this was irrelevant gossip to current affairs (aside from Trudeau being found to be a racist asshat to people that liked/hated him) unlike say, either of Biden or Trump as subversive agents in the 2016 election, or Ukraine, etc. (3)

Everyone 'knows' biden did it; not for personal reason. Everyone 'knows' Trump did it; for personal reasons.

That's why there are, currently, as far as I am aware, investigations ongoing into both of them! So, from a perspective of partisanship it looks fair and equitable. The only difference in both charges is that with Trump its proving to the American people that he pressured Ukraine into oppo research for his 2020 campaign; with Biden, it's about proving he did get an illicit personal gain from his anti-corruption task force efforts in Ukraine.

In the latter: I would ask why the Congress didn't exercise its oversight authority over the Ukraine task force in the Obama administration - they were surely aware of it, and there is assuredly a paper trail to confirm that. For the moment though, it's merely my speculation. It would seem very odd that Obama-era GOP Congress wouldn't have leapt at the chance to impanel literally as many partisan scandals they could - heck, they did handfuls of Benghazi investigations, they would have loved to pepper in an Oversight hearing into Biden's Ukraine task force. So, why didn't they? DID they? If so where is it?

Veritas Libertas

mcmoustache wrote: »

If I'm reading this right, Biden got rid of the person who could have investigated the company but didn't. If Biden didn't want his son investigated, Shorkin was the best guy to have in there.
Instead he pushed to get rid of him, with bipartisan and international support.

This statement from Shockin seems to contradict that. Has his testimony been discredited in some way, or has there been proof to the contrary?

"The truth is that I was forced out because I was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into Burisma Holding and Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden was a member of the board of directors. I assume Burisma, which was connected had the support of the US Vice-President Joe Biden because his son was on the Board of Directors"

-Shockin

I agree the support of the international community adds credence to the idea that Biden didn't do it for personal gain, but in the MSM's mind it seems to clear him of it.

Overheal

Veritas Libertas wrote: »

This statement from Shockin seems to contradict that. Has his testimony been discredited in some way, or has there been proof to the contrary?

-Shockin

I agree the support of the international community adds credence to the idea that Biden didn't do it for personal gain, but in the MSM's mind it seems to clear him of it.

Which is why Republicans can use their own investigatory powers to see if he didn't, and apparently AG Barr is also looking into this. They should totally do this, and swiftly, and transparently, if they want to capture the attention of leftist voters.

Shokin's statement reads like a narrow view from his perspective based on dissembled facts. I suppose there will also be an investigation into all of Shokin's investigation into Burisma, sure, but atm I get the sense it will be answered quickly with paper trails both in the news and official wires. So far the official(est) word is that Hunter Biden was very much definitely not a target of the probe, nor was he indirectly/directly found to be doing any illegal shenanigans. Both parties will drag both disputes through the election cycle (and THAT might be a constitutional crisis!)

mcmoustache

Again, Republicans, Democrats, the EU and the IMF didn't think he was actually investigating. There's a slim possibility that he is telling the truth but if he actually was, I find it hard to believe that the Republicans wouldn't have had a different attitude.

I mean, can you really believe that the Republicans would want rid of him because he was investigating the son of the Democratic Vice President? These are the same people who had god knows how many Benghazi investigations.

That doesn't pass the smell test to me.

Overheal

mcmoustache wrote: »

Again, Republicans, Democrats, the EU and the IMF didn't think he was actually investigating. There's a slim possibility that he is telling the truth but if he actually was, I find it hard to believe that the Republicans wouldn't have had a different attitude.

It's possible both sides are right: Shokin could have had an open investigation, at the same time he could have also been leaving it to rot. He made no mention of the investigation's measurable progress in his statement.

Overheal

President of the United States tweets out that this is all a "COUP"

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1179179573541511176

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1179179575059927040

His argument, then, basically boils down to railing against the constitution and what it says about impeachment - bc if his argument held any water, no President could be impeached ever - your opponents would either be "undoing the last election" or "rigging the next election."

Ultimately he is just building more articles against him, how they word it idk but he's basically trying to generate widespread unrest calling this "war" or a "civil war" and now a "COUP." This is not normal. This pattern of behavior IMO is dangerous to leave in power.

mcmoustache

Stand by for the people who like to repeat what he says as truth without thinking things through. They'll be using the same language, like, dare I say, NPCs.

Overheal

mcmoustache wrote: »

Stand by for the people who like to repeat what he says as truth without thinking things through. They'll be using the same language, like, dare I say, NPCs.

Some defenders on the hill had already called it a coup, as probably had some talking radio heads. But it's one thing for Limbaugh to call it a coup, or Beck to theorycraft that Obama is a secret Muslim Nazi*, but the President of the United States doing this is beyond the pale

*How that went freely on the air for so long I will never understand

Edit: here also is his surrogate saying the same and worse on the air

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-economic-adviser-peter-navarro-i-dont-know-which-is-more-dangerous-north-korea-or-congress/

Outlaw Pete

Overheal wrote: »

President of the United States tweets out that this is all a "COUP"

Must be reading my posts.

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

There was an attempted coup and that is the real story yet to be told.

What else would you call it? With a straight face I mean.


https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1179189266234167297

Overheal

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Must be reading my posts.



What else would you call it? With a straight face I mean.


https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1179189266234167297

An impeachment inquiry.

Clearly you’ve gotten the same talking point from the GOP rumor mill.

Overheal

For reference some fact checking on the Biden timeline: talks about the loan happened in Dec 2015 not March 2016 which was reported in a lot of outlets

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/02/correcting-media-error-bidens-ukraine-showdown-was-december/

So there’s a 4-5 month gap between the point in December when Biden brought up the loan and when Shokin was asked to resign in April.

Oct. 2, 2019 at 3:00 a.m. EDT
“One of his most memorable performances came on a trip to Kiev in March 2016, when he threatened to withhold $1 billion in United States loan guarantees if Ukraine’s leaders did not dismiss the country’s top prosecutor, who had been accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in his own office and among the political elite.”

— New York Times, May 1, 2019

“In March 2016, Biden made one of his many trips to Ukraine and told the country’s leaders that they had to get rid of the prosecutor if they wanted $1 billion in U.S. aid.”

— NPR, Sept. 24

“In March 2016, Biden was in Kiev, where he was scheduled to announce a $1 billion American loan to the Ukrainian government.”

— Atlantic, Sept. 25

This is just a sampling of the many news organizations — starting with the New York Times in the first paragraph of a front-page article — that reported that Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid unless a top prosecutor was fired while on a trip to Kiev in March 2016.

AD
But here’s the rub: Biden never traveled to Ukraine that month. The Ukrainian president at the time, Petro Poroshenko, traveled to Washington in March — but only after the prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, had already been dismissed by the Ukrainian parliament.

Why the confusion? Because Biden managed to squeeze months of diplomacy into a few hours when he recounted the story years later at the Council on Foreign Relations. Biden’s tale, ironically, has become exhibit 1 in President Trump’s false narrative that Biden ousted the prosecutor because he was investigating a company associated with his son Hunter Biden. As we have reported, the drive to push out Shokin was an international effort widely celebrated at the time.

We don’t normally do media criticism, but it’s important to correct the timeline.

AD
The Facts
Here’s’ what Biden said during a 2018 appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations:

“I remember going over, convincing our team … that we should be providing for loan guarantees. … And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from [then-Prime Minister Arseniy] Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor [Shokin]. And they didn’t…They were walking out to a press conference. I said, ‘Nah, … We’re not going to give you the billion dollars.’ They said, ‘You have no authority. You’re not the president.’ … I said, ‘Call him.’ I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars.’ … I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a b----. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”
From Biden’s story, it sounds like things had happened very fast, in the space of six hours. But it was really a diplomatic slog that extended from September through May. In August 2016, in fact, Biden gave a somewhat less dramatic version of the story to the Atlantic magazine:

“He described, for example, a meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko—whom he calls ‘Petro’—in which he urged Poroshenko to fire a corrupt prosecutor general or see the withdrawal of a promised $1 billion loan to Ukraine. ‘Petro, you’re not getting your billion dollars,’ Biden recalled telling him. ‘It’s OK, you can keep the [prosecutor] general. Just understand—we’re not paying if you do.’ Poroshenko fired the official.”
Biden was carrying out a policy developed at the State Department and coordinated with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. The $1 billion in loan guarantees was essential leverage because the Ukrainian government needed the credit line to underwrite its budget. At stake was not just Shokin, but a broad package of reforms, including a shake-up of the cabinet, sought by Western powers.

The U.S. ambassador at the time, Geoffrey Pyatt, along with then-Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, were key champions of the policy at the day-to-day level. Shokin was considered a close associate of Poroshenko, so his removal required a lot of work. “He’s was completely Poroshenko’s creature,” recalled one former U.S. official involved in Ukraine policy.

AD
Pyatt kicked off the effort with a speech on Sept. 24, 2015 in which he blasted Shokin for “openly and aggressively undermining reform” and having “undermined prosecutors working on legitimate corruption cases.” In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Oct. 8, Nuland declared: “The Prosecutor General’s Office has to be reinvented as an institution that serves the citizens of Ukraine, rather than ripping them off.”

Biden followed up with a visit to Kiev in December. On Dec. 7, he held a news conference with Poroshenko and announced $190 million to “fight corruption in law enforcement and reform the justice sector.” He made no public mention of the loan guarantee, but behind the scenes he had explicitly linked the $1 billion loan guarantee to reform efforts, including removing Shokin, according to Colin Kahl, Biden’s national security adviser at the time.

A day after the news conference, he addressed the Ukrainian parliament and decried the “cancer of corruption” in the country. “The Office of the General Prosecutor desperately needs reform,” he noted.

AD
Kahl said Biden had a version of the parliament speech in which he would have announced the loan guarantee if Poroshenko immediately had taken the actions demanded by the United States and its international partners. But since the Ukrainian leader did not remove Shokin during that trip, Biden instead emphasized the country’s corruption in his speech.

“It was very politically challenging thing for Poroshenko,” Kahl said. “You could see he was not happy” about not getting the loan guarantee.

Biden next met on Jan. 20 with Poroshenko on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, when he also pressed “the need to continue to move forward on Ukraine’s anti-corruption agenda,” according to a White House statement. Kahl said Biden at that meeting reinforced the linkage between the loan guarantee and the necessary reforms.

AD
Then a series of calls followed.

Feb. 12: Biden spoke to Poroshenko by phone. “The two leaders agreed on the importance of unity among Ukrainian political forces to quickly pass reforms in line with the commitments in its IMF program, including measures focused on rooting out corruption,” the White House said.

Feb. 16: Poroshenko announced he had asked Shokin to resign. “This morning I have met and had a serious conversation with the prosecutor general. I have suggested Viktor Mykolayovych [Shokin] should write a letter of resignation,” the president said in a statement. Shokin agreed to do so.

Feb. 18: Another call took place between Biden and Poroshenko. “The Vice President also commended President Poroshenko’s decision to replace Prosecutor General Shokin, which paves the way for needed reform of the prosecutorial service,” the White House said in a statement. “The Vice President urged President Poroshenko to continue on this positive trajectory, to include successful implementation of the new legislation and continued visible progress on anti-corruption reforms, noting this will require unity and stability.”

AD
Feb. 19: Poroshenko announced he has received Shokin’s resignation letter. It still required parliamentary approval, and Shokin did not go away quietly.

That same day, Biden spoke separately to Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. “He urged Ukraine’s leadership to unite and rebuild popular trust around a strong governing coalition and reform program, and to accelerate Ukraine’s efforts to fight corruption, strengthen justice and the rule of law, and fulfill its IMF requirements,” the White House said.

March 16: Reports emerged that Shokin was back at work after having been on vacation. He later fired a reformist deputy who had called for his removal from office.

March 22: Biden and Poroshenko spoke again by phone, mainly about Russia’s conviction and sentencing of Ukrainian pilot and member of parliament Nadiya Savchenko, who had been captured by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.

AD
March 29: The Ukrainian parliament, in a 289-to-6 vote, approved Shokin’s dismissal.

On March 31, Poroshenko met with Biden during a trip to Washington, and Biden emphasized that the loan guarantee was contingent on further reform progress beyond Shokin’s removal. “The Vice President welcomed the efforts of President Poroshenko to form a stable, reform-oriented government, and stressed that this step, as well as the enactment of needed reforms, are critical to unlocking international economic assistance, including the third $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee,” the White House said.

President Barack Obama originally was not expected to meet with Poroshenko but a meeting was arranged on April 1. “President Obama confirmed willingness to provide the third tranche of loan guarantees in the amount of $1 billion upon completion of the formation of a new government in Ukraine, the Ukrainian press service reported.

AD
On April 14, Biden and Poroshenko had another call. Biden congratulated the president on his new cabinet and “stressed the urgency of putting in place a new Prosecutor General who would bolster the agency’s anti-corruption efforts and strongly support the work of its reformers,” a White House statement said. The Ukrainian press service reported “the parties agreed that an agreement on the issue of the third tranche of credit guarantees in the amount of $1 billion will soon be signed.”

May 12: Poroshenko nominated Yuriy Lutsenko as the new prosecutor general.

On May 13, in a phone call, Biden told Poroshenko he welcomed Lutsenko’s appointment and creation of an inspector general in the prosecutor’s office. “The Vice President informed President Poroshenko that the United States was prepared to move forward with the signing of the third $1 billion loan guarantee agreement, which will support continued progress on Ukrainian reforms,” a White House statement said.

The loan guarantee was finally signed on June 3, with Pyatt representing the United States.

The Bottom Line
As we demonstrated, Biden was never in Kiev in March 2016, as many news organizations have reported. The tying of $1 billion in loan guarantees to needed reforms, including the ouster of Shokin, was a policy pursued over many months, but Biden’s explicit linkage was made during his trip to Kiev in December — three months earlier.

Biden’s overly dramatic foreshortening of events has confused many reporters, including here at The Fact Checker. We’ve corrected our mistake, and we urge other news organizations to do so as well.

(About our rating scale)

Send us facts to check by filling out this form

Sign up for The Fact Checker weekly newsletter

The Fact Checker is a verified signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network code of principles

ELM327

notobtuse wrote: »

I've heard that, like, three dozen times already.

Don't worry, there's another 5 years of democrat whinging to come.
Like a crybaby, they can't handle that they lost.

Veritas Libertas

Overheal wrote: »

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/02/correcting-media-error-bidens-ukraine-showdown-was-december/

The Wapo isn't the greatest source for stories about Trump. Bias would be an understatement. Certainly since 2013.

Their tagline is "Democracy dies in the darkness" yet they sit behind a paywall, and try to stop dissenter from working on their site.

Overheal

"ELM327 wrote:

they can't handle that they lost.

Speaking of things we’ve heard three dozen times.

So when is “too soon” to investigate high crimes and misdemeanors after an election? When is “too late” to do it for being too close to an election? The constitution doesn’t place a moratorium on this. It’s an insipid argument that tries to undermine the function of the three branches of government.

Either way 2.5 years into a Presidential term seems like a good a time as any to do it.

Overheal

Veritas Libertas wrote: »

The Wapo isn't the greatest source for stories about Trump. Bias would be an understatement. Certainly since 2013.

I welcome rebuttals and corrections but to dismiss them as a reporting outlet altogether one would have to do better than pointing out the paper doesn’t defend Trump by making up lies for him the way some papers have been shown to, such as the Caller or Federalist that the GOP booted up to be their bugles.

begsbyOnaTrain

I reckon the impeachment process will result in a boost for Trump, will serve to slam Biden and have him stand aside and let whoever run for the Dems. And I still think whoever that is, will lose.

Veritas Libertas

Overheal wrote: »

I welcome rebuttals and corrections but to dismiss them as a reporting outlet altogether one would have to do better than pointing out the paper doesn’t defend Trump by making up lies for him the way some papers have been shown to, such as the Caller or Federalist that the GOP booted up to be their bugles.

It is quite shocking, the depths to which WaPo has descended, since the days of the Pentagon Papers. No doubt, Ben Bradlee would have nothing to say today, about the state of this paper because of his loyalty to the institution. But, I can't help but wonder what his private thoughts must be with regard to the obvious incestuous relationship between WaPo literati and the political establishment today.

Ben Bradlee, steward of a principled newspaper in the nation's capital was truly apolitical. A far cry from what it is today.

Overheal

All news media is looked at retrospectively through rose tinted glasses though. The media landscape is as incomparable between now and then as Nixon and Trump. A great many news outlets today have been politically empowered and a lot of that, frankly, is due to politicians ceding them that. It’s not just three alphabet networks and a few national print sources anymore.

Veritas Libertas

Overheal wrote: »

All news media is looked at retrospectively through rose tinted glasses though. The media landscape is as incomparable between now and then as Nixon and Trump. A great many news outlets today have been politically empowered and a lot of that, frankly, is due to politicians ceding them that. It’s not just three alphabet networks and a few national print sources anymore.

The Wapo used to stand for something, maybe that's why I'm more angry at them than anyone else. They sold out. From my experience having read their articles for years, its now far too bias in story selection, choice of loaded words, and misleading information.

A fall from grace that would bring a tear to the eye of Mr. Bradlee.

Overheal

I understand but atm I’m finding their reporting to be helpful in tracking this, including tracking the garbage being generated from alt-right sites. If I’ve shared something misleading, inaccurate or false let’s call it out from them.

Veritas Libertas

Overheal wrote: »

For reference some fact checking on the Biden timeline: talks about the loan happened in Dec 2015 not March 2016 which was reported in a lot of outlets

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/02/correcting-media-error-bidens-ukraine-showdown-was-december/

So there’s a 4-5 month gap between the point in December when Biden brought up the loan and when Shokin was asked to resign in April.

It seems the Wapo are still doubting whether Biden did what he said he did, and what politifact agree he did.

What is in disagreement is why he did what he did, and instead the Wapo are throwing out red herrings such as this. I'm unable to look into the full story as it's behind a paywall(which I have no intention of breaking :P)

Overheal

I’ll paste it when I sit down.

Dunno if that’s a red herring?

Also here’s Kamala Harris trying to cancel Trumps twitter account

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/kamala-harris-to-twitter-ceo-after-trumps-coup-tweet-time-to-do-something-about-this/

Hell will freeze over faster.