Trump Amb. to EU Sondland reverses himself on Ukraine quid pro quo

Will you "read" them like you "read" the Bueller report? Twisting it to fit your blinders? Or will you awaken and realize TGFT!

Show me where Joe has won the primary already because until then he is nothing more than 1 in a field of like what is it under 20 yet "contenders" and not the Democratic nominee therefore not a political opponent of Trump!

Show everyone where Joe Byeden has won the not yet run primary at this time other wise
YOU HAVE NOTHING

Every day I wake up and realize how great it is to be winning again and my life is happy and joyous.

Can you say the same about yourself?

TGFT THANK GOD FOR TRUMP!!!!!!!!

ORANGE MAN GOOD

Corruption being rooted out peofiles going to jail and America is safe and doing fantastic why be miserable

We are Great Again militarily, economically, socially, and soon to come Financially.

KAG

Show me the lies that have been discovered oh wait this whole thing is bunk because Joe has not won the Primary has he? So all Trump is doing is investigating a politician with a family history of corruption. That is not investigating a political opponent it is investigating a possible criminal who was video taped bragging about the very thing Trump is being accused of.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
a reply to: xuenchen

Funny how that happens when your lies are discovered huh?

Looking forward to all the transcripts taken so far.

Links to where the Ukraine is reversing of did you hear it on CNN?
a reply to: Sillyolme

a reply to: Phage

That extremely late "explanation" out of Biden's camp last month was obviously dubious. I mean come on, Phage, the prosecutor Biden pushed the Ukraine to oust was currently investigating Bidens son and his company's illegal activities in the Ukraine. I get it, you really, really need Biden to be clean here or this latest tomfoolery fails like the Russiagate thing did, and like the porn star lawsuit failed, and like the election night 2016 failed. I get that, but we are on a conspiracy forum here... its humorous to see someone actually trying to pimp the "we were on the side of good" Biden narrative.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: burdman30ott6

The man actually did an honest to God quid pro quo... as in "Either drop the investigation into my son or the US will not give you a billion dollars

Yes, it was a quid pro quo. But it was not "drop the investigation of my son", it was "dump Shokin because he's not doing what you said he was going to do, prosecute corrupt officials." That was our government's, as well as other government's position.

Oh, and it wasn't a matter of "give you a billion dollars." It was a loan guarantee.


But what Trump does is quite different. He didn't really give a crap about any actual investigation, he just wanted Zelinksy to say, in public, that there was an investigation. Into Biden. And it wasn't a loan guarantee.

Huh. Remember when Comey said the Clinton email thing was being reopened?

You have some reading and catching up to do.

NM

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: Phage

That extremely late "explanation" out of Biden's camp last month was obviously dubious. I mean come on, Phage, the prosecutor Biden pushed the Ukraine to oust was currently investigating Bidens son and his company's illegal activities

You are either confused or being less than honest.

There is no "late" explanation "out of Biden's camp"

There is however ACTUAL REAL HISTORY..

The Prosecutor Shokin was NOT investigating the Oligarch that owned Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, Nor was Shokin investigating Burisma and definitely no one was investigating Biden Jr. then.

The Obama/Biden administration WAS pressuring Shokin to Investigate the Oligarch that owned Burisma and the Obama/Biden State Department WAS publicly calling Zlochevsky corrup and demanding Ukraine look into his companies.

Biden actually demanded Shokin be fired for LACK of pursuing oligarchs, including Zlochevsky (Owner of Burisma)

Everything about Shokin before Rudy and crew started a propaganda campaign to use him against Biden is damning.

Any Ukranian over the age of 20 can tell you the same



2015

Shokin’s nominees are closely associated with the old system. At the Prosecutor General’s Office, Yury Hryshchenko managed Volodymyr Shapakin, the so-called “diamond prosecutor” who was arrested earlier this year in a sting operation for bribery with $400,000 dollars of cash in his office and $100,000 of diamonds in his home. First Deputy Prosecutor General Yury Sevruk has stymied reforms in the Prosecutor General’s Office. Reformers believe that making anti-reform individuals like Hryshchenko and Sevruk directly responsible for selecting the most important anti-corruption figure makes the process a mockery.

But it gets even worse. After Jan Tombinski, the European Union’s Ambassador to Ukraine, criticized Shokin’s appointments, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the National Council on Reform urging Shokin to replace his appointees to the selection panel with qualified candidates.

Shokin doubled down, dismissing outside criticism and asserting his right to put whomever he wants on the panel. Shokin followed this up by allegedly threatening to prosecute Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry “for criminal acts intended at undermining the authority of state institutions” in a letter that Ukrainiska Pravda obtained and published. It seems Shokin prefers to use his prosecutorial discretion to threaten the very people seeking to free Ukraine from its endemic graft.

His behavior raises an obvious question: Why doesn’t Poroshenko fire Shokin?

“Poroshenko came of age in a system where the Prosecutor General was used as a weapon against political opponents, and Poroshenko remains determined to maintain control over this critical lever of power,” said Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv, in an interview on November 3.

www.atlanticcouncil.org...

2015
Ukraine: New government, same corruption

Although estimates vary, Donald Bowser, an adviser to Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau, said that "easily over a dozen billion US dollars a year" continue to be stolen from the Ukrainian state through corruption.

He said much of the corruption stems from the prosecutor general's office. "It is the biggest organised crime game in town … just stone-cold gangsters," alleged Bowser.

The prosecutor general himself, Viktor Shokin - who was recently targeted in an assassination attempt - serves at the behest of President Petro Poroshenko. Shokin and the prosecutor general's office "give a legal facade to the corruption schemes", Bowser claimed.

Since he was appointed as prosecutor general by Poroshenko in February, Shokin has not brought any cases of corruption to court involving Yanukovich or his partners. Nor has he prosecuted the hundreds of high-level corruption cases that have been brought to his office by Ukraine's parliamentary committee on preventing and combating corruption.

www.aljazeera.com...

2015 Ukraine: “Automaidan” activists picket Poroshenko’s residence

On Sunday, November 1, the activists of “Automaidan” came under the walls of the house of the president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko demanding the resignation of Attorney General Victor Shokina [suspected of corruption; see report below], reports UNN.

off-guardian.org...

The facts of this story begin in April 2014, when Hunter Biden joined the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company named Burisma Holdings, shortly after his business partner in an investment and consulting firm, Devon Archer, came aboard. Although Biden had no apparent expertise in the field, he had helped Burisma previously as a consultant with expertise in dealing with multinational regulations, and he was employed at a law firm retained by Burisma’s owner, former Ukrainian government official Mykola Zlochevsky.

When Biden joined Burisma’s board, both the company and Zlochevsky were already the subject of intense controversy. Zlochevsky had served as a top official for Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who was forced out of office in early 2014, in part due to concerns over rampant corruption. Zlochevsky was accused of corruption as well, including for steering large government contracts to companies he owned.

One party investigating these allegations was the United Kingdom, because Zlochevsky had $23 million in a British bank account that UK officials believed has been laundered. Britain’s Serious Fraud Office froze that account, and shortly after Yanukovych left office in February 2014, sent a request to Ukrainian officials for documents it believed would help in prove its case. Following this request, the new Ukrainian government began its own investigation into Zlochevsky, looking into whether he embezzled public money.

In the midst of these troubles, Hunter Biden accepted a Burisma board seat, and was paid for his trouble, sometimes as much as $50,000 per month. It is unclear what he did for the company. Burisma said at the time that Biden — a lawyer — would be “in charge of” a legal unit. Biden told the New York Times in May 2019 that this was incorrect: “At no time was I in charge of the company’s legal affairs.”

Though none of this looks great for the Bidens, it is, unfortunately, routine business in Washington to hire the family members of powerful officials in hopes of gaining influence over public policy. For example, President Jimmy Carter’s brother, Billy; President George W. Bush’s brother, Neil; and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s brothers, Tony and Hugh Rodham were all involved in business interests that once drew concern.

Meanwhile, the UK and Ukraine continued to investigate Zlochevsky and other Yanukovych officials, often with the support of the US. But eventually, British investigators began to grow frustrated with what they characterized as a lack of cooperation from their Ukrainian counterparts, saying needed documents weren’t being provided.

The US became increasingly involved in the issue, and by December 2014, had sent a letter warning the new government would be forced to face unpleasant consequences if it didn’t do more to aid the UK. That threat went unheeded, and by 2015, British officials were forced to release the frozen funds, which Zlochevsky immediately moved to Cyprus, according to Bloomberg.

Joe Biden played a role in pushing out Ukraine’s prosecutor general
The part of the story that involves Joe Biden directly centers on the ouster of Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin.

In February 2015, Shokin became Ukraine’s prosecutor general, and promised critics of his country’s anti-corruption efforts at home, in the US, and at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that a clean-up was on the way. And he claimed Burisma was in his sights. (recently)

But Shokin’s deputy, Vitaly Kasko, told Bloomberg that the promise was empty rhetoric. According to Kasko, their office did nothing to pursue its investigation into Zlochevsky throughout 2015, and the office was ineffective at reining in corruption generally, leading him to resign in frustration.

Shokin has disputed Kasko’s narrative, but the manner in which he was running his office also concerned the US ambassador to Ukraine, who said publicly in September 2015 that the office was “subverting” the UK’s investigation.

Concern at the embassy mounted, and by 2016, officials there began suggesting the Obama administration push for the prosecutor general’s ouster. In particular, the embassy suggested that $1 billion in loan guarantees the country hoped to receive from the US in order to stay solvent should be tied to a tougher anti-corruption strategy that involved removing officials seen as blocking progress, namely Shokin.

It wasn’t just the US that wanted Shokin gone, either — many other Western European officials, including the IMF’s then-managing director Christine Lagarde, also insisted Ukraine was doing far too little about corruption.

So in March 2016, Biden says he told the Ukrainian government that their loan guarantees would be cut off unless they removed Shokin.

But though Biden may have taken credit for it, this was hardly his unique idea. “Everyone in the Western community wanted Shokin sacked,” Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told the Wall Street Journal. “The whole G-7, the IMF, the EBRD, everybody was united that Shokin must go, and the spokesman for this was Joe Biden.”

The people of Ukraine wanted Shokin gone as well, and demonstrated for his removal around the time of Biden’s threat. Shortly after that demonstration, Shokin was dismissed.

www.vox.com... plaint

March 29th, 2016

EU hails sacking of Ukraine’s prosecutor Viktor Shokin

Ukraine’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to fire Viktor Shokin, ridding the beleaguered prosecutor’s office of a figure who is accused of blocking major cases against allies and influential figures and stymying moves to root out graft.

..

The EU and United States are demanding as much, amid a political crisis that has paralysed reforms in Ukraine and jeopardised vital funding from international lenders.

www.irishtimes.com...

The IMF? THEY were worried about Joe Biden's son sitting on some board????

Feb 10 2016
IMF warning sparks Ukraine pledge on corruption and reform
Lagarde threat to suspend $40bn aid package elicits swift response from Kiev

The president has come under pressure at home and internationally for refusing to replace a long-time loyalist, Viktor Shokin, as chief prosecutor. Mr Shokin has been criticised for failing to bring to justice any of the snipers who killed dozens of protesters in central Kiev in the final days of the revolution, and for dragging his feet over investigating senior officials and businesspeople.

Taras Kuzio, a Ukrainian political analyst, tweeted that “the crunch is coming for President Poroshenko who has to choose between finally supporting anti-corruption efforts or losing IMF money”.

www.ft.com...

originally posted by: Extorris
The Prosecutor Shokin was NOT investigating the Oligarch that owned Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, Nor was Shokin investigating Burisma and definitely no one was investigating Biden Jr. then.

What? You're either misinformed or disingenuous;y pushing an agenda by making that statement when facts prove it is flat out untruthful.
en.wikipedia.org...

In 2002, he co-founded the largest independent oil and natural gas company Burisma Holdings with Ukrainian businessman Mykola Lisin [uk].[5][6] Through his sole ownership of Cyprus-registered Burisma Holdings, he owns the Ukrainian gas and oil producers Aldea, Pari, Esko-Pivnich, and the First Ukrainian Petroleum Company and the investment group Brociti Investments.

From February 4, 2016...
en.interfax.com.ua...

The movable and immovable property of former Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine Mykola Zlochevsky in Ukraine has been seized, according to the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine (PGO).

The Prosecutor General's Office? Hmmm...
Viktor Shokin

13th Prosecutor General of Ukraine
In office
10 February 2015 – 29 March 2016

Hunter Biden wasn't in play, you say?
www.wsj.com...

A consulting firm hired by Burisma Group mentioned that former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s son served on the Ukrainian gas company’s board so the firm could leverage a meeting with the State Department, according to documents and a former U.S. official.

I happily offer you the chance to reassess your position on this and modify your statements accordingly... or continue to dance disingenuous dances...

Biden actually demanded Shokin be fired for LACK of pursuing oligarchs, including Zlochevsky (Owner of Burisma)

"Do as we demand or you won't get the billion dollars from the US... Hmm, isn't that how we're defining quid pro quo lately?

Hunter Biden is guilty as sin. That is a fact. Anyone on here arguing this fact is clearly partisan.

That is all

All of this thread is hoping to prove where we already know Biden is; a quid pro quo.

Yet the Op of this thread, the dems, and the msm, have no problem with Bidens quid pro quo

Trump:

no admitted quid pro quo, transcript doesnt show one

Ukraine preisdent says there was none

Ukraine had no idea aid was held up, meaning no quid pro quo

no quid was ever given, yet the money went through

And even if there was a quid pro quo, it was to ensure and end corruption, the same excuse that was given as to why Bidens was acceptable


Biden:

admitted quid pro quo

actually did hold up money until they received the quid

forced the firing of a prosecutor looking into his sons company



The dems and media say one of these is a crime and needs to be investigated, and the other is not only totally illegitimate and doesnt need to be investigated, but looking into it is a crime.

See if you can guess which is which.

Folks have been arguing here for over a month that Trump didn’t offer a quid pro quo to Zelensky, and if he did, it was perfectly legal.

I have said several times I agree with the latter. A President has wide latitude in dealing with foreign powers. I’m also on the record as stating that I thought this was the dumbest thing the Dems could have tried to hang impeachment on.

However ...

If it wasn’t illegal for Trump to withhold military aid, it wasn’t illegal for Obama to withhold loan guarantees.

Joe Biden had no power to do anything beyond representing the President’s wishes in foreign policy.

If the quid pro quo in 2015 was illegal (it wasn’t) then Obama should be investigated.

Where are the advocates for that? Why attack Joe Biden who had no power to do anything in this regard?

a reply to: Gryphon66

I guess I see a distinct difference between paying a country to get them to stop investigating the son of a political ally and paying a country to get them to reopen a prior criminal investigation into an American political rival who previously paid to silence it. The first one is clearly a pay to play effort to conceal crimes while the second is really little different than any other international criminal investigation effort. Usually the USA ends up paying some manner of money or aid to any country that cooperates with us when we're trying to bring filth to justice.

originally posted by: Extorris

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: Phage

That extremely late "explanation" out of Biden's camp last month was obviously dubious. I mean come on, Phage, the prosecutor Biden pushed the Ukraine to oust was currently investigating Bidens son and his company's illegal activities

You are either confused or being less than honest.

There is no "late" explanation "out of Biden's camp"

There is however ACTUAL REAL HISTORY..

The Prosecutor Shokin was NOT investigating the Oligarch that owned Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, Nor was Shokin investigating Burisma and definitely no one was investigating Biden Jr. then.

The Obama/Biden administration WAS pressuring Shokin to Investigate the Oligarch that owned Burisma and the Obama/Biden State Department WAS publicly calling Zlochevsky corrup and demanding Ukraine look into his companies.

Biden actually demanded Shokin be fired for LACK of pursuing oligarchs, including Zlochevsky (Owner of Burisma)

Everything about Shokin before Rudy and crew started a propaganda campaign to use him against Biden is damning.

Any Ukranian over the age of 20 can tell you the same

2015

Shokin’s nominees are closely associated with the old system. At the Prosecutor General’s Office, Yury Hryshchenko managed Volodymyr Shapakin, the so-called “diamond prosecutor” who was arrested earlier this year in a sting operation for bribery with $400,000 dollars of cash in his office and $100,000 of diamonds in his home. First Deputy Prosecutor General Yury Sevruk has stymied reforms in the Prosecutor General’s Office. Reformers believe that making anti-reform individuals like Hryshchenko and Sevruk directly responsible for selecting the most important anti-corruption figure makes the process a mockery.

But it gets even worse. After Jan Tombinski, the European Union’s Ambassador to Ukraine, criticized Shokin’s appointments, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the National Council on Reform urging Shokin to replace his appointees to the selection panel with qualified candidates.

Shokin doubled down, dismissing outside criticism and asserting his right to put whomever he wants on the panel. Shokin followed this up by allegedly threatening to prosecute Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry “for criminal acts intended at undermining the authority of state institutions” in a letter that Ukrainiska Pravda obtained and published. It seems Shokin prefers to use his prosecutorial discretion to threaten the very people seeking to free Ukraine from its endemic graft.

His behavior raises an obvious question: Why doesn’t Poroshenko fire Shokin?

“Poroshenko came of age in a system where the Prosecutor General was used as a weapon against political opponents, and Poroshenko remains determined to maintain control over this critical lever of power,” said Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv, in an interview on November 3.

www.atlanticcouncil.org...

2015
Ukraine: New government, same corruption

Although estimates vary, Donald Bowser, an adviser to Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau, said that "easily over a dozen billion US dollars a year" continue to be stolen from the Ukrainian state through corruption.

He said much of the corruption stems from the prosecutor general's office. "It is the biggest organised crime game in town … just stone-cold gangsters," alleged Bowser.

The prosecutor general himself, Viktor Shokin - who was recently targeted in an assassination attempt - serves at the behest of President Petro Poroshenko. Shokin and the prosecutor general's office "give a legal facade to the corruption schemes", Bowser claimed.

Since he was appointed as prosecutor general by Poroshenko in February, Shokin has not brought any cases of corruption to court involving Yanukovich or his partners. Nor has he prosecuted the hundreds of high-level corruption cases that have been brought to his office by Ukraine's parliamentary committee on preventing and combating corruption.

www.aljazeera.com...

2015 Ukraine: “Automaidan” activists picket Poroshenko’s residence

On Sunday, November 1, the activists of “Automaidan” came under the walls of the house of the president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko demanding the resignation of Attorney General Victor Shokina [suspected of corruption; see report below], reports UNN.

off-guardian.org...

Stop peddling the Atlantic Council as a source. I've proven that they receive money from Burisma, the very company Shokin was investigating.

ETA: In case you missed it before. Just scroll down to the $100,000 – $249,999 range.

a reply to: Gryphon66

As I said earlier, quid pro quos are common and not illegal.

However, they can be

Like hiring a contractor is not illegal, but hiring one to kill somoene is.

both, neither, or just one of these quid pro quos could be illegal.

My point is using a QPQ to investigate possible corruption of a previous admin seems more legit than using one to force the firing of a prosecutor (who happned to be looking at that admmins vp's sons business)

Yet somehow the media and the dems think the latter was fine, and the former is a crime.

In other words, investigating possible corruption from dems is itself a crime, which is ludicrous.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Can you support your assertion that Obama paid the Ukraine to stop an investigation of Hunter Biden? Please don't offer Shokin's claim three years later as that has been firmly discredited by multiple sources.

originally posted by: Gryphon66
a reply to: burdman30ott6

Can you support your assertion that Obama paid the Ukraine to stop an investigation of Hunter Biden? Please don't offer Shokin's claim three years later as that has been firmly discredited by multiple sources.

One, a binch of msm putlets saying Obama and soros allies said shokin was corrupt is not disproving shokins claims.

and bunch of dems and republicans said comey should be fired, yet you still cheered an investigation of Trump that was started as a result of him firing comey.

And secondly, any time an executive branch witholds large amounts of tax payer money to fore the firing of a prosecutor looking into to someone in tht admins families business, their ought to be an investigation. Period.

a reply to: Gryphon66

www.abovetopsecret.com...

So it seems that the pegging of the loan backing to the removal of Shokin isn't in question. I'll not rehash that, as most people on both sides accept that it occurred. My post I linked to above lays out the timeline of events and is enough evidence to indicate that the Biden family benifitted greatly from Shokin's removal. Let's say it was the other way around, though, and Biden was seeking prosecution of Zlochevsky rather than trying to block that prosecution of him... Isn't there still the simple fact that the VP of the USA just saw the founder of the company his son sits on the board for removed from that company by an international law enforcement action? Either way, do you not see a significant problem with that?

originally posted by: Grambler
One, a binch of msm putlets saying Obama and soros allies said shokin was corrupt is not disproving shokins claims.

and bunch of dems and republicans said comey should be fired, yet you still cheered an investigation of Trump that was started as a result of him firing comey.

Good God, man! You're actually playing 4D chess with that one.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

So no direct proof for your claim then just a link to a dialogue here?

That squares with the evidence. There was no investigation of Hunter Biden. There was an effort on the parts of multiple groups worldwide to have Ukraine oust Shokin, and there is no evidence that Obama "paid anyone" to do anything aside from remove a figure (Shokin) for multiple counts of corruption that most of the western world agreed needed to be removed from power.

Thanks Burdman.: