The Barbarian

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Gee, they depend on Trump to keep the aid going, and they don't say he tried to force them into a fake investigation. What a surprise. But when Trump was trying to blackmail them, even republicans were alarmed:

The emails show that as early as August, staffers for top Republican lawmakers and their staffers were pressing the White House to explain why military aid to Ukraine was being held up. “I heard today that OMB has put a pause on expending funds authorized for Ukrainian security assistance. Is there someone there that I could talk to to understand why?” Josh Martin, the chief of staff to Rep. Mac Thornberry, wrote in an email to OMB officials on Aug. 22. Thornberry is the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee.

An OMB official in another email said they had received a “similar inquiry” from the office of Inhofe, who is also the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. On Aug. 23, an aide to Portman also sent his own request asking for an explanation.

Also among the released documents is a letter from Republican Rep. Paul Cook to Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s acting chief of staff, on Aug. 23. “We strongly urge you to direct that all the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) funding proceed to execution as planned,” he wrote.

“Actions by the Office of Management and Budget that delay implementation of this critical funding could undermine our clear national security interests and signal the U.S. Government’s lack of commitment to Ukraine and our Eastern European allies,” he warned in the letter.
Republican Lawmakers Questioned Trump’s Withholding of Ukraine Aid, Documents Show

Undermining our national interest is a key element in an impeachable offense.


 
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visionary

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White House budget office acknowledged it was responsible for the delays, saying a policy review was underway. “The President has been consulting with his national security leadership team to determine the best use of Ukraine security assistance funds to achieve US national security interests,” Office of Management and Budget staff wrote in an email to House Appropriations Committee staff aides. Agencies, OMB said, “must wait to obligate them until the policy review process is complete and the President had made a final determination.”AP explains: The delay in US aid to Ukraine
 
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tulc

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“must wait to obligate them until the policy review process is complete and the President had made a final determination. (snip)”
...so they were waiting for the President to decide? :sorry:
tulc(just something he noticed in visionary's link)
 
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The Barbarian

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In 2016, and with the support of other world leaders, Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion of U.S. aid unless Ukraine’s leaders fired the country’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin

Of course, Biden wasn't demanding that the government help out his political campaign. If he had, it would have been a crime, just as Trump's demand is a crime.
 
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The Barbarian

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White House budget office acknowledged it was responsible for the delays, saying a policy review was underway. “The President has been consulting with his national security leadership team to determine the best use of Ukraine security assistance funds to achieve US national security interests,” Office of Management and Budget staff wrote in an email to House Appropriations Committee staff aides. Agencies, OMB said, “must wait to obligate them until the policy review process is complete and the President had made a final determination.”AP explains: The delay in US aid to Ukraine

So all those Trump underlings who testified that it was because Trump wanted to force Zelensky to help him with his desire to get dirt on Biden, are wrong?

The White House Budget office works for Donald Trump. And suddenly, they discover that they were to blame, not Trump. Doesn't seem very likely, does it?

Gordon Sondland also says Secretary of State Mike Pompeo knew about his efforts to pressure Ukrainians. In his prepared statement, Sondland wrote: "Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret."

ADAM SCHIFF: In August, when you worked with Rudy Giuliani and a top Ukrainian aide to draft a public statement for President Zelenskiy to issue that includes the announcement of investigations into Burisma, you understood that was required by President Trump before he would grant the White House meeting to President Zelenskiy?


SONDLAND: That's correct.


SCHIFF: And the Ukrainians understood that as well?


SONDLAND: I believe they did.


SCHIFF: And you informed Secretary Pompeo about that statement as well?


SONDLAND: I did.
Sondland Testimony Lays Out Link Between Trump And Ukraine Aid
 
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visionary

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Of course, Biden wasn't demanding that the government help out his political campaign. If he had, it would have been a crime, just as Trump's demand is a crime.
Excuse me … Biden wasn't committing the right crime, is that what you are saying?
 
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visionary

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Watch Biden Brag About Bribing Ukraine To Fire ...

upload_2020-1-26_1-10-54.jpeg

1:15

Sep 23, 2019 · At the time Biden pushed for the firing of Viktor Shokin, the prosecutor general, Shokin had plans to question Hunter Biden. Watch Biden brag about his role in having the prosecutor fired below: ...
 
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visionary

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Did Joe Biden "stop the prosecution" of his son in Ukraine ...
Did Joe Biden "stop the prosecution" of his son in Ukraine? And did he brag about stopping the prosecution?biden-stop-the-prosecution...
Overall, yes Biden bragged about threatening to withhold aid in order to get a prosecutor fired, but there is no proof that Biden's son was the reason for this coercion. Shokin says that Biden acted based upon Biden's personal interests, but others insist that Biden acted out of general EU, US, and/or IMF interests.

If it wasn't for this impeachment cry, this would be uncovered just how criminal the Bidens are. That is where the real crimes are being committed. Defending the obstruction of justice in this case is reprehensible.
 
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visionary

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The quid-pro-quo is clear as explained by the media in the case of Biden and son, who has zero qualification to give advices in petroleum and technology businesses in return for extraordinary compensation of over 80K per month in one case, and a billion dollar investment from US’ enemy, the Chinese government. Of course politicians are too smart to have bribes paid to them directly.
 
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visionary

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What law or laws did Trump break with regard to his interest in the Ukraine investigating Joe Biden's son? Asking the President of the Ukraine if his country was threatened by Joe Biden, while he was vice-President isn’t illegal, you say. What Joe Biden did, sounds like extortion. “ Fire the prosecutor, and drop the investigation, or you lose a $$$ Billion Dollar aid package “ Then Joe of the Brilliant Mind, bragged that he did that in front of a TV camera.
 
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visionary

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Mykola Zlochevsky is the owner of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas provider. Hunter Biden accepted a position on the board of directors with Burisma in April of 2014. By August of the same year, Vitaly Yurema, prosecutor general of Ukraine at the time, opened an official investigation of Zlochevsky and Burisma. By February 2015, Yurema had been replaced by a man named Viktor Shokin. Only four months later, U.S. ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt allegedly warned Shokin to "handle the Biden investigation with kid gloves."

Shokin didn't listen so good, or maybe Pyatt didn't tell him eight or nine times that he was supposed to clear Burisma and Hunter Biden of any potential wrongdoing. In either event, Joe Biden wasn't happy, because in March of 2016, he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. foreign aid to Ukraine unless Shokin was fired within the next six hours. How do we know this? Why, Joe told us himself.

Biden had the audacity to brag about it during a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations. He boasted, "[I told the Ukrainians,] 'You're not getting the billion. I'm gonna be leaving here in six hours, and if the prosecutor [Shokin] 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."

Who was Shokin's "solid" replacement? Yuriy Lutsenko, who subsequently declared there was "no evidence of wrongdoing" by the Bidens and closed the investigation only ten months after taking over the job. According to Lutsenko, there isn't a law against a company paying a board member more than fifty thousand dollars a month (CNBC claims that it was $83,000 per month) to a man who knew nothing about the energy business, doesn't speak the language, and never even set foot in the country to attend a couple of board meetings in Europe each year.

The evidence is indisputably clear and incontrovertible, in the form of a videotaped confession to an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations. One billion dollars in U.S. aid (quid) was offered on condition (pro) that Shokin, the prosecutor allegedly investigating Burisma, be fired (quo). The replacement clears the case. And you find nothing wrong with this?
 
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Cui bono? Who benefits? Lutsenko gets a plum job. The Ukrainian government gets another billion dollars in U.S. foreign aid. Hunter Biden gets three million bucks for about a week's worth of work spread over five years. Joe Biden gets the benefit of having Hunter's corrupt business deal swept under the rug. Everybody wins...except the U.S. taxpayer, of course.

The American people have been asked to believe that Joe Biden demanded that Shokin be fired because he wasn't aggressively investigating Burisma. We have been told there is nothing wrong or unusual about an American citizen who happens to be the son of a powerful politician being paid millions of dollars by a foreign business with economic and political interests directly related to the United States for essentially a "do-nothing" job. We the people are expected to believe that the actions (and specific threats) of Hunter Biden's influential and politically connected father had nothing at all to do with shutting down the investigation of Burisma.

Frankly, it is ludicrous even to suggest that Joe Biden wanted Burisma investigated more thoroughly, because if that was true, why didn't he complain when Lutsenko shut down the investigation only ten months after Shokin had been fired?

How stupid do the liberal media elitists think we are? Laughably, the legal eagles at the NYU School of Law would have us believe that Biden was on an "anti-corruption" campaign against Ukraine that may have harmed his son's company. Try this thought experiment: change the name of the people involved from "Biden" to "Trump," and simply imagine what the headlines would be if Donald Trump had threatened to withhold foreign aid from Ukraine to keep Eric Trump from being investigated for corruption. Pundits wouldn't just be clamoring for Trump's impeachment; they would probably be calling for his public execution, clamoring to hang him for treason or perhaps even to burn him at the stake.

Yet the media have been working overtime to convince the American public that there was absolutely nothing wrong with Hunter Biden "earning" millions of dollars from a Ukrainian company without even setting foot in Ukraine. Reuters reported that "[Rudy] Giuliani has alleged, without providing evidence, that Joe Biden pushed for the firing of Ukraine's top prosecutor to end an investigation into Burisma and Zlochevsky in order to protect his son." FactCheck.org, Bloomberg, and pretty much all the other lamestream media outlets all reported that there was nothing illegal, wrong, or improper about Hunter Biden getting paid $83,000 per month to do nothing by a foreign company being investigated for corruption that involves the theft of U.S. foreign aid money. Nothing to see here; move along.

Which part of the allegation was not supported by evidence? Joe Biden claimed that he not only pushed for the firing of Shokin, but absolutely insisted upon it and threatened to withhold U.S. foreign aid unless his demands were immediately met. Biden didn't specifically give a reason for why he wanted the prosecutor fired, but is it easier to believe that he was trying to find corruption in the company paying his son millions of dollars to do nothing or that he wanted to protect his son and the income stream produced by that corrupt company? Biden's defenders have claimed that Shokin himself was corrupt and not investigating Burisma, but the fact is that Joe Biden's preferred choice, Yuriy Lutsenko, shut down the investigation and cleared everybody involved without solving the mystery of the missing foreign aid money.
 
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visionary

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Why does Burisma need to be investigated? Deputy assistant secretary of state George Kent just testified in the so-called impeachment hearings that Zlochevsky and Burisma need to be investigated because they had stolen billions of dollars and possibly bribed a prosecutor to shut down the investigation that dated back to the period when Zlochevsky served as minister of ecology and natural resources and gave his own business government licenses and contracts.

Yet, astonishingly, Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of an alleged Ukrainian "Anti-Corruption Action Center," made an extraordinary claim to Radio Free Europe: "ironically, Joe Biden asked Shokin to leave because the prosecutor failed to pursue the Burisma investigation, not because Shokin was tough and active with the case."

Okay, so everybody wants us to believe that Shokin wasn't tough enough or doing the job...but who in his right mind would claim that Lutsenko is any tougher?
 
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visionary

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U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden’s American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts — usually more than $166,000 a month — from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia.

The general prosecutor’s official file for the Burisma probe by senior Ukrainian officials shows prosecutors identified Hunter Biden, business partner Devon Archer and their firm, Rosemont Seneca, as potential recipients of money.
 
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visionary

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Hunter Biden's appointment to the board was widely reported in American media. The U.S. Embassy in Kiev that coordinated Biden's work in the country repeatedly and publicly discussed the general prosecutor's case against Burisma. Great Britain took very public action against Burisma while Joe Biden was working with that government on Ukraine issues. Biden's office was quoted, on the record, acknowledging Hunter Biden's role in Burisma in a New York Times article about the general prosecutor's Burisma case that appeared four months before Biden forced the firing of Shokin. The vice president's office suggested in that article that Hunter Biden was a lawyer free to pursue his own private business deals.

President Obama named Biden the administration’s point man on Ukraine in February 2014, after a popular revolution ousted Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych and as Moscow sent military forces into Ukraine’s Crimea territory. The corruption gets deeper and does need to be investigated.
 
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Mitt Romney's national security adviser in his 2012 campaign, a career CIA spook who rose to its top levels sits on the board of directors of Burisma. And you do not think it is an odd coincidence that Mitt has, as CNN puts it, "been a lone Republican voice expressing concern about President Donald Trump's July phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump asked Ukraine's President to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his family."
 
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