The world sometimes seems to have too few heroes. America has one. He is a minor official in Ukraine.
Between the infamous telephone conversation between two presidents, and the congressional investigation into that conversation, Ukraine had two months to get dirt on Joe Biden. Why did they not even begin?
I know there are more polite ways to put this, but speaking plainly, my president called the head of another country and, while talking about maybe, perhaps, who knows, helping them to survive attacks by Russia, pressured them to manufacture dirt on his main political opponent.
I would like you to do us a favor though.
Congress had authorized $400 million in aid to Ukraine to help them in their struggle to maintain independence from Russia. Putin’s puppet ruler of Ukraine had been overthrown in a popular revolt just a few years ago, and Putin had annexed part of Ukraine shortly after.
Trump ordered those funds held up until he could talk with the newly elected leader of Ukraine. Ukrainian officials were made to understand why the vital assistance was being held up. Donald Trump wanted an investigation into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Years back, Hunter had worked for a company doing business in Ukraine.
So why was there no investigation into Biden?
To be fair, President Trump had more benign explanations about the call. Ukraine was corrupt, and he saw no reason to provide funding to a country that would simply waste it in criminal ways.
We want to make sure that country is honest. It’s very important to talk about corruption. If you don’t talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?
And the European Union was not contributing enough to Ukraine. The United States should not carry the burden alone.
My complaint has always been, and I’d withhold again and I’ll continue to withhold until such time that Europe and other nations contribute to Ukraine. Because they’re not doing it. It’s the United States, we’re putting up the bulk of the money. And I’m asking why is that.
Indeed, corruption was a topic in the telephone conversation between President Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. From the transcript, as President Trump speaks:
I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved.
It seems more than a little ironic that President Trump’s concern with corruption did not tamp down his enthusiasm when President Zelensky happened to mention this:
I would like to tell you that I also have quite a few Ukrainian friends that live in the United States. Actually last time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park and I stayed at the Trump Tower. I will talk to them and I hope to see them again in the future.
For those who might not catch it, money spent at Trump properties flows into the pockets of Donald J. Trump.
President Trump was also correct in that the amount contributed by Ukraine also came up during the call. From the transcript as President Trump speaks:
We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time. Much more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping you more than they are. Germany does almost nothing for you. All they do is talk.
It does strike me as an odd juxtaposition of arguments. My president sees no reason to contribute to the defense of a corrupt country, when those funds would just be wasted in bribes to, and theft by, corrupt officials. But he demands the European Union contribute more, much more, to the bank accounts of those same corrupt officials.
But perhaps Ukraine hasn’t done enough in return.
I wouldn’t say that it’s reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine.
Not reciprocal. Got it.
So why was there no dirt produced on Biden?
Actually, Europe has contributed more than 16 billion in grants and loans to Ukraine in the last 5 years, about twice as much as the United States. Germany, about one fourth the size of the US has nearly matched the United States in support of Ukraine. That translates into about 4 times the proportionate funding.
President Zelensky did try to stay away from direct monetary amounts in looking for ways to agree the American president. He tried to stick with sanctions and defense, where Ukraine does need to lean on the good will of the United States government. So that is where he tried to compliment our president on how much the United States has done.
Much more than the European Union especially when we are talking about sanctions against the Russian Federation. I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense.
And to request military hardware.
We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.
And that is where we go from vague references to a lack of reciprocity…
I wouldn’t say that it’s reciprocal necessarily…
… and to specific ways to make the relationship reciprocal, as President Trump prepares to elaborate:
I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.
He wanted Ukraine to launch into an investigation, and he expected that investigation to produce results.
That was in July. So why was there no investigation between then and now?
RT is the propaganda arm of Russia. They have been pushing a number of conspiracy theories about the Biden family. This one caught the attention of President Trump. It seems Joe Biden pressured the Ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor. And they did. RT, the media company run by Russia takes on the conspiracy:
Well, it just so happens that the general prosecutor was investigating an energy firm in which Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden was heavily invested.
And the Vice President used his position to stop the investigation.
…especially in the aftermath of the 2014 events in Ukraine in which pro EU forces took power. That prosecutor was looking into three different instances of foul play from Hunters cash-cow. However, all it took was a phone call from Papa Joe and that prosecutor was out.
I like the official Russian reference to the popular uprising overthrowing the Putin puppet who had been ruling the country:
…the 2014 events in Ukraine in which pro EU forces took power.
Pro-European Union forces.
In fact, there should have been investigations into questionable activities that had happened years before Hunter Biden was hired. But the investigation had been all but closed down by a corrupt prosecutor. Any corruption on Biden’s part would have involved time travel.
Here is how former top Ukrainian prosecutor Yuri Lutsenko put it while talking to the Washington Post:
From the perspective of Ukrainian legislation, he did not violate anything.
Hunter Biden cannot be responsible for violations of the management of Burisma that took place two years before his arrival.
It might seem an unsound strategy to a casual observer, which is to say me, for Joe Biden to get a corrupt prosecutor fired if that prosecutor had been holding up an investigation into Biden’s son.
…all it took was a phone call from Papa Joe and that prosecutor was out.
Actual news reporting pretty much disproved the Russian propaganda, even before Donald Trump swallowed it. Michael McFaul was US Ambassador to Russia through 2014. He talks about why Joe Biden had been instructed to deliver a message to Ukraine.
The person that he was talking about, that needed to be removed, was not investigating corruption. That’s why the United States government wanted him removed. That’s why other western European leaders wanted him removed. That’s why the IMF wanted him to be removed.
So any investigation, any dirt, would have been bogus. Even so, why did the investigation never happen? Why did the dirt never get produced?
An investigation would have been initiated by Ukraine’s Ministry of the Interior. They could not just say no, when the defense of their country was in danger. So Deputy Minister Anton Geraschenko put out a simple statement calculated to put fear into the heart even of the dimmest corrupt bureaucrat, even a President.
“As soon as there is an official request,” Ukraine will look into the matter, but “currently there is no open investigation,” Anton Geraschenko told the Daily Beast.
Putting it in writing was too much, even for a corrupt President. And so, the Ukrainian investigation that was supposed to manufacture dirt on Joe Biden ended before it began.
All that was left was the summary of the phone conversation, and an investigation in an unexpected direction.
In all this mess, we do have a hero, the Deputy Minister of the Interior for the Ukrainian Republic.
Anton Geraschenko.
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