Joe Biden is not being prosecuted

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DIY-HP-LED

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GOP tries to connect dots on Biden and Ukraine, but comes up short

Dec. 4, 2019 at 4:00 a.m. AST
“Did you know that Joe Biden called Ukrainian President Poroshenko at least three times in February 2016 after the president and owner of Burisma’s home was raided on February 2nd by the state prosecutor’s office?”
— Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, in a question directed at witnesses at the impeachment inquiry, Nov. 19, 2019
“It is my understanding that on February 4, 2016, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office, under the direction of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, announced the seizure of property from the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings’ founder, Mykola Zlochevsky. The seizure occurred pursuant to a raid on Mr. Zlochevsky’s home on February 2, 2016.”

— letter from Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Nov. 21, 2019

President Trump has falsely claimed that then-Vice President Joe Biden pressured the Ukrainian government to fire Shokin, the top Ukrainian prosecutor, because he was investigating Ukraine’s largest private gas company, Burisma, at a time when Hunter Biden was on the Burisma board. In fact, the opposite is true — Joe Biden was carrying out administration policy, coordinated with European allies, to press for the removal of Shokin because he was not investigating corruption.
These facts have not stopped Trump’s Republican defenders from trying to prove Trump correct. In recent weeks, senior lawmakers have suggested that there was a nefarious connection between a “raid” in February 2016 on the home of the founder of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, and calls that Biden made at the time with Ukraine’s president at the time, Petro Poroshenko.

Graham has made this alleged connection the start of an investigation he has launched into Biden and his son, demanding records and transcripts of Biden’s calls to Ukraine that month.

The Fact Checker was suspicious of these claims because it had been our understanding that the investigation of Zlochevsky was largely dormant at the time of Biden’s diplomacy. Indeed, the U.S. ambassador at the time had singled out mismanagement of the Zlochevsky case as an example of Ukraine’s failing to hold corrupt officials to account.
Working with our colleagues Michael Birnbaum and David L. Stern, who discussed the case with sources while reporting in Kyiv, we’ve determined that this alleged connection is based on a misunderstanding of what took place in the Ukrainian courts.
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