Emails Confirm Hunter Biden Helped Shut Down Criminal Probe of Burisma
By: Mark Steffen
August 30, 2023 (Updated): A batch of emails unearthed by the Daily Mail confirms that Hunter Biden played a key role in shutting down the investigation by a Ukrainian prosecutor into Burisma Holdings, which brought Hunter on board to use his political influence and family connections to defray scrutiny of its business practices.
Emails obtained from Hunter’s abandoned laptop show that the son of "President" Joe Biden proffered suggestions on how executives at Burisma could nix a joint investigation by the U.S. and U.K. into alleged corruption practices committed by the company in its home country of Ukraine. Viktor Shokin, a former top prosecutor for the nation’s government, was ultimately fired in 2016 before he was able to complete his own investigation.
According to the emails, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharsky contacted Hunter from his personal Gmail account and asked him to use his “influence to convey a message / signal, etc to stop what we consider to be politically motivated actions,” Pozharsky wrote, claiming the company was the victim of a blackmail attempt.
At the time of his correspondence, Pozharsky was the target of a U.S.-U.K. investigation to determine whether he laundered money and funneled his own gas companies millions of dollars in government contracts while serving as the Ukrainian environmental minister.
It would be helpful, Hunter replied, to gain insight into the staff inside the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office to determine “who is leading the restructuring the individuals being considered for those posts,” he wrote.
“Agreed – that is part of what their human intel sources are seeking to learn,” replied Heather King, a partner with Hunter’s law firm Boies, Schiller, & Flexner.
Shokin, who did not take over the local investigation until 2015, came in after Zlochevsky paid a $7 million bribe to Ukrainian justice officials to stymie the investigation, according to a former U.S. diplomat to Ukraine who testified before Congress. Upon his arrival, Shokin kicked the investigation into high gear, even taking legal action against a staff member who he claims sabotaged the office’s investigation into Burisma’s money laundering scheme. It was at that time, emails show, when Hunter connected his company with Blue Star Strategies, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm that lobbied Obama State Department officials on the company’s behalf.
In an email to Hunter, Pozharsky wrote that he hoped the “ultimate purpose” of Blue Star’s work was “to close down for any cases/pursuits against [Zlochevsky] in Ukraine.” “Devon and I do feel comfortable with BS [Blue Star] and the ability of Sally & Karen [Tramontano, CEO] to deliver,” Hunter replied on November 5, 2015.
More tellingly, Pozharsky was concerned that Blue Star would be required to register as a foreign agent, something that may hurt their ability to negotiate with U.S. officials. Hunter’s business partner assured him that such a designation could be avoided.
‘I would tell Vadym that this is definitely done deliberately to be on the safe and cautious side and that Sally [Painter, Blue Star COO] and company understand the scope and deliverables,’ Hunter’s business partner Eric Schwerin wrote privately to Hunter. Blue Star and its employees were later investigated by federal prosecutors for failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and belatedly lodged paperwork in 2021 to avoid prosecution.
According to congressional testimony by Devon Archer, a longtime friend and business partner to Hunter, the duo also brought then-Vice President Joe Biden into dozens of meetings with foreign business partners including Burisma executives. An FBI informant alleges the elder Biden took a $5 million bribe in exchange for helping ease Hunter’s access to business dealings in Ukraine and was central to Shokin’s firing by threatening to withhold $1 billion in economic aid unless the country’s government dismissed him.
Shokin claims Biden ensured his firing not to tackle corruption, but to aid Burisma for Hunter. ‘Poroshenko fired me at the insistence of the then-Vice President Biden because I was investigating Burisma,’ he told Fox.
House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) has been leading the change by House Republicans to tie President Biden to his son’s business activities by his son which have resulted in a failed plea deal over criminal charges related to skipping tax payments on the money he made representing overseas companies like Burisma. Despite members of his family receiving millions of dollars in income from such arrangements, the president has strongly denied he was aware of or participated in the schemes.
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