Ukraine Gate...Impeachment thread 2

[_Markk]

Well, you’ve lied about Joe being ‘in charge’ of 2 billion, which is a total at odds with the clip you posted yourself. Not to mention that you still characterize Joe as ‘in charge’ of it in the first place, when you know that Joe was just the messenger for the consensus of Western leadership. Joe certainly didn’t authorize aid in the first place, and any action to inhibit or stop the flow of aid would stop the flow of money misappropriated out to any source.

Well focus...I wrote he was charged with handling the aid going to the Ukraine, China, and other countries. The aid alone was over 2 billion

The facts of this...from Joe's memoir...

"When Vladimir Putin began a campaign to destabilize Ukraine, the president assigned me Ukraine...".

Biden, Joe. Promise Me, Dad (p. 74). Flatiron Books. Kindle Edition.

Joe was assigned or charged with the task of being point man to the Ukraine...this is indisputable.

I was the point man for our administration on the crisis, which was exactly where I wanted to be. There were academics in the news saying Ukraine was bound to be a defeat for the West, and it would be an unwelcome albatross on my neck if I ran for president in 2016.

Biden, Joe. Promise Me, Dad (p. 99). Flatiron Books. Kindle Edition.

There are numerous newspaper article and different blogs...etc, that discuss what we are discussing, and they often disagree on who is guilty of what and what is evidence. But a common agreement is that Joe was the point man for our country in the Ukraine. You can cut and paste the quote for full context if you like.


AXIOS

"True: Joe Biden was the Obama administration's point man on Ukraine while his son was working for Burisma, visiting the country several times from 2014 to 2016."

NPR...
"Obama made then-Vice President Biden the point man, and he became a frequent visitor to Ukraine. By his own count, Biden says he went there about a dozen times from early 2014 through early 2016."

New York magazine...

"When Joe Biden was America’s point man for Ukraine policy, an allegedly corrupt Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, started paying his son Hunter $50,000 a month to sit on its board. By Hunter’s own account — and that of another board member — Hunter would never have been offered this lucrative gig had he not been the son of the U.S. vice-president."

Mercury News

"None of this excuses Trump’s delaying a new round of lethal military aid to Ukraine. But if this military assistance was as vital to countering the Russian threat as Biden says, then it’s fair to ask: Why didn’t the United States provide it when Biden was the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine?

These are the first few hits on a google search of on him being the point man.

That said, and please focus again...if you want to push as to whether or not Joe was "in charge," as you wrote...then here is Joe's own words,in his quid pro quo. He certainly seem to think he is in charge

JOE BIDEN, 23 JANUARY 2018: And that is I’m desperately concerned about the backsliding on the part of Kiev in terms of corruption. They made—I mean, I’ll give you one concrete example. I was—not I, but it just happened to be that was the assignment I got. I got all the good ones. And so I got Ukraine. And I remember going over, convincing our team, our leaders to—convincing that we should be providing for loan guarantees. And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kiev. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t.

So they said they had—they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to—or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said—I said, call him.

(Laughter.)

I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time

I never remotely said he authorized aid in the first place, that is up to congress to approve.

Your argument is just another straw-man to avoid the facts...but carry on

[_canpakes]

Markk - it’s good to see you scale back your earlier assertion a bit, but being the ‘point man’ on messaging is still not the same as being “in charge of” disbursing aid. You know this because it is acknowledged that the potential withholding of aid was an Administration decision, not strictly Biden’s. Your own sources state as much.

So, yes - saying that Joe was “in charge of” the aid is a lie, and you’ve repeated it many times across two threads.

[_canpakes]

You haven’t told me why your soviet-aligned sources should be trusted over the vast majority of Western opinion:

“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.”

[_Markk]

Markk - it’s good to see you scale back your earlier assertion a bit, but being the ‘point man’ on messaging is still not the same as being “in charge of” disbursing aid. You know this because it is acknowledged that the potential withholding of aid was an Administration decision, not strictly Biden’s. Your own sources state as much.

So, yes - saying that Joe was “in charge of” the aid is a lie, and you’ve repeated it many times across two threads.

LOL...

Is that all you got? You seem to forget that a month ago I pasted this, which is beginning of my context to your current straw-man...which is all you got.


*Joe biden elected Vice President 2008, he would later be given the point under the Obama administration to investigate corruption and take a lead in distributing Billions of dollars in aid, in both monies and loans to the Ukraine.

viewtopic.php?p=1216185#p1216185

This is what Joe said...you ducked this part of my last post.

I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a ____. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time

Your straw-man so so weak and stupid...but if it's all you got I understand.

[_Markk]

You haven’t told me why your soviet-aligned sources should be trusted over the vast majority of Western opinion:

“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.”

LOL ...You do understand that EBRD has a deep history with Russia? Correct...?

"Everyone" is a huge commitment...what do we do with those that supported him that I have linked you to?

You pasted this, please expound on it....

[_canpakes]

You haven’t told me why your soviet-aligned sources should be trusted over the vast majority of Western opinion:

“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.”

LOL ...You do understand that EBRD has a deep history with Russia? Correct...?

"Everyone" is a huge commitment...what do we do with those that supported him that I have linked you to?

You pasted this, please expound on it....

Oh, look. You picked the one obscure entity out of that pile and are complaining about its “history with Russia”, as you ignore the other folks named in that same post, and as you yourself quote Russian-aligned sources.

You don’t seem to be able to answer this question, either. That’s not surprising.

The European Union has welcomed the dismissal of Ukraine’s scandal-ridden prosecutor general and called for a crackdown on corruption, even as the country’s political crisis deepened over efforts to form a new ruling coalition and appoint a new prime minister.

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.

“This decision creates an opportunity to make a fresh start in the prosecutor general’s office. I hope that the new prosecutor general will ensure that [his] office . . . becomes independent from political influence and pressure and enjoys public trust,” said Jan Tombinski, the EU’s envoy to Ukraine.

“There is still a lack of tangible results of investigations into serious cases . . . as well as investigations of high-level officials within the prosecutor general’s office,” he added.

Mr Tombinski said the EU was also concerned about the resignation or dismissal of several “reform-oriented” prosecutors and reports that Mr Shokin’s office was investigating a “highly-respected” anti-corruption group – an obvious reference to Kiev’s Anti-Corruption Action Centre, which had fiercely criticised Mr Shokin.

In what appeared to be his last act before dismissal, Mr Shokin sacked his deputy, Davit Sakvarelidze, who had repeatedly called for his boss to be fired.

You have no explanation as to why your soviet-aligned sources should be trusted over the vast majority of Western opinion..?

[_canpakes]

This is what Joe said...you ducked this part of my last post.

I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a ____. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time

Yeah, nothing was ducked there. This is just another example that being the messenger is not the same as being the person “in charge of” aid disbursement.

Perhaps you want to call up Obama and ask him if the decision was strictly Joe’s. I don’t think that would work out well for you given that the same sources you’ve provided have Joe clearly saying that Obama could be called and the message would be the same. Why do you think that would be the case? ; )

So, yep - every time you claim that Biden was “in charge of” the aid disbursement, you’re just willingly choosing to repeat the same stupid lie.

Why be that guy?

[_honorentheos]

You haven’t told me why your soviet-aligned sources should be trusted over the vast majority of Western opinion:

“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.”

LOL ...You do understand that EBRD has a deep history with Russia? Correct...?

"Everyone" is a huge commitment...what do we do with those that supported him that I have linked you to?

You pasted this, please expound on it....

I watched some of your videos. They are edited pretty misleadingly. For example they show a clip of the US ambassador complaining of activities conducted by the PG office at a time Shokin was involved but insert it in a discussion of when Lutshenko was PG. Then turn around and discuss the PG office with anri-corruption groups in 2017 complaining of historic problems in the PG office but casting that as only being said about Lutshenko. The object when they did so was to try and show Biden supported inserting a corrupt PG to protect Burisma and Zlochevsky. It takes these comments about long term, wide spread issues of corruption in the PG and reframes them as applying to post-Shokin.

It also includes a table showing Shokin increasing cases filed, but never refuted the fact he never brought a successful case against major corrupt players. He was busted using the PG office to elicit bribes by filing charges and then stopping investigations as leverage over people.


‘Cache of diamonds’: Trump-Biden impeachment fight originates with corrupt chauffeur
by Joel Gehrke
| November 14, 2019 12:01 AM
Sixty-five diamonds and a shady chauffeur underpin the investigation that doomed former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin and grew into an impeachment investigation targeting President Trump.

Shokin earned the enmity of the United States government through his loyalty to a chauffeur who was caught with a "cache of diamonds" after Shokin gave him a job as a local prosecutor, a key impeachment witness told lawmakers. The ex-driver, Oleksandr Korniyets, abused his position to force wealthy businessmen to give him money in order to avoid criminal charges, George Kent, one of the State Department’s top officials for Europe, testified. Korniyets' misdeeds came to light after reformist investigators raided his apartment and found dozens of diamonds, along with cash and other valuables. But despite public uproar, Kent said, Shokin tried to shield him.

“Shokin went to war,” Kent told lawmakers during his Oct. 15 deposition. “It was absolute warfare protecting his associate, and he destroyed the inspector general unit that we'd been standing up.”

Kent’s testimony gives the context for Joe Biden’s demand that Ukrainian leaders fire Shokin following the “diamond prosecutor” scandal, as the case came to be known. The controversy put Shokin on the wrong side of the first investigation launched by the watchdog who had partnered with U.S. officials to reform the prosecutor’s office.

“The first case turned out to have been the former driver of Shokin, who — he made his driver a prosecutor,” said Kent, the deputy chief of mission in Ukraine from 2016 to 2018.

Korniyets, the chauffeur-turned-prosecutor, was implicated in the summer of 2015, when a Ukrainian businessman told the new inspector general that he was “being shaken down” by Shokin’s cronies, Kent explained. This complaint turned into a “test case” for the reform efforts, as the inspector general launched an investigation of Korniyets' activities.

“One of the things they confiscated from his former driver was a cache of diamonds,” Kent said.

The 65 diamonds in Korniyets' apartment had been seized from a jewelry factory in a previous shakedown, according to the factory owner. The aggrieved businessman complained that Korniyets had opened a case against him that “would be closed in exchange for 'forgetting' the money and gold stolen during the search,” according to Deputy Prosecutor General David Sakvarelidze, who was ousted by Shokin after he called for his boss’s resignation. The jewelry factory owner was shot dead in his car in Kyiv in March.

Korniyets was released on bail, while Shokin retaliated against the officials involved in the case. “He wanted to destroy anybody connected with that effort,” Kent testified. “He eventually managed to force out everybody associated with that, including the deputy head of the security service, the intel service, who had provided the wiretapping coverage.”

Shokin’s aggressive defense of his ex-driver was evidence for U.S. officials and reform-minded Ukrainians that he was a profiteer. As a result, Geoffrey Pyatt, then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, asked Biden to demand that then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko fire Shokin.

Poroshenko's reluctance hurt U.S. interests because the U.S. was using loan guarantees to encourage Western banks to invest in Ukraine, putting American taxpayers on the hook if Shokin or other prosecutors stole the money.

“Shokin's removal then became a condition for the loan guarantee,” Kent testified. “To the best of my knowledge, the idea came from Ambassador Pyatt ... and then was pitched to the Office of the Vice President.”

Rudy Giuliani seized on Biden’s role in Shokin’s ouster to accuse the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate of corruption. Giuliani argued that Biden targeted Shokin at a time when the prosecutor general was investigating an oligarch who owned a company that hired Hunter Biden, the vice president’s son.

But Shokin did not not investigate the oligarch.

Kent, while explaining the State Department “spent roughly half a million dollars” building the case against the oligarch, told lawmakers that he confronted another of Shokin’s deputies personally over the case.

“We spent months and hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to help your country get your stolen assets back, and somebody in your office took a bribe and shut a case, and we're angry,” Kent recalled telling the Ukrainian official.

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[_Markk]

How many things in the videos are positive and support my position Honor? If you truly watched the videos you can certainly see the two sides of the issue, which you know well is one of my talking points of enough for an investigation.

Again, you are not thinking through what you are taking sides against.

If Shokin was protecting Korniyets (which he may have, who knows, the Jeweler was murdered), and as you also claim did not go after Burisma/Zlochevsky (dormant)...then it shows a pattern of protecting Criminals, including Zlochevsky, whom Hunter helped Exonerate.

You are married to this Honor. You can't erase the fact that Hunter worked for a "very corrupt player" that you are claiming Shokin was protecting? Whether Joe intentionally helped Hunter, or innocently...he did protect him by demanding the firing of Shokin and the Ukraine putting in a GP that he approved that would help exonerate, with the help of Hunter, and stop the investigations against Zlochevsky/Burisma...who we know is maybe the second worse oligarch in recent Ukrainian history.


The story you pasted is flawed...and leading. It is partisan.

Korniyets was not just a chauffeur, he was and may still be an attorney...that should have been at the least mentioned. The story also reads..." But Shokin did not not investigate the oligarch." That is just false...this is from a previous post of mine to you;



June 15th, 2015....Shokin opened up a case against Zlochevsky/Burisma for his issuing special permits, as the Minister of Ecology...to Burisma

June 25th, 2015...Shokin instituted an investigation to root out Zlochevsky's confederates that were in the GP office who helped in him getting the 23 million un-froze (with help with Blue star and John Buretta, whom Hunter recruited)

July 10th, 2015...In a press statement released by the GP office after a meeting with Pyatt, informed him the progress of the investigation against Zlochevsky/Burisma. And the GP's cooperation and intensification with the UK on this.

July 31st, 2015...Shokin office seized one of Zlochevsky's estates

October 19th, 2015...Shokin released a press release complining about the UK judge releasing the freeze of th e23 million dollars of Zlochevsky. He also announced a joint investigation with the UK to look into the judges decision. The
EUROJUST (European Union Cooperation Unit) would be part of a meeting to discuss this, including Cypress, which is where Burisma is registered.

Dec 1st, 2015...After an internal investigation,te GP office filed a law suit against Andrei Kravets, the GP employee's that signed a letter that allowed the UK to release the 23 million. (Note; at this time Zlochevsky was a fugitive running from Shokin's department)

Dec 15th, 2015...a special anti corruption prosecutor was tasked with taking the lead of Gas Licensing case by Zlochevsky, among them, to his own company Burisma.


Dec 21st, 2015...attempts by the anti corruption unit were started to un-block Zlochevsky's accounts for investigation

Feb 4th, 2016... Less that two months before he was fired becasue of Biden...Under a Shokin's (GP office) petition, a Justice ordered All of Zlochevsky's property seized. A press release was given for this milestone the same day.

They are edited pretty misleadingly. For example they show a clip of the US ambassador complaining of activities conducted by the PG office at a time Shokin was involved but insert it in a discussion of when Lutshenko was PG. Then turn around and discuss the PG office with anri-corruption groups in 2017 complaining of historic problems in the PG office but casting that as only being said about Lutshenko. The object when they did so was to try and show Biden supported inserting a corrupt PG to protect Burisma and Zlochevsky. It takes these comments about long term, wide spread issues of corruption in the PG and reframes them as applying to post-Shokin.

Which video...2 ? I'll look at it. If you don't know it may take me time to find it.

But we do know as fact, that the GP that Biden approved, Lutshenko, did time for corruption, but was later pardoned by
Yanukovych, who he later prosecuted for treason, and tied to Manafort. But He was also the GP that announced Zlochevsky/Burisma innocent 10 months after Sokin was fired. And that Zlochevsky is now a wanted man in the Ukraine.

The more we dig in Honor, the more we see there is more than enough evidence to warrant an investigation. It is a vicious cycle of corruption.

[_Markk]

Oh, look. You picked the one obscure entity out of that pile and are complaining about its “history with Russia”, as you ignore the other folks named in that same post, and as you yourself quote Russian-aligned sources.

You don’t seem to be able to answer this question, either. That’s not surprising.

LOL, no, I picked out one of three that you claimed were "everyone". You sourced them pakes...classic!

Troll on, all you did is cut a paste something you partially read with no research or insight...which is your SOP when you do paste something.

Everyone means everyone, and everyone did not want Shokin fired. You pasted three "entities" which in context is everyone in the article, which, one of these everyone's... has deep Russian ties. This after you somehow accused me of having " soviet-aligned sources" while using a Russian aligned source.

by the way...who are my "soviet" aligned sources?