House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is requesting information from the State Department related to then-Vice President Joe Biden's actions and the Obama administration's decision-making surrounding Ukraine.
Comer, in a Tuesday letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, requested documents and communications regarding the "State Department’s perception of the Ukrainian Office of the Prosecutor General, at the time headed by Viktor Shokin."
Shokin, who assumed the prosecutor general position in February 2015, was fired in March 2016, allegedly due to pressure from Joe Biden.
Comer said Shokin had been elevated to lead the Prosecutor General's Office in the midst of an ongoing, international investigation focused on corruption involving Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma — for which Hunter Biden was a board member — and founder Mykola Zlochevsky.
"In March 2014, a French bank reported Zlochevsky to 'U.K. authorities on suspicion of money laundering after his companies tried to move $23 million to Cyprus from their British account at the bank,'" Comer wrote to Blinken.
"Hunter Biden joined Burisma in April 2014 and was paid approximately one million dollars per year."
In his letter, Comer cited then-administration officials' compliments to Shokin for battling dishonesty in Ukraine, and then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, in September 2015, saying "we want to work with Prosecutor General Shokin so the [Prosecutor General Office] is leading the fight against corruption."
Things apparently changed shortly thereafter, when Biden visited Ukraine in December 2015 and allegedly said $1 billion in loan guarantees to the country would not happen unless Shokin were fired.
"By late 2015, however, the removal of Prosecutor General Shokin became a condition of the loan guarantee by the United States," Comer wrote to Blinken.
"In March 2016, Shokin was dismissed from his position by the Ukrainian Rada after months of public pressure most adamantly applied by then-Vice President Biden."
Devon Archer, Hunter Biden's former business partner who testified before Comer's committee six weeks ago, told conservative host Tucker Carlson that Shokin had been "a threat" to energy company Burisma.
"During the Committee’' transcribed interview with Devon Archer — a longtime Biden family associate — Archer explained that by late 2015, Vadym Pozharsky, Burisma’s corporate secretary, was increasingly pushing Hunter Biden to deliver help from the U.S. government regarding pressure Zlochevsky was facing from the Office of the Prosecutor General and abroad," Comer wrote to Blinken.
"Archer testified that on December 4, 2015, Hunter Biden ‘called D.C.’ in a private meeting with Zlochevsky and Pozharsky in Dubai following Pozharsky’s request. The Committee is investigating the nature of this call and the circumstances that surrounded it, including at the State Department."
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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