In midst of 2016 election, State Department saw Burisma as Joe Biden’s issue, memos show

The real public interest question involves Joe Biden. Federal ethics rules require government officials to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest, and ethics experts I talked with say the vice president should have recused himself from issues affecting Burisma.

That became poignantly public when Biden leveraged the threat of canceling $1 billion in U.S. aid in March 2016 to get Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who just happened to oversee the Burisma probe. A month before the firing, Shokin escalated the corruption probe against Burisma by seizing the company owner’s property and assets.

Shokin says he was making plans to interview Hunter Biden and insists he was fired because he refused to stand down on the Burisma probe. Joe Biden insists he prompted Shokin’s firing because he believed the prosecutor was ineffective.

There are more memos and documents to be released in the coming months under the FOIA lawsuit I filed with the Southeastern Legal Foundation that may shine light on what actually happened.

But one thing is already clear: long before President Trump or his attorney Rudy Giuliani began investigating Ukrainian issues, career State officials already saw Burisma as an issue for Joe Biden.

https://johnsolomonreports.com/in-midst-of-2016-election-state-department-saw-burisma-as-joe-bidens-issue-memos-show/