EXCLUSIVE: Hunter Biden helped devise plan to 'close down' Viktor Shokin's investigation into Burisma, emails reveal

Emails obtained by DailyMail.com show Hunter Biden helped devise a plan to shut down an investigation into Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky (right) in 2014 

The revelations come after ex-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin publicly claimed that Hunter and then Vice President Joe Biden had him fired over his probe

'We urgently need your advice on how you could use your influence to convey a message / signal, etc to stop what we consider to be politically motivated actions,' Pozharskyi wrote.

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The Burisma executive said the company was the victim of blackmail.

'In case we don't cooperate i.e. provide money in cash the gas production business of [Zlochevsky] would be stopped,' he wrote. 

'After unsuccessful attempts to receive funds from our side, they proceeded with concrete actions.'

But at the time Zlochevsky was the subject of a legitimate money laundering investigation by the FBI and British intelligence services, for allegedly awarding his own companies lucrative gas contracts while he served as Ukraine's environment minister and squirreling away $23million abroad.

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Hunter got a partner at his then-law firm, Boies, Schiller, & Flexner, to devise a response for Burisma and also pitched in with advice on gaining 'intelligence' on new staff at the Prosecutor General's office using investigative agency Nardello & Co.

'It would be helpful to gain intelligence on 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,' the Boies partner, Heather King, replied.

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A senior US diplomat in Ukraine, George Kent, testified to Congress that a deputy in the Ukrainian prosecutor's office told him Zlochevsky ended up paying a $7million bribe to Ukrainian justice officials in December 2014 to sabotage the US-UK probe.

There is no evidence on Hunter's laptop that the First Son was involved in such an alleged bribe.

But when Shokin took over as the new Prosecutor General in 2015, Burisma faced fresh scrutiny, and again turned to Hunter for help.

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Shokin had launched new investigations into the gas firm, took legal action against one of his staff for the alleged sabotage of Zlochevsky's $23million money laundering case, and even got a court to temporarily freeze the Ukrainian oligarch's assets.

Hunter hooked Burisma up with Washington DC consultancy Blue Star Strategies, run by former Clinton administration officials, and Pozharsky spelt out their role in a November 2, 2015 email.

He wrote the 'ultimate purpose' of their work was 'to close down for any cases/pursuits against [Zlochevsky] in Ukraine.'

Pozharsky was unimpressed that Blue Star's written proposal for the job didn't include a promise to lobby top American diplomats – which would have required the firm to register with the US Justice Department as a foreign agent.

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But Hunter and his partners indicated that the firm just didn't want to put it in writing.

'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.

Pozharsky wrote: 'If you and Devon [Archer, Hunter's friend and fellow board member] feel comfortable that they will deliver what in real terms we are talking about, we should disregard the wording of the scope and move further with signing and starting actual work.'

'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.

The ex-Clinton staffers were hired and set about lobbying State Department officials on Burisma's behalf. 

They were later investigated by federal law enforcement for failing to file under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and belatedly lodged paperwork in 2021 to avoid prosecution.

According to Congressional testimony by Archer, Hunter also allegedly called his Vice President father to help deal with the Ukraine prosecutor's investigation at Zlochevsky's behest after a board meeting at the Four Seasons in Dubai around December 4 2015.

'I think they were getting pressure and they requested Hunter help them with some of that pressure,' Archer said.

'The request is like, 'Can DC help?' he added. 'There weren't specific, you know, 'Can the Big Guy help?' It was always this amorphous, 'Can we get help in DC?'

Archer said Pozharskyi told him Hunter 'called his dad' – though clarified the word the Burisma executive used was 'DC'.

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'I just know that there was a call that happened there and I was not privy to it,' he said.

Three days later then-VP Joe visited Kiev and met with President Petro Poroshenko, part of his role in leading relations with Ukraine for the Obama White House.

His National Security Adviser Colin Kahl told the Washington Post that behind the scenes, Biden threatened to withhold $1billion in US aid to Ukraine if Shokin was not fired, among other reforms.

The next day, December 8 2015, Joe gave a speech to the Ukrainian parliament, noting 'the Office of the General Prosecutor desperately needs reform.'

In the eight days before Shokin's eventual sacking in March 2016, Biden phoned Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko four times to hammer home the $1 billion threat, Biden's former aides told the LA Times in 2019.

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Shokin claims Joe 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.

Democrats have long dismissed his claims as a 'conspiracy theory' without basis, pointing to international support for replacing Shokin at the time.

There were public protests in Kiev calling for the prosecutor's resignation over his alleged failure to prosecute corrupt officials and abuses of the previous regime of President Viktor Yanukovych.

And in July 2015 Shokin's deputy David Sakvarelidze found two of Shokin's close allies and staffers of the prosecutor's office in an apartment with bags of $400,000 cash, 65 diamonds, a Kalashnikov rifle and Shokin's travel documents.

Sakvarelidze's probe was shelved and he was pushed out of his job, according to a 2019 report by the Independent.

But documents published this month show top White House and State Department officials were 'impressed' with Shokin's office's work as late as January 2016, while bureaucrats deemed the Ukrainian government made 'sufficient progress' to warrant their $1 billion loan in October 2015, shortly before Biden threatened to withhold the cash.

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On June 11, 2015, top State Department official Victoria Nuland replied to a letter from Shokin on then-Secretary of State John Kerry's behalf, saying the department had 'been impressed with the ambitious reform and anti-corruption agenda of your government.'

'The ongoing reform of your office, law enforcement, and the judiciary will enable you to investigate and prosecute corruption and other crimes in an effective, fair, and transparent manner,' Nuland wrote.

A task force of State, Justice and Treasury officials reviewing the proposed $1billion loan to Ukraine concluded in October 2015 that 'Ukraine has made sufficient progress on its reform agenda to justify a third guarantee', according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by website Just the News.

The review did not tie the loan to the dismissal of Shokin, despite Joe's later push for his firing.

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And National Security Council staffer Eric Ciaramella wrote in a January 21, 2016 email his team were 'super impressed' with staff from Shokin's office after a two-hour meeting with them.

 

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12453245/Emails-Hunter-Biden-tried-help-shut-Burisma-probe.html