Joe Biden is back in the race after a huge win in South Carolina, but this is just more bad news for the Democrats. Biden is not the guy – he was always a backroom Senate type, not an inspiring leader let alone a campaigner.
Yesterday, Biden flubbed his first interview with Fox News by calling Chris Wallace, “Chuck.” Sadly, Wallace was asking him about his mental fitness for the job.
And then came this – Ukraine has opened an investigation into Joe Biden.
The Washington Post reported that a court ruling in Ukraine forced state investigators to open a probe into alleged pressure by then-vice president Joe Biden that led to the 2016 dismissal of Viktor Shokin as the country’s prosecutor general, officials said Thursday.
Last year President Trump pressed Ukraine President for an investigation of this kind, leading to Trump’s impeachment by the House and his eventual acquittal in a Senate trial.
Shokin’s firing, however, was not a unilateral action directed by Biden. It was prompted by a push for anti-corruption reforms developed at the State Department and coordinated with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
His lawyer, Oleksandr Teleshetsky, said the probe was launched in response to a court order, after an appeal for action by Shokin. The State Bureau of Investigations confirmed a case was opened.
Trump and his allies have put intense pressure on Zelensky’s administration to open investigations into Biden, and his son Hunter who sat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company Burisma.
From late 2018 Shokin met with Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, as Giuliani sought political dirt on the Bidens. Shokin has long been angered by what he sees as an unfair dismissal following foreign pressure.
Shokin has claimed he was pushed out by Biden because he tried to launch a probe into Hunter Biden’s role at Burisma. In fact, Ukrainian investigations into Burisma related to the period before Hunter Biden joined the board.
“They need to investigate this. They have no other alternative. They are required to do this by the decision of the court. If they don’t, then they violate a whole string of procedural norms,” Teleshetsky said in an interview.
