Topic: Vid of Biden admit bribe of Ukrainian Pres. to fire prosecutor investigating son (Read 4095 times)

 

The court didn't rule that any subpoena was "invalid" in the court opinion you just linked.


You don't get to decide what is a real subpoena and what is not. This whole time we've been talking about congressional subpoenas. The 3 judges who gave their opinions certainly don't consider congressional subpoenas to be "invalid," as there are instances where they feel they should be recognized. 2 of the 3 judges feel it is not within their scope of duty to make a ruling on their enforcement, and the 3rd does. Regardless, congressional subpoenas are not privy to the FOIA (we established this months ago), so you'll have to keep holding your breath, unfortunately.

The subpoena by senate Republicans into the Burisma "case." It doesn't exist until you can provide me with a copy of it. Until then REEEEE WITCH HUNT.


The subpoena for Laura Cooper? That's news to me. Mind sharing a source for that?


Okay, I can do that. "You were wrong TECSHARE."

Of course, remember its not actually a subpoena until we can see a copy of the actual subpoena. Until then, its just a baseless witch hunt.

This appears to be the world they seek, where a certain group of criminal, but powerful interests can do anything, and everyone else kowtows in front of them.

At this point, Bien could say that he did everything people suspect he did and still walk free and even get elected, because orange man bad!

These are out of order.


I meant the allegations that Biden had the Ukraine Prosecutor fired to protect his son.


You're right.  We don't know exactly what was said.  But we (we as in Congress members who were on committees who looked into this kind of thing) were fully aware  in 2015 - 2016 that the Obama administration was pressuring Ukraine to fire Shokin, and Biden was the point man for Ukraine, and Bidens son had a job with a Ukrainian energy company which had an open investigation.  

All of this was public.  And the Republicans controlled both houses for 3 full years after it happened and did nothing.  And there was no revelation that occurred when years later they decided it was a big deal - the only difference was Joe Biden was not a political threat then, and he is now.  It just doesn't add up.  If they thought it was a big deal, they would've screamed from the roof tops and investigated the hell out of it when it happened - it's not like they're shy.



I don't have an issue Trumps sons or Bidens son doing business with in another country, they're private citizens.  I also don't think that either Trump or Biden shouldn't do what they were elected to do because of what their adult children are doing with their life.  

People have made up timelines to keep all this straight.

https://www.justsecurity.org/66271/timeline-trump-giuliani-bidens-and-ukrainegate/


Now that's a steaming hot pile of fabricated innocence!

Again, we don't know the internal deliberations as to why Shokin was fired. Did the U.S. have any influenced on Shokin getting him fired? If financial aid depended on it, who knows?



Yes, and I call this typical Washington D.C. shitty politics. But apparently it's okay when Joe Biden does it.


Source for this? How could quid pro quo allegations against Trump occur prior to the phone call being made? This entire fiasco started because of the whistle blower complaint.

I think the truth would be that he was greatly exaggerating in that video where he was bragging on stage. We know they didn't just fire him before he got on the plane, or whatever he claimed.  It was months later their 'congress' voted to have him replaced.  And we know from congressional testimony that a combination of multiple countries and international organizations applying pressure all played a roll in Shokin finally getting the boot.


Yeah I can't find any proof either way.  That was what I was trying to say.  A lot of people believe that the Shokin was elbows deep in the investigation and about to throw Hunters boss (and maybe Hunter) in jail for life so his father had to rush to Ukraine and sort things out for him.



Easy.

Trumps actual sons are running his international real estate business right now.  There's a Trump Tower in Turkey, Trump openly threatened sanctions on Turkey.  They have multiple properties and other business ventures in Israel, Trump moved the embassy and basically gave Israel the Golan heights by recognizing it.  Ivanka got a bunch of trademarks in China, Trump is negotiating major deals with China.  Jareds family owns more real estate than Trumps, I don't think I need to keep going though.


Trump had numerous contacts with the President  of Ukraine after the phone call in July (or earlier) when Trump mentioned the dealings with Burisma. There isn't any evidence that Trump had pursued his request to open a criminal inquiry onto Hunter Biden. This suggests that Trump mentioned the Joe/Hunter Biden deal as a citation to the overlying corruption that existed in Ukraine which indicated to Ukraine that anti-corruption efforts needed to be made for the U.S. to invest aide in their country, not a call to action that they needed to immediately investigate Joe/Hunter Biden.



The allegations started months before the June phone call.  Maybe over a year? It's hard to keep track.  They were covering it on Fox daily in the weeks before the phone call though, which was also the first time Biden had emerged as a front runner in the polls, both likely factors in why Trump asked Ukraine to investigate.

I said Joe Biden needed to explicitly make the case at the time why the prosecutor should have been fired, and he didn't. Secondly, it's not even clear why the U.S. urged the prosecutor as an obstacle because of Ukraine Russian conflicts at the time. No one knows if it was a quid pro quo attempt with Joe Biden and Burisma or if it was done as an anti-corruption, pro-western democracy effort. So the case was not articulated at all, and even looking at US Ukraine relations, the case wasn't retroactively articulated either. You don't get to go back and argue Joe Biden's case for him when he didn't make it clear. That's not how it works.


This is the talking point former Obama officials gave on the matter of Burisma which makes too many assumptions on what exactly the prosecutor was investigating. I'm more than willing to look at sources that directly prove Burisma wouldn't have benefited from the firing of Viktor Shokin if they're out there. But they aren't.


Joe Biden withholding aid on the condition of firing a prosecutor who was investigating a company his son was apart of isn't unethical? You also don't think it's unethical that Joe Biden said this statement while Hunter Biden was making 80 grand a month with zero oil/gas experience serving on a foreign energy company's board while his father was Vice President?

Look, replace Joe Biden with Trump, and Hunter Biden with Jared Kushner and tell me again that you wouldn't call this behavior unethical. The standards are always shifting.

Hunter Biden did an interview with ABC and he pretty much openly admits that he would not have been on that company's board if his last name wasn't Biden. You're telling me all this considered, Joe Biden's actions and statement was not unethical at all given the position of his son?


Trump had numerous contacts with the President  of Ukraine after the phone call in July (or earlier) when Trump mentioned the dealings with Burisma. There isn't any evidence that Trump had pursued his request to open a criminal inquiry onto Hunter Biden. This suggests that Trump mentioned the Joe/Hunter Biden deal as a citation to the overlying corruption that existed in Ukraine which indicated to Ukraine that anti-corruption efforts needed to be made for the U.S. to invest aide in their country, not a call to action that they needed to immediately investigate Joe/Hunter Biden.


Because democrats tried to use this as grounds for impeachment when Trump had a legitimate reason to inquire about Ukraine corruption citing Joe Biden. Democrats overlooked the fact that Biden acted wrong here. The outrage you refer to was merely pointing out how ridiculous and unethical the behavior of Joe Biden was.

It really didn't look that bad in 2016 when it happened. And all the Republicans were fully aware of both Joe and Hunters actions.  For some reason the shock and outrage didn't happen till a couple years later...

i didnt know about that republican letter. surprised it wasnt talked about more.

it still doesnt look good but as more comes out that really is the only argument left.  it didnt look good.

The case had been articulated for almost two years.  The US Monetary fund threatened to cut off Ukraine and specifically called out the Prosecutor as an obstacle, every leader in the G7 (formerly the G8 until they kicked out Russia for invading Ukraine) was open about the prosecutor needing to go.

In Feb 2016, after Bidens infamous trip, 3 Senators (two of them Republican) even wrote a letter to the President of Ukraine about how important it was to end the corruption and also: "We similarly urge you to press ahead with urgent reforms to the Prosecutor General's office and judiciary."  We have congressional testimony from multiple bipartisan federal employees that have all backed this up. 

It's not even clear that the firing of the prosecutor was good news for Burisma.  When he became Prosecutor general in 2015 he inherited the investigation that started in 2012 and basically just didn't do anything with it.  There are also reports that he was soliciting bribes though - so it depends on what's worse, being extorted and not being investigated or being investigated.  Also keep in mind that the 2012 investigation was focused on the owner/guy in charge of Burismas actions in 2011.  Hunter Biden didn't start working for them till 2015 after the investigation had stopped (although not officially closed).



We don't agree.  I don't think what Biden said was unethical or inappropriate.

Trump asking a foreign country (with corruption problems none the less) to conduct a criminal investigate on a US citizen is.  It should be up to the US Attorney General on what gets investigated and the investigations should be done by US law enforcement and intelligence or congress.

Why? They are only judging him by the standard they apply to their own.

This all might very well be the case, but it's a clear conflict of interest. I said before the legality of the situation doesn't really matter because Washington politics operates on the "barely legal" notion, but you cannot be the Vice President of the U.S. threatening to withhold aid unless Ukraine fired a prosecutor who was investigation a company your son was a part of. Furthermore, you if you want to articulate the case that aid was being withheld until Ukraine transformed its government into a pro-west democracy, that's fine, but Joe Biden needed to make that clear at the time and I don't think he did.


But the impeachment charges stemmed from this unethical action by Joe Biden. If they truly were unethical, which I think we all agree on, Trump withholding monetary aid on a condition to Ukraine to investigate fraud and corruption doesn't seem so unreasonable if Trump was using Joe Biden as a citation to the overlying corruption that existed in Ukraine.

I'll say it again, the Hunter Biden bullshit was overblown. People on the right used it as mud slinging. I personally don't care about it. But democrats responding with impeachment was also overblown and they certainly used impeachment to avoid accepting that Joe Biden wasn't any better than the typical corrupt bureaucratic hack in D.C.

Ukraine had just gone through a bit of a revolution by literally running their pro-Russia president out of the country.  (The guy that paid Paul Manafort, Trumps future campaign chairman, millions to help run his campaign)

The west wanted to support Ukraines independence from Russia.  The prosecutor (basically the Attorney General) was pro Russia - he was known for going after only people who were fighting for Ukraines independence and letting off people who were working to help Russia reclaim Ukraine.  If we gave them aid while the prosecutor was still in power it likely would've ended up being counter productive.  

Biden was there on behalf of Obama. And when the Ukraine Prosecutor eventually left office it was a win for the US and US allies.  The Hunter Biden thing was brought up, but nobody challenged whether or not it was ethical to tell a foreign country you'd only give them aid if they got rid of a corrupt prosecutor and the Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate at the time so nothing was stopping them from investigating.

Because Joe Biden or Hunter Biden didn't break any laws doesn't mean this wasn't an unethical move by Biden to be withholding aid unless Ukraine were to fire a prosecutor. Realistically it's typical Washington corruption and garbage politics, but running to defend Hunter Biden's actions here is hilarious.

"Ukrainian prosecutors find no evidence against Hunter Biden"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/04/ukranian-prosecutors-finds-no-evidence-against-hunter-biden



"Ukraine found no evidence against Hunter Biden in case audit"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-impeachment-ukraine/ukraine-found-no-evidence-against-hunter-biden-in-case-audit-former-top-prosecutor-idUSKBN23B2RB


"Trump, Grasping for Effective Attack, Lands on 'Corrupt Joe Biden'"
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-biden-corrupt-2020-election-burisma-ukraine-1514008

"WaPo Does Damage Control After "Far More Damaging" Biden-Ukraine Tapes Disclosed"

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/wapo-does-damage-control-after-far-more-damaging-biden-ukraine-tapes-disclosed

"He admitted it did it."

What? What the fuck does that even mean? That doesn't even make any sense linguistically let along logically.