Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Joe Biden and the Burisma Tarbaby

Mollie Hemingway tells us why Devon Archer's testimony before the House of Representatives is another nail in the coffin of Joe Biden's reputation and possibly his presidency. She writes:
Devon Archer, a longtime business partner and close friend of Hunter Biden’s, told congressional investigators Monday that at a meeting in Dubai on Dec. 4, 2015, top executives of Ukrainian energy concern Burisma asked Hunter Biden and himself for help from D.C. At the time of the meeting, Hunter Biden’s dad, Joe Biden, was serving as Barack Obama’s vice president as well as his point person on Ukraine.

Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma, and Vadym Pozharski, a Burisma executive, wanted to get Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired as he was investigating the company for corruption, Archer told members of Congress.
At the time Archer and Hunter Biden were being paid $83,000 a month to sit on Burisma's board and do nothing. Neither man had any expertise in energy production, but both, especially Hunter, had valuable influence in Washington.

Hunter Biden put Zlochevsky and Pozharski on a call with “D.C.,” and although Archer clarified that he was not part of the phone call so couldn’t possibly know for sure who was on the other end of the line, he also admitted that Joe Biden did meet and speak more than 20 times with various business associates who were paying for access to the Biden family.

Anyway, not long after that call Shokin was fired, and Hemingway marvels at what an amazing coincidence it would be if it weren't Joe Biden to whom that call was made.

Mr. Biden even bragged that he was personally responsible for getting the prosecutor fired. In fact, he claimed he had bullied the Ukrainian government into firing the investigator by threatening to withhold a billion-dollar loan guarantee unless he got what he wanted.

Here's what he said publicly:
And I [Joe Biden] was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t. So they said they had — they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to — or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president.

The president said — I said, call him. (Laughter.) I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired.
Burisma wanted Shokin fired. Hunter arranged a phone call to "D.C." and a few months later Joe Biden is boasting that he got Shokin fired.

Here's a question that might be asked of our Democrat friends who may be determined to defend Joe Biden against the allegation of corruption: "What would you be saying about this set of facts if the man doing the boasting was Donald Trump and the son being payed $83,000 a month was Don, Jr.?

Would you not be saying that the evidence of criminality was overwhelming? If so, and you know you would, why are you unwilling to draw the same conclusion about Joe Biden? And if your only answer amounts to some version of "Biden is a Democrat and Trump is a Republican," why should your opinion on anything else carry any weight with anyone ever again?

You've demonstrated, after all, that you have no more intellectual integrity than the Bidens have moral integrity.