Hunter Biden’s associate in his business with Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings discussed expectations of “high-ranking US officials in Ukraine” one month before then-Vice President Joe Biden visited Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to demand the firing of a prosecutor investigating the company.
Joe Biden, who bragged in 2018 about the firing of prosecutor Viktor Shokin by Poroshenko, was on an official visit to Ukraine in 2015. During the visit, he met with Poroshenko in Kiev about Ukraine’s corruption. But four months after the meeting, Poroshenko fired Shokin, a prosecutor investigating Burisma, which paid Hunter Biden $83,000 a month to sit on its board.
On November 2, 2015, one month before Joe Biden visited Ukraine, Hunter Biden received an email from Vadym Pozharskyi, a Burisma executive, about his “ultimate purpose” of working with Hunter Biden and his associates, Eric Schwerin and Devon Archer, a fellow Burisma board member.
Pozharskyi wrote the email with the subject line: “Re: Revised Burisma Proposal, Contract and Invoice.” The email outlines the scope of work he expected from Hunter Biden and his associates regarding a new project. It detailed the “ultimate purpose” of an agreement with Blue Star Strategies to shut down “any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine,” referring to Mykola Zlochevsky, founder of Burisma, who also went by Nikolay.
Blue Star Strategies is a Washington, DC, PR firm that worked for Burisma. Hunter Biden connected the firm to Burisma through Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s wife, according to emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop.
“Dear colleagues, Hope you are well. Thank you for the docs provided. I have analyzed them most carefully and came up with a few of the following observations…” Pozharskyi wrote to Hunter and his associates:
My only concern is for us to be on the same page re our final goals. With this in mind, I would like us to formulate a list of deliverables, including, but not limited to: a concrete course of actions, incl. meetings/communications resulting in high-ranking US officials in Ukraine (US Ambassador) and in US publicly or in private communication/comment expressing their ‘positive opinion’ and support of Nikolay/Burisma to the highest level of decision makers here in Ukraine: President of Ukraine, president Chief of staff, Prosecutor General, etc.
The scope of work should also include organization of a visit of a number of widely recognized and influential current and/or former US policy-makers to Ukraine in November aiming to conduct meetings with and bring positive signal/message and support on Nikolay’s issue to the Ukrainian top officials above with the ultimate purpose to close down for any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine.
Schwerin forwarded Pozharskyi’s message to Hunter Biden and Archer the same day and suggested how Hunter Biden could placate Pozharskyi’s objections to the pitch as Hunter Biden’s initial pitch to Pozharskyi lacked specific names of officials who would visit the Ukrainian president:
I would tell Vadym that this is definitely done deliberately to the be on the safe and cautious side and that Sally and company understand the scope and deliverables. And that we will be having regular (daily, weekly, monthly) opportunities be in through conference calls or memos to be continually refining and updating the scope.
Hunter Biden replied to Pozharskyi’s email, assuring him he could deliver. “You should go ahead and sign,” he wrote on Nov. 5, 2015. “Looking forward to getting started on this,” Hunter Biden added.
One month later, Joe Biden arrived in Ukraine to speak with the president of Ukraine. Soon afterward in March 2016, the president of Ukraine fired the prosecutor who was looking into Burisma.
President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden arrive at Fort McNair, Sunday, June 25, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Joe Biden later bragged about the firing during a 2018 appearance at the Council of Foreign Relations: “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,’” Biden told the audience. “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. He got fired.”
According to an FBI informant file reviewed by lawmakers, Joe Biden and Hunter Biden received $5 million each from Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Burisma, after Joe Biden threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine until President Poroshenko fired the prosecutor.
A source familiar with the FBI’s informant document confirmed to Breitbart News that Hunter and Joe Biden allegedly “coerced” the Burisma executive into paying them $10 million in bribes. The FBI informant also claims Zlochevsky kept 17 audio recordings of his conversations with Hunter and Joe Biden as an “insurance policy,” according to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.