CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, September 30, 2019

UkraineGate and the demise of quid pro Joe

Someday, we will learn who was behind the double-edged UkraineGate plot to harm President Trump and to knock former U.S. Vice President, Joe Biden, out of the presidential race. What we do know is that hypocrisy has no limits.

For example: In May, 2018, Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT) wrote to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern about the closing of four investigations they said were critical to the Mueller probe. In their letter, the Democrat Senators implied their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine depended upon Ukrainian efforts to dig up dirt on President Trump.

Even The Washington Post asked:“So, it’s okay for Democratic senators to encourage Ukraine to investigate Trump, but it’s not okay for the president to allegedly encourage Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden?”

What about Hunter Biden? How did Hunter Biden go from being discharged from the U.S. Naval Reserve for cocaine use to being named to the board of the Ukrainian oil and gas giant Burisma Holdings? For almost three years, Burisma Holdings paid young Biden $50,000-per-month.

Allegations of corruption at Burisma Holdings drew the attention of Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who said, among others, he planned to interview Hunter Biden. Here, as recorded on TV in January, 2018, is what former Vice President Biden told the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations:

"...And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kiev. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from [President] Poroshenko and from [Prime Minister] Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor [Shokin]. And they didn’t.

"I said, nah, I’m not going to—or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They [Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk] 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’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 [Shokin] is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a b-tch. (Laughter.) He got fired.."

The transcript of the July, 2019, telephone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky, reveals President Trump asked President Zelensky to follow up on allegations that the previous Ukrainian government colluded with the Russians to harm the Trump campaign, in order to help Hillary Clinton.

With regard to Hunter Biden, President Trump said, "... There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it...It sounds horrible to me..."

Given former Vice President Joe Biden’s January, 2018, statements before the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations about how Biden demanded that an Ukrainian prosecutor be fired, were President Trump’s questions to President Zelensky unfounded? We report. You decide.

©2019. William Hamilton.

William Hamilton, is a laureate of the Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, the Nebraska Aviation Hall of Fame, the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame, and the Oklahoma University Army ROTC Wall of Fame. Dr. Hamilton is the author of Formula for Failure in Vietnam: The Folly of Limited Warfare, McFarland Books, (2019). For pre-publication orders: Toll free: (800) 253-2187 "Central View," can also be seen at: www.central-view.com.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com