Now that the coronavirus pandemic is starting to crest and wane, a pair of Republican senators believe the chamber ought to get back to business, and for them that will include jumpstarting a previous investigation into corruption allegations involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
Sens. Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa) sent a letter to the State Department seeking records and interviews with persons of interest regarding Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company where Hunter Biden was once a board member earning tens of thousands of dollars per month.
“The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the Committee on Finance (the Committees) continue to examine potential conflicts of interest relating to the Obama administration’s policy decisions with respect to Ukraine and Burisma Holdings,” wrote Johnson and Grassley, who serve as chairmen of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and of the Finance Committee, respectively, The Epoch Times reported.
“The Committees are examining the extent to which representatives of Burisma used individuals with close personal connections to high-level officials within the Obama administration to gain access to and potentially influence U.S. government agencies,” said the letter, which was sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
But the senators aren’t focused so much on Hunter Biden as they are the former vice president, who was put ‘in charge’ of ‘Ukraine’ by then-President Barack Obama.
The Epoch Times notes:
Of particular interest to the Committees are records that relate to Joe Biden’s interactions with then-President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko specific to an investigation into Burisma by Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
Shokin was fired by Poroshenko in March 2016 for reasons the former Prosecutor General claims had to do with his probe into Burisma.
“Former Vice President Biden previously expressed that he wanted Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin fired. When did the United States government determine that Shokin should be removed?” Johnson and Grassley wrote. “Please explain the justification for that decision and how and when that determination was communicated to the Ukrainian government.”
Famously, Biden is on video bragging during a 2018 event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations that he got Shokin fired during a trip to Ukraine, which just happened to be when the prosecutor was investigating corruption allegations involving Burisma…while his son, Hunter, was a board member.
Johnson and Grassley have been on this Burisma-Biden thing for some time. In March, according to The Hill, Johnson wanted to subpoena Blue Star Strategies, a U.S. company that has ties to Burisma.
“As part of the committee’s ongoing investigation, it has received U.S. government records indicating that Blue Star sought to leverage Hunter Biden’s role as a board member of Burisma to gain access to, and potentially influence matters at, the State Department,” he said then.
In February, Sara A. Carter reported that the National Archives was in the process of reviewing thousands of documents related to meetings between senior Obama administration and Ukrainian officials requested by the two senators.
The same month, Carter reported that Johnson and Grassley requested all travel records from the Secret Service pertaining to Hunter Biden.
And in November, investigative journalist Paul Sperry reported that “no fewer than three” Senate committees were looking into “Obama-Biden solicitation of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.
