2019-09-30washingtonpost.com

Trump has falsely claimed that Biden in 2015 pressured the Ukrainian government to fire Viktor Shokin, the top Ukrainian prosecutor, because he was investigating Ukraine's largest private gas company, Burisma, which had added Biden's son, Hunter, to its board in 2014.

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There are two big problems with this claim: One, Shokin was not investigating Burisma or Hunter Biden, and two, Shokin's ouster was considered a diplomatic victory.

Biden was among the many Western officials who pressed for the removal of Shokin because he actually was not investigating the corruption endemic to the country. Indeed, he was not investigating Burisma at the time. In September 2015, then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt publicly criticized Shokin's office for thwarting a British money-laundering probe into Burisma's owner, Mykola Zlochevsky.

"Shokin was not investigating. He didn't want to investigate Burisma," Daria Kaleniuk, of the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Action Center, told The Washington Post in July. "And Shokin was fired not because he wanted to do that investigation, but quite to the contrary, because he failed that investigation."

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At various times Trump has claimed Hunter Biden "made millions of dollars from China" or "walks out of China with $1.5 billion in a fund" after hitching a ride with his father on Air Force Two. But there is no evidence to support those statements.

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But while Joe Biden was vice president, Hunter Biden was only on the board of the advisory firm that did not directly invest, but instead advised those who did. George Mesires, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, said he only took an equity stake in 2017, after Joe Biden was no longer vice president.

Mesires told The Fact Checker that the investment management company "was capitalized from various sources with a total of 30 million RMB [Chinese Renminbi], or about $4.2 million, not $1.5 billion." Because Biden acquired a 10 percent minority interest, his "capital commitment is approximately $420,000," Mesires said.

"To date, Mr. Biden has not received any return or compensation on account of this investment or his position on the board of directors," Mesires added.

Every claim Trump makes against his political opponents is like he looked at the source material so quickly and sloppily that he would be sure not to see that the actual facts stand in precise opposition to the outcome he wants to see...



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