Corruption

Deroy Murdock: Joe Biden’s actions on Ukraine reek of extortion and obstruction of justice

The roaring controversy over President Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden, and their respective actions toward Ukraine sorely lacks some key language: the word “extortion” and the phrase “obstruction of justice.”

In March 2016, then-Vice President Biden told Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko that the Eastern European nation would not get a $1 billion U.S. government loan guarantee unless it fired Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma Holdings — a natural gas extraction company whose board of directors included Hunter Biden, the veep’s son.

Shokin told The Hill’s John Solomon that plans for his probe “included interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden.”

Hunter Biden reportedly earned some $50,000 per month for his services, although he had no expertise in gas production and didn’t know Ukraine from Utah. He was experienced, however, in being the son of the vice president of the United States who, as luck would have it, “was serving as the Obama administration’s point man on relations with Ukraine and rooting out bureaucratic corruption,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

Joe Biden must have been aware of Hunter’s term on Burisma’s board. Indeed, major news organizations raised serious questions about this arrangement.

“Hunter Biden’s new job at Ukrainian gas company is a problem for U.S. soft power,” read a May 14, 2014, Washington Post headline. And a June 8, 2014 Fox News story was headlined: “Ukraine energy firm hiring Biden’s son raises ethical concerns”