A former top prosecutor in Ukraine has spoken out to disprove one of President Donald Trump’s favorite conspiracy theories. The president and his allies tried to bribe Ukraine into investigating the Bidens via holding up military aid while laying on the pressure for an investigation into the Bidens’ baselessly alleged corruption. Now, former Ukrainian top prosecutor Ruslan Ryaboshapka has told Reuters that there’s no evidence supporting the president’s allegations against the Bidens of corruption. Specifically, the Trump team wanted Ukraine to re-examine a case in which former VP Joe’s son Hunter Biden had served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma. Ryaboshapka’s office did so amidst a broader review of predecessors’ cases, and he says there was nothing there.
‘An audit of thousands of old case files by Ukrainian prosecutors found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Hunter Biden, the former prosecutor general, who had launched the audit, told Reuters… After taking office, [Ruslan] Ryaboshapka in October announced an audit of old cases he inherited, including those related to the energy company Burisma, where Hunter Biden was a board member between 2014-2019.’
Ryaboshapka summarized the results of the re-examination of old Burisma cases by explaining:
‘Regarding the call to Zelenskiy and this story with Burisma. I can say that there was no pressure on me. The audit was completed. I specifically asked prosecutors to check especially carefully those facts about Biden’s alleged involvement. They answered that there was nothing of the kind.’
Trump brought up his team’s push to get Ukraine to investigate the Bidens during a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that unfolded around the same time that the Trump team delayed military aid that Congress had previously approved for Ukraine. The scheme, which included pressure on Ukraine from a whole host of Trump’s allies, drove Democrats to impeach the president, although the Republican majority in the Senate secured an acquittal for the president on both of the charges, including abuse of power and obstruction of justice, that Democrats had brought.
Reuters reports that Zelensky “has said Ukrainians are “tired” of the issue and does not want Ukraine being dragged into the 2020 presidential race.” For now, Trump and his allies seem to have moved on to other issues, like dealing with the fallout of the president’s failures to either respond effectively to the Coronavirus pandemic or offer any kind of helpful leadership amidst days of protests against police brutality.
Instead of offering leadership, Trump has been melting down on Twitter.
He tweeted:
‘If you watch Fake News @CNN or MSDNC, you would think that the killers, terrorists, arsonists, anarchists, thugs, hoodlums, looters, ANTIFA & others, would be the nicest, kindest most wonderful people in the Whole Wide World. No, they are what they are – very bad for our Country!’
If you watch Fake News @CNN or MSDNC, you would think that the killers, terrorists, arsonists, anarchists, thugs, hoodlums, looters, ANTIFA & others, would be the nicest, kindest most wonderful people in the Whole Wide World. No, they are what they are – very bad for our Country!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2020
He sounds like a raving conspiracy theorist. “Killers, terrorists, arsonists… ANTIFA” and whoever else have not launched some kind of systematic conspiracy to take down the United States. Antifa isn’t even a centralized organization — it just means anti-fascist. In other words, Trump is useless.
Me @latimesopinion on the phantom enemy that Trump, Cotton & Barr have dreamt up so they can ignore BLM and teargas everyone.
Also featuring: John Ehrlichman.
https://t.co/LabpzLA30D— Virginia Heffernan (@page88) June 5, 2020
