Ukraine’s former top prosecutor told Rudy Giuliani earlier this year that he was indeed asked to back off any probe of a natural gas company linked to Joe Biden’s son, according to a copy of Giuliani’s notes obtained by Fox News.
During the pair’s Jan. 23, 2019, phone call, scandal-scarred ex-prosecutor Viktor Shokin told Giuliani that his “investigations stopped out of fear of the United States,” after a top diplomat asked that he use “kid gloves” in pursuing the company, according to the notes of President Trump’s personal attorney, reported by the outlet.
“Mr. Shokin attempted to continue the investigations but on or around June or July of 2015, the U.S. Ambassador [to Ukraine] Geoffrey R. Pyatt told him that the investigation has to be handled with white gloves, which according to Mr. Shokin, that implied do nothing,” the notes from the phone call state.
Shokin was booted from his post in April 2016, amid accusations of corruption, including that his office was blocking major cases against allies and influential figures.
In March 2016, Biden, as vice president, had threatened to cut off $1 billion in guaranteed loans unless Ukraine ditched Shokin.
“Well, son of a b–ch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time,” Biden said at the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018, recounting the story of Shokin’s firing.
Trump claims the former vice president wanted Shokin out because he was investigating Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian company that gave Biden’s son Hunter a seat on its board, paying him up to $50,000 a month.
Shokin’s replacement, Yuri Lutsenko, continued the investigation into Burisma and concluded there was no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe or Hunter Biden.
In a July 25 call, Trump asked Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Democratic presidential candidate and his son.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi launched an impeachment inquiry last week after a whistleblower complaint revealed the call between Trump and Zelensky.
The notes from Giuliani’s interview were included in a packet State Department Inspector General Steve Linick gave to attendees of an “urgent” closed-door briefing on the Ukraine investigation, according to Fox.
The packet also contained multiple folders with the Trump Hotel logo, news clips and several timelines about investigations related to Burisma.
Linick reportedly told aides that he received the package of information in the spring but did not know the sender. He said he shared the files with the FBI and gave it permission to show them to Congress.