Trump officials struggle to justify him pressing Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden while his own children do business around the world

Trump officials this weekend defended Trump from attacks over phonecalls in which he discussed calls for an investigation into Joe Biden's son over business activities in Ukraine.

Steve Mnuchin told CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday it was wrong Biden's son worked in Ukraine while his father served in Barack Obama's administration.

When presented with the fact that Trump's children have foreign business interests while he sits in the Oval Office Mnuchin said he didn't want to "go into more of these details."

Tapper then accused the US treasury secretary of "setting a precedent that the president is violating."

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Senator Lindsay Graham also stood behind Trump on network TV Sunday and called for a new investigation into Biden.

Biden was accused of pressuring Ukraine to fire a prosecutor investigating his son's employer in 2016. Ukrainian officials said in May 2019 there was no evidence the Bidens committed any wrongdoing.

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Donald Trump allies are scrambling to justify reports he pressured Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden, but are seemingly struggling to see the irony of his children doing business around the world.

On Sunday, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was grilled by CNN's Jake Tapper over a call where Trump reportedly asked Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into Hunter Biden eight times.

Earlier that day Trump had confirmed he discussed Biden and his son during the July 25 call.

Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union" Mnuchin suggested it was wrong that Biden's son did business around the world while his father was Barack Obama's vice president.

But Mnuchin failed to provide a clear answer when Tapper flipped the scenario to note that Trump's children work abroad while he is in office, and that Mnuchin was "setting a precedent that the president is violating."

Here's the full exchange between Mnuchin and Tapper.

TAPPER: If for instance, President Obama had pressured a foreign leader, Putin or the president of Ukraine, anyone said "I want you to look into Donald Trump Jr., or I want you to look into Eric Trump," international businessmen, both of them, would you not find that inappropriate? MNUCHIN: Again I'm not going to speculate on that. What I do find inappropriate is the fact that Vice President Biden at the time's son did very significant business dealings in Ukraine. I, for one, find that to be concerning and to me that is the issue perhaps that should be further investigated. TAPPER: Well I don't understand, so it's okay for Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump to do business all over the world, it's okay for Ivanka Trump to have copyrights approved all over the world while President Trump is president and while vice president Joe Biden his son shouldn't be able to do business dealings. MNUCHIN: Again I don't really want to go into more of these details other than to say... TAPPER: ...Well, you're setting a precedent that the president is violating. MNUCHIN: Again, I think there is a significant difference in what you're saying, okay. What I was saying between Biden and his son's relationship with the Ukraine oligarch and potential business dealings that the Trump Organization has had which predated his presidency.

Also on Sunday, Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate's judiciary committee told Fox News that now is the time for the Department of Justice to investigate Hunter Biden's dealings in Ukraine, and what his father knew of them.

"What I'm asking for is for us to take some time and effort to look at what the Ukraine may have done in the 2016 election," he said on "Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo."

"What role, if any, did the Bidens have to the Ukraine? Was it proper? Was it not?"

Read more: A mysterious exchange between Trump and a foreign leader is Washington's latest obsession. Here's what is actually going on.

Appearing on ABC's "The Week" Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said if Biden was protecting his son's business interests in Ukraine then US needs "to get to the bottom of that."

Biden was accused in 2016 of asking Ukraine to fire prosecutor general Viktor Shokin while he was investigating Burisma Group. Hunter Biden held a position on Burisma's board at the time.

Read more: Biden demanded Trump release transcripts of a call where he reportedly badgered Ukraine's leader to investigate his son 8 times

Ukraine's prosecutor general told Bloomberg in May 2019 he'd found no evidence that Joe or Hunter Biden had committed any wrongdoing.

2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney broke rank from his Republican Party colleagues on Sunday to say it would be "troubling in the extreme" if allegations that Trump asked Zelensky to probe Hunter Biden were true.

JohnArtemus on September 23rd, 2019 at 21:03 UTC »

Jake Tapper of CNN pressing Mnuchin on this was hilarious and sad at the same time. Mnuchin had no answer of Tapper's questions. He kept trying to deflect.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/09/22/steve-mnuchin-trump-ukraine-call-tapper-sotu-bts-vpx.cnn

guntcher on September 23rd, 2019 at 20:57 UTC »

Really. The level of irony here is amazing. Mr. "I won't let anyone look at any of my business records because it is none of their business. Fake news anyway" wants a foreign entity to investigate his political opponent for corruption. I am amazed everyone didn't laugh in is face, including his supporters.

kamxnaj on September 23rd, 2019 at 20:48 UTC »

Here's what Trump and Trump supporters aren't telling you when they say "Biden threatened the President Poroshenko that he would withhold aid unless the Attorney General was fired".

in 2015 Biden was tasked with handling US anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine. The US was opening up sizable financial aid post revolution and wanted these reforms.

The new President Poroshenko made Viktor Shokin Ukraine's Attorney General (that's the guy Biden pushed Poroshenko to fire). Initially there was hope that Shokin would do the right things and he had support, but that quickly changed:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/05/reforming-ukraine-after-maidan

By last fall, public dissatisfaction with Poroshenko had crystallized around his choice for General Prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, a veteran politician who had known Poroshenko for years. At first, Shokin advanced several corruption cases against former associates of Yanukovych. But when parliament lifted the immunity of Serhiy Klyuyev, a lawmaker and former close associate of Yanukovych who was charged with corruption, the General Prosecutor’s office stalled on issuing an arrest warrant, giving Klyuyev time to slip out of the country. Shokin also hindered the investigation of two men known as the “diamond prosecutors,” high-ranking state prosecutors who were arrested on suspicion of corruption; raids on their homes turned up a Kalashnikov, four hundred thousand dollars, and sixty-five diamonds. Even more discouraging, not a single person suspected of killing protesters on Maidan was brought to trial.

The corruption in Shokin's department, including accusations against Shokin himself, was so bad it had Ukrainians protesting for his firing.

https://www.kyivpost.com/multimedia/photo/anticorruption-meeting-410708

About 150 protesters demonstrated on March 25 against distrusted and discredited Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

They protested against Shokin’s decision to fire subordinates of reformist Deputy Prosecutor General Davit Sakvarelidze working on corruption cases against prosecutors.

Sakvarelidze has told the Kyiv Post that Shokin and his first deputy Yury Sevruk had been sabotaging efforts to prosecute Korniyets and Shapakin and cleanse the prosecutor’s office of corrupt and incompetent officials. Shokin and Sevruk deny the accusations.

The demonstrators called for re-instating Sakvarelidze’s prosecutors, firing Shokin and choosing a new prosecutor general in an open and transparent process. They also demanded preventing the appointment of old prosecutorial cadres and Shokin loyalists like his deputies Yury Sevruk and Yury Stolyarchuk, as well as proteges of President Petro Poroshenko.

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-protest-prosecutor-shokin-dismissal/27639981.html

Scores of protesters have rallied in the Ukrainian capital, demanding the resignation of the country’s top prosecutor, who has been repeatedly criticized as an impediment to badly needed anticorruption reforms.

Shokin’s deputy, Vitaliy Kasko, resigned last month, accusing Shokin and his office of being a "hotbed of corruption."Shokin's office dismissed the claim as a publicity stunt.

U.S. and European diplomats have publicly called for Shokin's dismissal, and a top U.S. State Department official whose area of responsibility includes Ukraine earlier this month publicly called for him to go.

The EU also ran into issues with Shokin:

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/why-poroshenko-s-support-for-shokin-is-dangerous/

In a recent Brussels meeting with the President of the European Commission, Poroshenko received a promise that in exchange for implementing graft-fighting measures, the European Union would eliminate visa requirements for Ukraine’s 46 million citizens. In return, Ukraine would implement a series of anti-corruption reforms. At the top of the list is the nomination of a new independent prosecutor tasked with bringing down corrupt government officials. An eleven member selection panel—seven nominated by the Verkhovna Rada and four by Shokin—are to choose the best candidate for the post.

Shokin’s nominees are closely associated with the old system. At the Prosecutor General’s Office, Yury Hryshchenko managed Volodymyr Shapakin, the so-called “diamond prosecutor” who was arrested earlier this year in a sting operation for bribery with $400,000 dollars of cash in his office and $100,000 of diamonds in his home. First Deputy Prosecutor General Yury Sevruk has stymied reforms in the Prosecutor General’s Office. Reformers believe that making anti-reform individuals like Hryshchenko and Sevruk directly responsible for selecting the most important anti-corruption figure makes the process a mockery.

But it gets even worse. After Jan Tombinski, the European Union’s Ambassador to Ukraine, criticized Shokin’s appointments, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the National Council on Reform urging Shokin to replace his appointees to the selection panel with qualified candidates.

Shokin doubled down, dismissing outside criticism and asserting his right to put whomever he wants on the panel. Shokin followed this up by allegedly threatening to prosecute Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry “for criminal acts intended at undermining the authority of state institutions” in a letter that Ukrainiska Pravda obtained and published. It seems Shokin prefers to use his prosecutorial discretion to threaten the very people seeking to free Ukraine from its endemic graft.

This culminated in countries viewing Shokin's removal as a necessary step for anti-corruption reform. Biden was the one spearheading that because he was officially in charge of US anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/12/30/corruption-in-ukraine-is-so-bad-a-nigerian-prince-would-be-embarrassed-2/

United States Vice President Joe Biden has never been one to hold his tongue. He certainly didn’t in his recent trip to Kiev. In a speech before Ukraine’s Parliament, Biden told legislators that corruption was eating Ukraine “like a cancer,” and warned Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that Ukraine had “one more chance” to confront corruption before the United States cuts off aid.

Biden’s language was undiplomatic, but he’s right: Ukraine needs radical reforms to root out graft. After 18 months in power, Poroshenko still refuses to decisively confront corruption. It’s time for Poroshenko to either step up his fight against corruption — or step down if he won’t.

When it comes to Ukrainian corruption, the numbers speak for themselves. Over $12 billion per year disappears from the Ukrainian budget, according to an adviser to Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau. And in its most recent review of global graft, anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International ranked Ukraine 142 out of 174 countries on its Corruption Perceptions Index — below countries such as Uganda, Nicaragua and Nigeria. Ordinary Ukrainians also endure paying petty bribes in all areas of life. From vehicle registration, to getting their children into kindergarten, to obtaining needed medicine, everything connected to government has a price.

Powerful politicians and businessmen in Ukraine can also count on Ukrainian officials to protect them from European prosecutors. After a two-year investigation, Swiss prosecutors recently opened a criminal case against Mykola Martynenko — a close Parliamentary ally of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arsenyi Yatsenyuk — for allegedly accepting a $30 million bribe through a Czech company and attempting to launder the money through Switzerland. However, despite repeated requests from the Swiss for assistance, Ukrainian officials are protecting Martynenko, according to a report in the Kyiv Post, and Ukraine’s prosecutor general publicly refuses to pursue the case.

To contain rising populist sentiment and preserve Western support, Poroshenko should take the following steps:

First, Poroshenko needs to immediately fire current Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. The United States’ Ambassador to Ukraine recently called out Shokin’s office for “openly and aggressively undermining reform,” and leading reformers in Ukraine’s parliament and civil society continue to demand Shokin’s ouster.

Despite this pressure, though, Shokin remains in place. Since he is a close ally of Poroshenko, it’s not hard to see why. Poroshenko is himself a wealthy oligarch, and in a system where prosecutors are used as weapons against opponents in business or politics, Poroshenko remains determined to maintain control over this critical lever of power. However, while Poroshenko’s seeming motivations for protecting Shokin are understandable, it’s time for the Ukrainian president to place his country’s interests above his own.

Biden's speech in the Ukrainian parliament.

edit: And it's worth pointing out - Shokin was tasked with investigating Zlochevsky (the Oligarch that owns Burisma, the company Hunter worked for) in 2014. He didn't - and the Obama administration encouraged this investigation, they didn't try to stop it.

https://theintercept.com/2019/05/10/rumors-joe-biden-scandal-ukraine-absolute-nonsense-reformer-says/

New reporting from Bloomberg News this week revealed that the 2014 case against Zlochevsky “was assigned to Shokin, then a deputy prosecutor. But Shokin and others weren’t pursuing it, according to the internal reports from the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office reviewed by Bloomberg.”

In December 2014, U.S. officials threatened Ukrainian prosecutors that there would be consequences if they failed to assist the British investigation, according to the documents obtained by Bloomberg. Instead, the Ukrainian prosecutors provided a letter to Zlochevsky’s lawyer stating that they knew of no evidence that the former minister had been involved in embezzlement.