A newly released report contradicts President Joe Biden’s claim that he threatened to withhold U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine because then-prosecutor Viktor Shokin was failing to meet anti-corruption standards.
Mr. Shokin served as prosecutor general of Ukraine from 2015 to 2016, when he was fired over allegations of corruption.
His firing came roughly one month after then-Vice President Biden claimed to have threatened then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to pull $1 billion in guaranteed loans to Ukraine unless Mr. Shokin was immediately removed from his position.
Mr. Shokin was investigating the activities of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings—on whose board Hunter Biden sat—at the time of his firing.
“Based on these commitments, the anti-corruption benchmark is deemed to have been achieved,” the report reads. It adds that benchmarks for preventing and fighting organized crime, money laundering, and human trafficking have also “been achieved.”
The report goes on to note various achievements made by Mr. Shokin, including establishing a specialized national anti-corruption prosecutor’s office that employed and trained roughly 100 investigators, called the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.
“On 30 November, the General Prosecutor appointed the head of the specialized anti-corruption prosecution,” the report states.
Ukraine Progress ‘Steady and Effective’
“The progress noted in the fifth report on anti-corruption policies, particularly the legislative and institutional progress, has continued. The adoption by the Parliament, on 8 October 2015 of legislative packages covering aspects of the report’s recommendations, is an important step forward. Civil society continued to play a key role in moving the anti-corruption agenda forward,” the report continues.“The progress achieved by Ukraine” in areas related to the visa liberalization plan is “steady and effective,” according to the report.
“The Commission considers that since then Ukraine has made the necessary progress and undertaken all the required reforms and commitments to ensure effective and sustainable achievement of the remaining benchmarks.
“All the measures identified in the fifth progress report have been addressed in order to ensure that the legislative and policy framework, the institutional and organizational principles, and the implementation of procedures throughout the four blocks comply with European and international standards.
“The Commission will continue to monitor the implementation of ongoing reforms, in fields such as anti-corruption, trafficking in human beings and organized crime.”
President Biden has claimed that he warned Mr. Poroshenko that the United States was going to pull $1 billion in guaranteed loans to Ukraine unless Mr. Shokin was immediately fired amid concerns over his office’s failure to pursue corruption allegations among Ukrainian politicians.
‘No Problems’ With Job Performance, Shokin Says
“They said: ‘You have no authority. You’re not the president.’ ... I said, ‘Call him.’ I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars,” President Biden said at a 2018 event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations.“I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, [expletive], he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”
“I have said repeatedly in my previous interviews that Poroshenko fired me at the insistence of the then Vice President Biden because I was investigating Burisma,” he said, noting that his probe of the company “was an ordinary case” but was also “on a list of cases to merit special attention because Hunter Biden was involved with Burisma” and the vice president “at the time oversaw Ukraine affairs for the White House.”
“There were no complaints whatsoever and no problems with how I was performing at my job. But because pressure was repeatedly put on Poroshenko, that is what ended up in him firing me.”
In a statement to Fox News following the interview, White House spokesperson Ian Sams said that Mr. Shokin had not been investigating Burisma or President Biden’s son at the time he was ousted from office.
It also criticized Fox for airing the interview and providing a platform “for these lies to a former Ukrainian prosecutor general whose office his own deputy called a ‘hotbed of corruption.’”
The Epoch Times contacted The White House for further comment but didn’t receive a reply by press time.
