South Carolina’s Senator Lindsey Graham, Senate Judiciary Committee chair, started an investigation into the Bidens as well as the Ukraine gas company Burisma, with a request to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Thursday for the documents related to Joe Biden and his communications with Ukraine officials.
In response to the ‘witch hunt’ of a Democrat-led impeachment effort, Graham wants to prove that Biden interfered in an investigation into Burisma, where his son Hunter was employed. This should come as no surprise at all, as President Donald Trump has long accused Biden of removing Ukraine’s top prosecutor in an effort to protect his son.
“[Joe Biden] wouldn’t give, I think it was billions of dollars, to Ukraine unless they fired the prosecutor who was looking at his son (Hunter Biden) and his son’s company,” said Trump. “When you look at other people and what they’ve done…I believe there was tremendous corruption.”
The allegation that the former vice president acted nefariously to remove Ukraine’s prosecutor is at the center of Trump’s impeachment inquiry. Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July 25 phone call to look into the Bidens, which according to the Democrats was an abuse of his power and an attempt to strong-arm a foreign leader into investigating a potential political opponent.
When Biden put pressure on Ukraine to remove its prosecutor by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid, the former vice president was leading a charge supported by the Obama administration, several Western leaders, as well as a few Republican senators.
According to a statement from Senator Graham’s office, if the Democrat-led House Intelligence Committee won’t look into the Bidens, the GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee most definitely will. Senator Graham did not set a deadline for Secretary Pompeo to produce the requested documents.
Taylor Reidy, a spokeswoman for Graham, said the senator is now seeking the documents because “Adam Schiff and the House Intel Committee have made it clear they will not look into the issues about Hunter Biden and Burisma.” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “Graham is requesting documents which could shed additional light on that issue and hopes they will be able to answer some of the outstanding questions,” she said.
In Senator Graham’s letter, he requested documents and communication related to contacts between Vice President Biden, Hunter Biden, other Obama administration officials, and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The documents included “all documents and communications, including call transcripts or summaries, related to the Vice President’s phone calls with President Poroshenko on February 11, 18, and 19 and March 22 of 2016, especially with respect to whether Vice President Biden mentioned the Prosecutor General’s investigation into Burisma.”
In addition, “all documents and communications between the Vice President and his office and President Poroshenko and his office after the raid on Mr. Zlochevsky’s home on February 2, 2016, until the dismissal of the Prosecutor General on March 29, 2016.”
And finally, “all documents and communications related to a meeting between Devon Archer, a business partner of Hunter Biden, and Secretary of State John Kerry on March 2, 2016.”
This starts Senator Graham’s investigation into the Bidens and a whole new set of discoveries into the Ukrainian corruption issues.
