Evidence continues to pile up that Joe Biden’s role in securing the firing of the then-Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was not part of some broader US anti-corruption effort in Ukraine. In case you don’t remember, here is Biden’s boast 5 years ago about forcing Shokin out, also implicating then-President Obama.

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Tamar Jacoby of The Bulwark points out that corruption remains pervasive in Ukraine: Excerpt:

“The old guard hasn’t given up easily. Lawmakers beholden to oligarchs delayed reform legislation or rendered it toothless with hostile amendments. Unscrupulous prosecutors removed powerful politicians’ names from indictments. Corrupt judges blocked criminal cases and dismissed charges against fellow jurists. President after president campaigned on promises to root out wrongdoing but then kowtowed to the oligarchs or made a show of combating corruption while actually protecting friends and allies. In other instances, when its interests were most threatened, the old guard fell back on smear campaigns and physical violence. Between 2014 and 2018, according to one human rights group, there were about 100 attacks on anticorruption activists, and 10 activists were murdered.”

This above is a description of the ways in which Ukrainian public officials continue to engage in corruption. Joe Biden demanded the firing of the Ukraine prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, in early February 2016 claiming he was corrupt.

Soon after Biden was named US point man in Ukraine, his son Hunter and Hunter’s business partner, Devon Archer were hired by a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch at $1 million a year each. And we know from Archer’s testimony that Shokin had seized the assets of the oligarch, and the oligarch was pressing Hunter to get Washington to provide relief.

Four things are striking about Joe Biden’s claim that he demanded the firing of Shokin, because he was corrupt.

One is that Biden never identified any ways in which Shokin acted corruptly.

A second is that Biden did not then demand the ouster of or even call out any other corrupt Ukrainian official such as judges or legislators.

A third is that the mere fact that Joe let Hunter continue to serve on the board of a corrupt oligarchs company was a signal to Ukraine’s corrupt officials that the US was not serious about its anticorruption campaign.

And a fourth is that while Ukraine remains rife with corruption, Biden has not demanded the firing or even called out any other prosecutor general or other public official during his vice presidency or his presidency. 

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