Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Viktor Shokin did, in fact, receive positive feedback on his anti-corruption plan, new documents reveal.
The revelation comes in contradiction to the House Democrats story regarding the firing of Shokin in March of 2016.
Democrats said that Shokin was fired because state officials deemed his anti-corruption efforts insufficient.
“During former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial two years ago, House Democrats alleged that Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired in March 2016 because State officials were widely displeased with his anti-corruption efforts and not because Shokin’s office was investigating the Ukrainian gas firm that had given then-Vice President Biden’s son Hunter a lucrative job,” wrote Just The News, who obtained the documents.
A 2015 letter shows that then-assistant Secretary of the State of Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland wrote “We have been impressed with the ambitious reform and anti-corruption agenda of your government … Secretary Kerry asked me to reply on his behalf” to let Shokin know “he enjoyed the full support of the United States as he set out to fight endemic corruption in the former Soviet republic,” according to Just The News.
“The ongoing reform of your office, law enforcement, and the judiciary will enable you to investigate and prosecute corruption and other crimes in an effective, fair, and transparent manner. The United States fully supports your government’s efforts to fight corruption and other crimes in an effective, fair and transparent manner.”
Republican congressional investigators and Trump’s former impeachment defense lawyers say that the letters stand out because it was sent “just six months before Joe Biden began his pressure campaign to oust Shokin in December 2015 and appears to conflict with testimony given to Congress.”
The letter “should have [been] received” by Trump’s defense attorneys, said Republican Sen. Ron Johnson. “This just underscores how congressional oversight has really diminished over the years mainly because we don’t have enforcement powers,” he told JustTheNews. “Administration officials realize this bureaucrats realize this so they just thumbed their nose at congressional investigators that they run off the clock.”
Shokin would eventually be fired in March of 2016 by Biden while he was vice president after he ” personally threatened Ukraine’s then-president Petro Poroshenko he would withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if the prosecutor wasn’t removed.”
Biden’s threats to Ukraine allegedly made some US officials worried that it may have appeared like a conflict of interest, prompting Trump to ask Ukraine’s president in 2019 to investigate whether “anything untoward occurred in Shokin’s firing.”
