Ukraine Officials: Dems Impeachment Inquiry and Hunter Biden Ties Impeding Probe Into Burisma

Nick Arama reporting for RedState

Democrats are so intent on finding anyway to get rid of President Donald Trump, they don’t seem to care much about the consequences of their actions, not just for our country but for our relationships with other countries. 

It’s not clear how much they’ve impaired our relationships when other country’s leaders may now have to fear speaking in confidence to the president on the phone because they don’t know if someone will try to leak it or Democrats will try to make it public.

Specifically in the case of Ukraine, the Ukrainians have said that the Democrats’ efforts have impaired the relationship which had been improving under Trump. 

Officials in the Ukraine have also made it clear that the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry has hampered their ability to investigate corruption involving Burisma and that it was also hampered because of the ties of Hunter Biden. 

From NY Post: 

Current and former officials in Ukraine told Time magazine that the government felt hamstrung because of Burisma’s ties to Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden.

The younger Biden – who’s embroiled in a paternity scandal – sat on the Burisma board from April 2014 until earlier this year, for which he was reportedly paid as much as $50,000 a month.

“It’s too sensitive a topic,” one Ukrainian official told Time.

According to the report, the Ukrainian official familiar with President Zelensky says he believes that the investigation needs to proceed on Burisma, not because of Trump or Biden, but because they feel there’s corruption. 

But the impeachment process has now made it political and impeded their efforts. “And this is bad,” the official said.

Bohdan Yaramenko, a senior lawmaker in Zelensky’s ruling party, told Time that officials were concerned how “major players in the United States” would respond to any Ukrainian statements regarding graft in the country’s notoriously crooked gas industry.

It’s not hard to see how they might be concerned. Imagine if they find corruption by Hunter Biden? How do they pull the trigger on pursuing or announcing that with the possibility that Biden might become president? And Biden already threatened to pull aid in the past if they didn’t do what he wanted. 

Despite that, they do seem to be pursuing the head of Burisma, as the prosecutor General Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka announced this week. They are looking into him for embezzling state funds, money laundering, tax violations and licenses which were given to Burisma. 

Lawmakers held a separate press conference were they also linked the money allegedly taken from the state and said they believed that millions paid to Hunter Biden may not have been earned from the business but may have been money taken from Ukraine. The Prosecutor General did not make any allegations against Biden during his remarks. 

Nice job, Democrats. Not only being divisive here, but inhibiting the ability to get to the bottom of corruption in Ukraine as well.