House investigators have asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken to turn over documents and records related to “sudden foreign policy changes” by then-Vice President Joe Biden related to the firing in 2016 of Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
In a letter sent Tuesday to Mr. Blinken, House lawmakers lay out a timeline of events that suggest Mr. Biden turned against Mr. Shokin after his son took a lucrative job on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings, which Mr. Shokin was investigating.
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer sent the letter to Mr. Blinken as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced plans to launch an impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden over allegations of influence peddling related to his son’s foreign business deals.
The impeachment probe is likely to center on Mr. Biden’s role in ousting Mr. Shokin while his son was paid an annual salary of $1 million as a member of the board of Burisma.
Mr. Shokin was ousted on March 29, 2016, at the urging of Mr. Biden, who boasted in 2018 that he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine unless Mr. Shokin was fired.
In the letter, Mr. Comer, Kentucky Republican, seek emails, transcripts and other records from the State Department from that time period, “to provide context for certain sudden foreign policy changes that occurred while Joe Biden was vice president, particularly regarding Ukraine while then-Vice President Biden’s son served on the board of directors of a company being investigated for corruption.”
Mr. Comer said the panel wants information about the State Department’s “perception” of the prosecutor general’s office prior to the firing of Mr. Shokin.
The letter details a Nov. 5, 2015, call between Vice President Biden and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The call, Mr. Comer wrote to Mr. Blinken, “provided no indication” the United States wanted Mr. Shokin removed.
But within weeks, the removal of Mr. Shokin “became a condition of the $1 billion loan guarantee,” Mr. Comer wrote.
House investigators believe Mr. Biden’s son Hunter Biden may have played a role in turning his father against Mr. Shokin based on testimony from ex-business partner Devon Archer.
Archer told House lawmakers in July he believes Hunter Biden and two top Burisma executives phoned Mr. Biden from Dubai on Dec. 4, 2015, to discuss “pressure” the company was facing under Mr. Shokin’s criminal probe of the company.
Archer, who is sentenced to a year-long prison term for an unrelated securities fraud conviction, told House lawmakers in August he learned about the call the following day from one of the Burisma executives.
“I did not hear the phone call, but he called his dad,” he told House lawmakers in closed-door testimony.
Mr. Archer testified that company President Mykola Zlochevsky and corporate secretary Vadym Pozharsky participated in the call and were pressuring Hunter Biden to help them thwart Mr. Shokin, who was ramping up an investigation into Burisma.
Nearly two months before Mr. Shokin’s firing, according to Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, Mr. Shokin’s office “announced the seizure of property from … Burisma Holdings’ founder, Mykola Zlochevsky.”
Mr. Biden bragged at a 2018 Council of Foreign Relations forum that he traveled to Kyiv and threatened Mr. Poroshenko that he would withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if Mr. Shokin was not removed.
“If the prosecutor is not fired, you are not getting the money,” Mr. Biden said he told Mr. Poroshenko.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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