Blue Star Strategies, a Democratic lobbying firm that was representing Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian natural gas firm that was being investigated by that country's prosecutor general's office, participated in a call with the Obama-Biden White House ahead of then-Vice President Joe Biden's Dec. 2015 trip to Kiev to make a speech to the Ukrainian parliament.
In a Dec. 2, 2015 briefing to Burisma released by the House Ways and Means Committee, the board was advised of the content of Biden's speech specifically around the prosecutor general's office-who Biden eventually ended up getting fired in exchange for a $1 billion International Monetary Fund loan.
The Blue Star memo stated, "In response to questions about Ukraine's anti-corruption reforms of the Prosecutor General's Office, Dr. Kahl said that Mr. Biden will reiterate the message that Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, has been saying: more needs to be done to enable anti-corruption reforms and not have the Prosecutor General's Office stand in the way of those efforts."
This was just two days prior to then-Burisma board member Hunter Biden allegedly "Call[ing] his dad" at a Dec. 4, 2015 Burisma board meeting in Dubai.
Former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer testified that Hunter Biden "Called his dad" when he was being pressured by natural gas firm Burisma Holdings, for which they served on the board of directors, for "Help in D.C." in Dec. 4, 2015 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, according to a transcript of his July 31 testimony to the House Oversight Committee that the committee released on Aug. 4.
In the speech to the Ukrainian Rada on Dec. 9, 2015, just days after the Burisma board meeting in Dubai, then Vice President Biden stated of Shokin and his office was "Desperately [in need of] reform": "[I]t's not enough to set up a new anti-corruption bureau and establish a special prosecutor fighting corruption.
In an affidavit in a European court in Sept. 2019, Shokin testified, "The truth is that I was forced out because I was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into Burisma Holdings, a natural gas firm active in Ukraine and Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, was a member of the Board of Directors On several occasions President Poroshenko asked me to have a look at the case against Burisma and consider the possibility of winding down the investigative actions in respect of this company but I refused to close this investigation."
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