Ukraine court forces probe into Biden role in firing of prosecutor Viktor Shokin

KYIV —A court ruling in Ukraine has forced state investigators to open a probe into alleged pressure by then-vice president Joe Biden that led to the 2016 dismissal of Viktor Shokin as the country’s prosecutor general, officials said Thursday.
President Trump last year pressed Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky for an investigation of this kind, leading to Trump’s impeachment by the House and his eventual acquittal in a Senate trial.
© GENYA SAVILOV/AFP/Getty Images Former Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin holds a news conference in Kyiv on Nov. 2, 2015.  
Shokin’s firing, however, was not a unilateral action directed by Biden. It was prompted by a push for anti-corruption reforms developed at the State Department and coordinated with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
Shokin’s lawyer, Oleksandr Teleshetsky, said the probe was launched in response to a court order, after an appeal for action by Shokin. The State Bureau of Investigations confirmed a case was opened.
Trump and his allies have put intense pressure on Zelensky’s administration to open investigations into Joe Biden, and his son Hunter Biden who sat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company Burisma.
From late 2018 Shokin met with Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, as Giuliani sought political dirt on the Bidens. Shokin has long been angered by what he sees as an unfair dismissal following foreign pressure.
Shokin has claimed he was pushed out by Biden because he tried to launch a probe into Hunter Biden’s role at Burisma. In fact, Ukrainian investigations into Burisma related to the period before Hunter Biden joined the board.
“They need to investigate this. They have no other alternative. They are required to do this by the decision of the court. If they don't, then they violate a whole string of procedural norms,” Teleshetsky said in an interview.
© ASSOCIATED PRESS Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a campaign event in Conway, S.C., Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020.
Shokin’s January appeal to the court mentioned Joe Biden by name, but the case opened by the SBI mentions only a U.S. citizen, Teleshetsky said.
Daria Kaleniuk, director of Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center, said that under Ukrainian law, anyone could go to court and demand that the SBI open a case. If a court approved it, the SBI was required by law to do so, even if officials did not believe there was enough evidence.
“The fact that it was opened after a decision of the court indicates that first the SBI didn’t open this case, but the attorneys of Shokin made the SBI open this case,” she said.
“Let’s say I can write a claim to the SBI that I think aliens stole my car,” she continued. “And the SBI obviously will not open [a case] as there is not evidence of a crime. But then I can go to court and make the SBI open it, through a court decision. So this case looks to me like that.”
She said it was possible for the case to lie dormant in the system for years.
“If I was a SBI investigator, I would close that case immediately,” she said.
When he was vice president, Biden urged Ukraine authorities to sack Shokin, citing his failure to act against corruption, concerns shared by other Western nations. In 2015 Biden warned Ukrainian authorities that the country could lose around $1 billion in loan guarantees unless Shokin was removed.