Ukraine finds no evidence implicating Hunter Biden

Ukrainian prosecutors found no evidence of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden after an audit of thousands of old case files.

Hunter Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma Holdings, from 2014 to 2019, including time when his father, Joe Biden, was vice president and leading U.S. policy toward Ukraine. The elder Biden had threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid if Ukraine’s leaders did not fire the country’s top prosecutor, who was widely seen as corrupt.

President Trump and his allies have accused Joe Biden, now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, of abusing his position as vice president to protect his son because the energy company was under investigation by the prosecutor-general before he was ousted in 2016. The elder Biden has denied any wrongdoing.

Ruslan Ryaboshapka, who initiated the audit, said he found nothing to implicate Joe Biden’s son.

“I specifically asked prosecutors to check especially carefully those facts about Biden’s alleged involvement. They answered that there was nothing of the kind,” he said, according to Reuters.

Ryaboshapka was fired in March after lawmakers accused him of not prosecuting cases fast enough. The former prosecutor-general argued he was removed because he was reforming the prosecution service in a way that threatened the interests of corrupt politicians.

The Bidens and Burisma were brought up by Trump in a July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump pressuring his counterpart to announce an investigation into the Bidens and his alleged withholding of military aid to Ukraine served as the basis for his impeachment in the Democratic-led House late last year. He was acquitted by the Senate, which has a Republican majority, in February.

Ryaboshapka said he was not influenced during his audit into old cases.

“Regarding the call to Zelensky and this story with Burisma. I can say that there was no pressure on me,” Ryaboshapka said.

Hunter Biden has long denied being linked to any investigation into Burisma.

“I have had no role whatsoever in relation to any investigation of Burisma or any of its officers,” Hunter Biden said in May 2019. “I explicitly limited my role to focus on corporate governance best practices to facilitate Burisma’s desire to expand globally.”

Republicans in Congress are still investigating Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine, authorizing a subpoena in the Senate late last month on a party-line vote.

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