Slowman wrote:
gofigure wrote:
To your point and to Kay's point. Corruption at the core or periphery of all or any transactions that involve governments is a tough nut worldwide and it has been that way for all of recorded history. The current leader of Ukraine ran on a specific anti-corruption campaign. How does Biden's old energy company look now? Has the new prosecutor hired by the new president opened up any old files for review and found nothing? Was this company a player in Ukraine playing by the old rules of corruption with the old corrupt prosecutor turning a blind eye and open palm? Was it a venal Joe Biden getting the bad guy fired? No not venal, but he did foolishly involve himself personally in trumplike fashion. Does anyone really know the full story of energy contracts in Ukraine? Was this a Hit Job by our president on a foe? No doubt! If the new guy in Ukraine is worth his salt, maybe that stupid impeachable move by Trump will have not been needed. The citizens of the Ukraine deserve "clean" energy without taint of corruption and without the subsidization through a higher gas bill of $50K per month paid out to an invaluable board member.
At the foundation here is that if Hunter Biden's last name were Walsh, corruption in energy in Ukraine and in prosecutors offices would not be in the spotlight that it is now and without a curb. Maybe we will see an in depth investigation by 60 minutes to square it away.
here's what we do know, i think we can all agree, "all" referring to that subset of people for whom facts matter. trump really wants to see corruption stamped out. worldwide. he's made that very clear. just, with the proviso that the person doing the corrupting is a political opponent of his. in no other case am i aware of a corruption stand taken by trump. i am however aware of a number of cases were corruption by a foreign actor has been overlooked.
the biden case has been reported. mind, this goes back 5 years. there was an
optics problem at the time. and it wasn't reported on by
only one news organization. VP biden's push to oust the corrupt prosecutor, shokin, didn't emanate from him. it rose thru the US embassy in kiev. obama appointed biden the point man for ukraine, and biden working to oust shokin was the big dog with juice energizing a problem animated by career state dept officers in kiev. biden's push to oust shokin occurred in 2016, and burisma (the gas company for which biden's son hunter worked) was not under any investigation.
media outside and inside ukraine points out that the biden scandal or case, what have you, has been
debunked many times. but if you keep saying it, it'll catch hold inside impressionable minds. is hunter a bad apple? i don't know. but VP biden's actions were contrary to what you'd want if your goal was to get rid of the specter of the prosecution of your son.
i'm open to hearing differently. but "differently" means evidence of corruption by VP biden, because right now there is zero evidence of it tho the case has been investigated already by a number of news orgs.
I am only trying to keep both sides civil while allowing pursuit to ground of the truth to the entire story. Your linked references and Ace's reference taken as a whole clears this matter in my feeble mind not a wit. And yes the news is old and not all that much.
Conspiracy theories can be confounding and I hope always to steer clear. This is what I see that doesn't help either side of this story. That there is reference to Washington connected lobbyists hired by Burisma, that there are denials by congress that said lobbyists played no role in correspondence and actions by congress about said country and energy policies, that Russia has been and is involved in Ukraine's energy matters, that involvement of ownership of said company is in Cyprus, that the debunking case is woefully lacking news, that energy players with ecology ministers is a potentially explosive mix and that the subject matter expert at CSIS did not have a warm and cozy feeling about it.
This is in no way a shut case. Nor is there evidence that it is an open case. It will nag Biden because there is video and audio evidence of his playing mafia don Joe. That's all. I am not convinced that Joe acted in a corrupt way or a lawful way in support of his son or even if he knew how his actions would affect his son and his son's company.
Trump's whataboutism play in no way absolves him of his own misdeeds taking up the matter with Zelensky.