Ukraine’s new official to ‘audit’ Biden case
Prosecutor’s decision does not open probe that Trump wants
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s new chief prosecutor, who has promised to root out corruption and political favoritism in his office, said Friday that his staff will review all previous cases concerning a gas company at the heart of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.
The decision by prosecutor Ruslan Ryaboshapka does not open the criminal investigation Trump wants against Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who was a board member of the gas company, Burisma.
Instead, the “audit” of past cases i nvolving Burisma seems more designed to show that prosecutor Ryaboshapka is following up on the cleangovernment pledges he and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy made on taking office, analysts say.
It also may buy some time for Ukrainian authorities at a sticky moment — dealing with the aftermath of Trump’s alleged favortrading demand for a Biden probe, while also trying to keep Ukraine’s image from being too tarnished by the House impeachment inquiries.
But the prosecutor’s intended audience is not the White House or Capitol Hill, said Oleksiy Baganetz, a former deputy prosecutor general in Ukraine. He is striving to keep public opinion in Ukraine behind him.
“This is a political issue, more than a criminal one,” he said.
Ryaboshapka reiterated Friday that he has seen no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Hunter Biden. Headded that no foreign or Ukrainian official had requested he pursue the “audit” of the cases.
“We are now reviewing all proceedings that were closed, fragmented, or investigated earlier, in order to make a decision in cases where illegal procedural decisions were made, and to review them,” said Ryaboshapka.
Ryaboshapka, appointed by Zelenskiy, has a reputation as a legal reformer and has vowed to clean out the deeply compromised system of prosecution in Ukraine.
He’s one month into the job, and his supporters want results, Baganetz said.
The reviews, however, may take time and could move far slower than the fast- developing political events in Washington.
Oleksandr Lemenov, an anti- corruption activist, said that any attempt by outside politicians, Ukrainian or otherwise, to interfere in the prosecutor off i ce’s business could prompt widespread resignations among the new, idealistic staff.
Ryaboshapka would have no desire to get caught up in U.S. politics, Lemenov said.
Hunter Biden was invited to join the board of the gas company, Burisma, in 2014.
Its principal owner was Mykola Zlochevsky, who had served as minister of ecology and natural resources in the graft-ridden administration of President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia in February 2014 after being ousted.
Ryaboshapka said Friday that he is aware of at least 15 cases launched against Zlochevsky f ollowing Yanukovych’s downfall in 2014, all of which focused on the period before Biden joined the board and none of which came to anything. Zlochevsky was accused of illegally awarding licenses to his own companies.
But the chief prosecutor from 2014 to 2016, Viktor Shokin, did little to move those or other corruption cases along.
Eventually, Western officials, including then-Vice President Joe Biden, were seeking his ouster. Shortly after Shokin was fired, the case against Burisma was closed.
That had fueled Trump’s insistence that the senior Biden brought pressure on Kyev to protect his son, and that a new criminal probe should be undertaken.
But a former deputy to Shokin, David Sakvarelidze, told The Washington Post that the Burisma case was shut down by Shokin’s successor, Yuri Lutsenko, after a deal was reached in which the company agreed to sell natural gas at a favorable price to companies controlled by then-President Petro Poroshenko.
That version is supported by clandestine recordings made by a businessman now in exile, Oleksandr Onyshchenko.
This is the sort of allegation that Ryaboshapka now wants to revisit.
Sakvarelidze said that the furor over Trump’s demand and the attention now being paid to Burisma demanded some response f rom Ukraine.
“He cannot ignore this issue,” Sakvarelidze said. “But the other question is, where will this investigation lead?”
The audit does not mark a reopening of the criminal probe. But, in theory, the prosecutor’s office could find enough evidence to bring charges against those who formerly ran it, especially if the allegation of a corrupt deal with Poroshenko is borne out.
And if a criminal case should eventually emerge from this, a former associate, Ruslan Radetzky, said, “It will be a Ukrainian matter, and no one else’s.”