Spokesman for state AG has ties to Ukraine firm that’s in Trump drama

An official with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office says he hasn’t been questioned in connection with his work at the Ukrainian gas company where Joe Biden’s son used to serve on the board — a company at the heart of a controversy that now threatens President Donald Trump’s administration — and he doesn’t expect to be.

Lawrence Pacheco, spokesman for Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, also says he did not attend Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s fundraiser in Denver on Saturday.

Pacheco answered that question Tuesday and two others — whether he had been questioned and whether he planned to be — with the same one-word emailed answer: “No.”

Pacheco spent a decade at FTI Consulting, a massive financial advising firm with offices around the world.

According to his LinkedIn page, he was a managing director for the firm, specializing in communications work for energy clients overseas.

In that role, he was a spokesman for Burisma, Ukraine’s largest private producer of natural gas.

After Hunter Biden was appointed to Burisma’s executive board in 2014, it was Pacheco who answered questions about the appointment.

Before Biden arrived at Burisma, the company and its oligarch owner were being investigated for tax evasion and money laundering.

President Barack Obama’s administration, including Vice President Joe Biden, Hunter’s father, felt the prosecutor on the case was inadequately dealing with Ukraine’s corruption and urged his ouster, at one point threatening to withhold loans to Ukraine if he was not removed.

The prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was pushed out in 2016 and his successor ended the Burisma investigation 10 months later.

The Bidens have never been accused by prosecutors of wrongdoing. Hunter Biden left Burisma this year; Pacheco left FTI in 2017.

Back in the United States, that series of events is at the heart of allegations Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, have leveled against Joe Biden.

Their requests that Ukrainian prosecutors investigate Hunter Biden led Congress to open an impeachment inquiry into Trump last week.