Biden accuses Trump of Ukraine ‘smear’ campaign
What happened
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said this week President Trump had made “an attempt to smear me” with “baseless” claims that he improperly pressured Ukraine to protect his son, Hunter. As vice president, Biden in 2015 pushed the government in Kiev to fire chief prosecutor Viktor Shokin and threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if he wasn’t dismissed. Shokin was viewed by many Western governments as an obstacle to reform in the graft-ridden country because he had turned a blind eye to corruption in his office and among Ukraine’s elite. At the same time Biden was demanding Shokin’s ouster, his son was earning up to $50,000 a month to sit on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company that had been under scrutiny by authorities there. Trump has accused Biden of intervening against Shokin to protect Burisma and thus, his son. “If a Republican ever did what
Joe Biden did,” Trump said this week, “they’d be getting the electric chair by right now.”
Shokin was dismissed in early 2016, and his successor, Yuriy Lutsenko, said there’s no evidence that Biden or his son violated Ukrainian law. Shokin’s former deputy, Vitaliy Kasko—who resigned out of disgust at corruption in the prosecutor’s office—said all cases against Burisma had been “shelved” months before Biden called for Shokin’s ouster. Biden said Trump is only trying to dig up dirt on him “because he knows I’ll beat him like a drum” in 2020.
What the columnists said
Trump’s attack on Biden contains “significant holes,” said
Daniel Dale in CNN.com. Most significantly, Trump has declined to mention that “a whole lot of other people were also trying to get Shokin fired.” The Obama administration, the International Monetary Fund, anti-corruption activists—everyone wanted the chief prosecutor gone. And there’s also no evidence that Hunter Biden was under investigation for his work at Burisma. Trump’s claim of a father-son Biden scandal simply doesn’t add up.
Shokin was corrupt, said Tom Rogan in WashingtonExaminer.com, and Biden was right to call for his resignation. But his son’s involvement in Burisma was “smelly from the start.” Company owner Mykola Zlochevsky was minister of natural resources from 2010 to 2012, and “in fine Ukrainian oligarch form,” used his office to advance his business interests. Authorities are now investigating whether Zlochevsky paid off prosecutors to end earlier investigations. “Compensation aside, why did Hunter think joining Zlochevsky was a good idea?” That question “deserves answering.”
Superficially, it may appear that Trump and Biden acted similarly in using “the leverage of American government money” to pressure Ukraine, said David Graham in TheAtlantic.com. But “Biden’s intervention was aimed at fighting corruption,” and his push for a tougher prosecutor would have “made it more likely, not less, that Burisma would be in the crosshairs.” In contrast, Trump appears to have been engaging in corruption himself by threatening to withhold U.S. military aid unless Ukraine smeared his political opponent. Biden was acting in the U.S.’s interests, while Trump was thinking only of his re-election prospects.