March 29, 2023

Two cases of corruption have recently come to the fore, both involving foreign countries.  Significantly for U.S. citizens, both of these shed light on questionable activities of Hunter Biden regarding vital United States foreign interests.  Whether they also provide inference to be drawn about President Biden’s document retention then becomes question for the jury of public opinion.

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One of these cases involves the recent raid by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the home of Ukraine’s most corrupt oligarchic Igor Kolomoisky for allegedly embezzling one billion dollars from Ukraine’s two largest oil companies.  This follows sanctions on Kolomoisky by the United States in 2021 in a ban on travel into the United States for him and his family.  Zelensky knows he must punish corruption to continue to receive foreign aid for his war against Russia.

The second corruption case to come to light is the indictment of former high level FBI counterintelligence agent Charles McGonigal.  While the head of the FBI’s counterintelligence office in New York from 2016 to 2018 and thereafter, he had undisclosed corrupt relationships featuring large amounts of cash payments with both agents of corrupt Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, and agents of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, whom Russiagate special counsel Robert Mueller has stated was closely aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Both cases are quite clearly stomach-turning stories of a high-level FBI agent using his position to advance the adverse interest of foreign rivals. However, at first blush they appear to have little to do with any serious connection with the United States, so why should any of us care?

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Let’s first pick the low hanging fruit about which we’ve previously discussed regarding Igor Kolomoisky.  Please recall that in April and May of 2014, Hunter Biden and his partner Devon Archer were hired as directors by Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, each for $1 million annually.  Hunter Biden also received lucrative assignments for a law firm with which he was associated.  The controlling owner of Burisma? Yes, you guessed it: Igor Kolomoisky, the majority silent partner behind the seeming number one official (but really number two), Burisma President Mycola Zlochevsky.  The number three official was Vadym Pozharskiy.

After Hunter was hired, good things began to happen for Igor Kolomoisky.  For instance, he was finally able to get a visa to travel into the United States for him and his family which required influence with the State Dept.  

After our Ukrainian point man, then-Vice President Joe Biden, pushed through $3 billion in foreign aid to Ukraine, much was routed for Ukraine’s biggest financial institution, PrivatBank, $1.7 billion of which went to loans of PrivatBank from its branch in Cyprus.  The loans were to six companies secured by contracts for delivery of goods from overseas companies.  The money flowed out to the vendors, but goods never floated in, and the owners of PrivatBank made $1.7 billion, all through these overseas shell companies.  The chief owner of PrivatBank? Igor Kolomoisky, a client of Hunter Biden.

Eventually, PrivatBank went into the hole for $5.6 billion, all seemingly into the pockets of Kolomoisky and associates.  Kolomoisky was not arrested or imprisoned and lived with impunity in Ukraine through 2016.  However, as Vice President Joe Biden was leaving office, Kolomoisky fled Ukraine.  Had he previously been protected, we ask?

When Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin investigated Burisma for corruption and raided the home of Mykola Zlochevsky, Hunter Biden became extremely active.  The upshot was that Hunter’s father famously got Shokin fired  by threatening to withhold $1 billion in financial aid unless he was terminated. 

Corruption cases filed against Burisma were settled favorably to Burisma, after the cases were switched from Shokin’s prosecutorial office to a nongovernmental National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) influenced by an FBI agent placed by FBI Director James Comey.