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The Bidens' Latest Accuser Is Another Big Fat Liar: Discredited In Eight Ways [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-07-21

Sen. Charles Grassley and Murdoch media launched another patently bogus story about allegations of corruption by the Bidens. There are at least eight obvious reasons that show why the FBI's confidential human source (CHS), who offered up hearsay that the Bidens were paid millions in bribes by Burisma, is a big fat liar. Most of them are encapsulated in this brief passage from the from the FBI report of the telephone interview conducted on June 26, 2020:

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss Burisma's interest in purchasing a US-based oil end gas business, for purposes of merging it with Burisma for purposes of conducting an IPO in the US. Burisma was willing to purchase a US-based entity for $20-30 million.

CHS had never met anyone at Burisma prior this initial meeting with executives in late 2015 or early 2016. Let's count the ways CHS’s story fails the laugh test:

No Ukrainian company has ever issued stock or bonds registered with the SEC in the U.S. There was no reason to believe that Burisma would be the first, for reasons set forth below.

Ukraine's sovereign rating at Moody's in late 2015 was Caa3, which meant there was no market for actively traded Ukraine securities in the U.S. Executives in developing countries are acutely aware of their constrained access to western capital markets. No executive in Ukraine would be delusional enough that Burisma could launch an IPO in the U.S.

2. For investors, the political risk for a Ukraine gas producer was especially high, because most gas production is close to the Russian border.

Ukraine's rating was so low because of political risk. That risk was especially acute for gas producers, since 80% of Ukraine's gas production is near the Russian border, where Russian troops had been threatening violence since 2014, when Chevron and Shell both abandoned their development projects there.

3. A $30 million asset acquisition in the U.S. is not sufficient lipstick on the pig to make a Burisma IPO salable.

Though $30 million is a fortune to most Americans, it's a tiny number in the energy industry, and not sufficient to change the business profile of a company like Burisma.

4. The cost and burden of registering stock with the SEC was excessive for a company of Burisma’s size.

Burisma is a small player in its home market, with less than 5% domestic production. Its size and total absence of experience could not justify the expense of the lawyers, accountants, advisors and investment bankers needed to launch an initial public offering plus the ongoing burden of SEC compliance for a company outside the US.

5. Burisma had no expertise in US oil and gas.

The oil and gas business in the US involves a very different legal and regulatory environment, and very different hydrocarbon geology, depending on the location of the wells. Burisma had no expertise in any of it. CHS allegedly advised Burisma to hire "some normal US oil and gas advisors." Duh. But there's no indication that Burisma took that obvious step. If they were serious; they would have traveled to Houston and New York to meet people who knew what they were talking about.

6. CHS knew next to nothing about oil and gas, IPOs or Burisma; yet the company sought his counsel.

The FBI memo reveals that CHS had no expertise in oil and gas, or in issuing securities in the US. So why were they bothering to talk with him? The only connections were that he spoke Russian, and that he knew an individual, someone named Oleksandr Ostapenko (or Alexander Ostepenko) who knew people at Burisma. Any fool would recognize that his value added was nominal.

7. Though CHS had nothing to offer the company, he alleges that top executives gratuitously volunteered incriminating information to someone they didn’t know.

So with that tenuous connection and nominal expertise, CHS somehow got Burisma executives to gratuitously reveal damning information that could get them in deep trouble. These confessions and gratuitous insults against the Bidens were made in 2016, when Joe Biden was Vice President and Hillary Clinton was expected to succeed Obama.

But for no plausible reason whatsoever, these individuals trashed the people who represented the US government, which extended them an essential lifeline against Russian aggression. Per CHS’s hearsay, that Burisma's CEO, Mykola Zlochevsk, casually said, “it cost 5 [million] to pay one Biden, and 5 [million] to another Biden.” The setup could not be more absurd. From the FBI memo:

Zlochevsky made some comment that although Hunter Biden ‘was stupid, and his (Zlochevsky’s) dog was smarter.'

Really? Zlochevsky supposedly trashed a director who was a Yale Law School graduate, affiliated with a global law firm, and who taught at Georgetown's graduate school of Foreign Service. CHS’s sounds about as credible as Sidney Powell or Kari Lake.

8. CHP resuscitates the lie about the removal of Viktor Shokin being tied to protecting Burisma.

CHS’s entire story was used to resuscitate The Big Lie that triggered Trump's first impeachment. It was that Joe Biden sought to remove Ukraine's prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, in order to preempt prosecution of Burisma and its founder, Mykola Zlochevsky. From the FBI report about a conversation in early 2016:

CHS told Zlochevsky that due to Shokin's investigation into Burisma, which was made public at this time, it would have a substantial negative impact on Burisma's prospective IPO in the United States.

As explained above, anyone who knew anything about the gas industry in Ukraine was fully aware that the idea of US IPO was delusional. So the idea that a Shokin investigation might be a tipping point that prevented access to US capital markets was even more delusional. Moreover, there was never was a serious investigation of Burisma, or any other important person or entity under Shokin, which is why he was removed from office in March 2016. As the Financial Times reported:

European and US officials pressed Ukraine to sack Viktor Shokin, the country’s former prosecutor-general, months before Joe Biden, the former US vice-president, personally intervened to force his removal, people involved in the talks said. Mr Biden did not act unilaterally nor did he instigate the push against Mr Shokin, despite suggestions to the contrary by supporters of US president Donald Trump.

Factcheck.org declared, "Trump Revives False Narrative on Biden and Ukraine."

Just as Donald Trump keeps repeating the lie of a stolen election, the professional liars at Murdoch media keep repackaging the lie that Joe Biden got Viktor Shokin removed to protect Burisma. The New York Post resuscitated the lie about Shokin’s removal in its notorious laptop story, " Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad. " That headline pushed two blatant lies, because the email itself was never a “smoking gun,” which is definitive proof of something; and it did not reveal how Vice President Biden was briefly introduced to the Burisma consultant at a charity dinner.

There's an army of professional liars promoting false stories about Biden corruption. Most of them show up on Fox News.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/21/2182675/-The-Bidens-Latest-Accuser-Is-Another-Big-Fat-Liar-Discredited-In-Eight-Ways

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