Posted on 11/14/2019 4:32:47 AM PST by gattaca
Sixty-five diamonds and a shady chauffeur underpin the investigation that doomed former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin and grew into an impeachment investigation targeting President Trump.
Shokin earned the enmity of the United States government through his loyalty to a chauffeur who was caught with a "cache of diamonds" after Shokin gave him a job as a local prosecutor, a key impeachment witness told lawmakers. The ex-driver, Oleksandr Korniyets, abused his position to force wealthy businessmen to give him money in order to avoid criminal charges, George Kent, one of the State Department’s top officials for Europe, testified. Korniyets' misdeeds came to light after reformist investigators raided his apartment and found dozens of diamonds, along with cash and other valuables. But despite public uproar, Kent said, Shokin tried to shield him.
“Shokin went to war,” Kent told lawmakers during his Oct. 15 deposition. “It was absolute warfare protecting his associate, and he destroyed the inspector general unit that we'd been standing up.”
Kent’s testimony gives the context for Joe Biden’s demand that Ukrainian leaders fire Shokin following the “diamond prosecutor” scandal, as the case came to be known. The controversy put Shokin on the wrong side of the first investigation launched by the watchdog who had partnered with U.S. officials to reform the prosecutor’s office.
“The first case turned out to have been the former driver of Shokin, who — he made his driver a prosecutor,” said Kent, the deputy chief of mission in Ukraine from 2016 to 2018.
Korniyets, the chauffeur-turned-prosecutor, was implicated in the summer of 2015, when a Ukrainian businessman told the new inspector general that he was “being shaken down” by Shokin’s cronies, Kent explained. This complaint turned into a “test case” for the reform efforts, as the inspector general launched an investigation of Korniyets' activities.
“One of the things they confiscated from his former driver was a cache of diamonds,” Kent said.
The 65 diamonds in Korniyets' apartment had been seized from a jewelry factory in a previous shakedown, according to the factory owner. The aggrieved businessman complained that Korniyets had opened a case against him that “would be closed in exchange for 'forgetting' the money and gold stolen during the search,” according to Deputy Prosecutor General David Sakvarelidze, who was ousted by Shokin after he called for his boss’s resignation. The jewelry factory owner was shot dead in his car in Kyiv in March.
Korniyets was released on bail, while Shokin retaliated against the officials involved in the case. “He wanted to destroy anybody connected with that effort,” Kent testified. “He eventually managed to force out everybody associated with that, including the deputy head of the security service, the intel service, who had provided the wiretapping coverage.”
Shokin’s aggressive defense of his ex-driver was evidence for U.S. officials and reform-minded Ukrainians that he was a profiteer. As a result, Geoffrey Pyatt, then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, asked Biden to demand that then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko fire Shokin.
Poroshenko's reluctance hurt U.S. interests because the U.S. was using loan guarantees to encourage Western banks to invest in Ukraine, putting American taxpayers on the hook if Shokin or other prosecutors stole the money.
“Shokin's removal then became a condition for the loan guarantee,” Kent testified. “To the best of my knowledge, the idea came from Ambassador Pyatt ... and then was pitched to the Office of the Vice President.”
Rudy Giuliani seized on Biden’s role in Shokin’s ouster to accuse the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate of corruption. Giuliani argued that Biden targeted Shokin at a time when the prosecutor general was investigating an oligarch who owned a company that hired Hunter Biden, the vice president’s son.
But Shokin did not not investigate the oligarch.
Kent, while explaining the State Department “spent roughly half a million dollars” building the case against the oligarch, told lawmakers that he confronted another of Shokin’s deputies personally over the case.
“We spent months and hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to help your country get your stolen assets back, and somebody in your office took a bribe and shut a case, and we're angry,” Kent recalled telling the Ukrainian official.
I always thought that Biden was Obama’s Insurance Policy against ever being impeached.
As John Soloman made clear in his reporting all of this attack on Shokin was a carefully constructed smear job to get rid of him because he refused to prosecute pro Russian Ukrainians the State Department didn’t like when there was no evidence. He was corrupt because he wasn’t. As Guiliani discovered long before Biden was a candidate Shokin was told he was getting fired for prosecuting Burisma by the Ukrainian president. Burisma’s pr firm met with the new prosecutors afterward and apologized for the smear campaign against Shokin. If he was so corrupt why is he living in a rural cottage on a state pension. In any event Shokin was never charged or convicted of anything. Is it legal for the US VP to just demand a foreign government destroy someone’s life to protect a political lobbyist like Burisma?
Betcha dollars to donuts Nanzi’s giving Schiff a good ***kicking after the hearing fiasco.
She’s looking at Dem approval numbers sinking into dank, dark unfathomable Swamp waters.
Then the Dem donors weigh in——and the checks stop.
Worst of all, Biden (and the crown prince) are hauled off the public stage.
SCHADENFREUD Dems get stuck with a butt-loving homosexual candidate hoping Nancy will give him a dose of what she gave Schiff.
So, put Pyatt on the witness list?
Usually the butler did it. Or Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick.
The U.S. State Department and George Soros have FAR, FAR, FAR too much involvment in the domestic affairs of Ukraine. Trump should demand all Americans outside of the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine leave Ukriane. Soros involvement with anything is political and has little to do with “justice”.
Where is his report to his superiors of this incident?
If there isn't one is this testimony even valid?
Trivia, speaking of diamonds:
Subsidiaries of Crowdstrike are.....
CST Diamond Holdings, LLC and Barker Cariboo Gold Corp.
CST Diamond Holdings, LLC was formerly known as VRG Diamond Holdings, LLC. There are numerous CST Diamond Holdings, LLC companies in many states, some dealing in bland stuff, foods, etc.
Good question...there should be a contact report.
Interspersed in the incoherence there is coherence. {;^)
Saudis Gave the Obama Team Suitcases of Jewels Before Muslim Apology Tour, 6/10/2018, Gateway Pundit ^ | June 10, 2018 | Jim Hoft
The Saudi Kingdom gave the Obama team suitcases of jewels during their infamous Apology Tour.
(Originally reported in The Guardian)
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