But if that was Biden’s aim, he was more than a year late, based on a timeline laid out by a former Ukrainian official and in Ukrainian documents.

The official described to Bloomberg details about the country’s political dynamic in the run-up to early 2016 when Biden, then the U.S. vice president, threatened to hold up U.S. funding to Ukraine unless it cracked down on corruption. Biden’s chief demand was the ouster of a top Ukrainian prosecutor who he said had been ineffective. The episode has come under the spotlight in the last week because at one point, that prosecutor had been investigating a natural gas company where Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, sat on the board and received substantial compensation.

There’s little question that the Bidens’ paths in Ukraine held the potential for conflict, and in a tweet last week, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said the U.S. should investigate the matter. But what has received less attention is that at the time Biden made his ultimatum, the probe into the company -- Burisma Holdings, owned by Mykola Zlochevsky -- had been long dormant, according to the former official, Vitaliy Kasko.

“There was no pressure from anyone from the U.S. to close cases against Zlochevsky,” Kasko said in an interview last week. “It was shelved by Ukrainian prosecutors in 2014 and through 2015.”

Aaron Rupar
✔
@atrupar
TAPPER: If Obama pressured a foreign leader to look into Don Jr, would you not find that inappropriate?

MNUCHIN: What I find inappropriate is Biden's son doing business in Ukraine

T: So it's okay for Don Jr & Ivanka but not for Biden?

M: I really don't want to go into details

Leshchenko
@Leshchenkos
As a person who has had direct experience of many of these events around @RudyGiuliani, I express my readiness to testify to the U.S. Congress about what has been happening for the past 6 months in the gray zone of US-Ukraine relations. Here is my piece https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?destination=%2fopinions%2f2019%2f09%2f21%2fwhy-is-rudy-giuliani-trying-drag-my-countrys-president-into-trumps-reelection-campaign%2f%3f …

Giuliani was working in Ukraine 2017-18. In April 2018, he joins Trump’s legal team. In May 2018 Ukraine stops cooperating with Mueller investigation. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/giuliani-works-for-foreign-clients-while-serving-as-trumps-attorney/2018/07/09/e21554ae-7988-11e8-80be-6d32e182a3bc_story.html …

Giuliani works for foreign clients while serving as Trump’s attorney
The former New York mayor has not registered on behalf of customers in Ukraine and elsewhere with interests in Trump administration policies.

Venture Capital
@kelly2277
🔥BREAKING NEWS🔥@RudyGiuliani and @realDonaldTrump want REVENGE on @JoeBiden for removing their Judicial FIXER, Ukrainian Prosecutor Shokin‼️He wasn’t prosecuting RU mafia corruption- which includes Rudy’s clients👇‼️ #Whistleblower cc @MingGao26 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1022518082114408450.html …

Thread by @kelly2277: "Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas are part of the Sunny Isles, FL - Russian Mar A...
Thread by @kelly2277: "Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas are part of the Sunny Isles, FL - Russian Mar A Lago Trump crowd that launders money thrug.com/news/articles/… Here’s some LLCs w Lev Parnas or his...
threadreaderapp.com

Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort authorised a secret media operation on behalf of Ukraine’s former president featuring “black ops”, “placed” articles in the Wall Street Journal and US websites and anonymous briefings against Hillary Clinton.

The project was designed to boost the reputation of Ukraine’s then leader, Viktor Yanukovych. It was part of a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort carried out by Manafort on behalf of Yanukovych’s embattled government, emails and documents reveal.

The strategies included:

• Proposing to rewrite Wikipedia entries to smear a key opponent of the then Ukrainian president.

• Setting up a fake thinktank in Vienna to disseminate viewpoints supporting Yanukovych.

• A social media blitz “aimed at targeted audiences in Europe and the US”.

• Briefing journalists from the rightwing website Breitbart to attack Clinton when she was US secretary of state.

Manafort’s Ukraine strategy anticipated later efforts by the Kremlin and its troll factory to use Twitter and Facebook to discredit Clinton and to help Trump win the 2016 US election. The material seen by the Guardian dates from 2011 to 2013.

Second, and more significantly, on Monday the New York Times revealed a list of questions that Robert Mueller had, ostensibly, drawn up to ask the president. Shortly after this news broke, a furious Trump denounced the leak. (“So disgraceful that the questions concerning the Russian Witch Hunt were ‘leaked’ to the media.”) Trump proceeded to insist the questions showed Mueller had no leads on collusion with Russia, and was instead luring him into a perjury trap or prosecuting the secondary crime of obstruction of justice without an underlying offense (“No questions on Collusion. Oh, I see…you have a made up, phony crime, Collusion, that never existed, and an investigation begun with illegally leaked classified information.”).

Reporters immediately rebutted this charge by noting that Mueller’s questions included many queries into his campaign’s collusion with Russia. But it turns out, once again, we all assumed far too much good faith. The Washington Post now reports the questions were compiled not by Mueller but by Trump’s own legal team, based on topics proposed by Mueller.

...

Bear this lesson in mind when you process the following. In December, the administration allowed the sale of anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. Supporters of the administration held up the sale as evidence that Trump could not have colluded with Russia — here he was, arming Russia’s enemy. “The year that began with the narrative of Trump-Russia collusion is ending with an unexpected plot twist — the Trump administration is confronting and cracking down on Russia,” reported Fox News. The Wall Street Journal editorial page mocked “people who say President Trump colluded with Mr. Putin to win the election and wants to appease him now.” Skeptics merely saw the sale as evidence that the foreign policy bureaucracy operated at some distance from Trump’s whims.

Today’s New York Times suggests a darker interpretation altogether. In response to the missile sale, Ukrainian officials have frozen out the Mueller investigation. Ukraine’s government had previously cooperated eagerly to expose the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia — providing, among other importance evidence, ledgers detailing payments to Paul Manafort by the Russian-backed Ukrainian party he had advised.