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2020-05-14 Home Front: Politix
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Impeachment Boomerang: Contacts exposed between US embassy, Hunter Biden-connected Ukraine firm
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| We had three submissions of this article, so clearly it is important. ;-) |
 Remember this self-important b*&^h? Perjury much?
[Just The News] During President Trump's impeachment, former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch testified to Congress that she knew little beyond an initial briefing and "press reports" about Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian natural gas firm that had hired Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter and was dogged by a corruption investigation.
"It just wasn't a big deal," she declared under oath on Oct. 11, 2019.
Let's see...under oath, huh?
Continued from Page 6
But newly unearthed State Department memos obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show Yovanovitch's embassy in Kiev, including the ambassador herself, was engaged in several discussions and meetings about Burisma as the gas firm scrambled during the 2016 election and transition to settle a long-running corruption investigation and polish its image before President Trump took office.
Yovanovitch, for instance, was specifically warned in an email by her top deputy in September 2016 ‐ three years before her testimony ‐ that Burisma had hired an American firm with deep Democratic connections called Blue Star Strategies to "rehabilitate the reputation" of the Ukrainian gas firm and that it had placed "Hunter Biden on its board," the memos show.
She also met directly with a representative for Burisma in her embassy office, less than 45 days before Trump took office, a contact she did not mention during her impeachment deposition.
The discussions about Burisma inside Yovanovitch's embassy were so extensive, in fact, that they filled more than 160 pages of emails, memos and correspondence in fall 2016 alone, according to the State Department records obtained under FOIA by the conservative group Citizens United.
The contacts included a detailed private letter hand-delivered to Yovanovitch by one of Burisma's lawyers in September 2016, a briefing later that month from her staff on Burisma's issues, and a meeting scheduled between the ambassador and a Burisma representative shortly before Christmas 2016 as the Obama administration was preparing to leave office.
Yovanovitch, who recently retired from State, did not respond Tuesday to a message sent to her private email seeking comment. Her lawyer during the impeachment proceedings, Lawrence S. Robbins, also did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
State officials declined comment.
David Bossie, a former congressional investigator and current outside adviser to Trump who runs Citizen United, said the documents his group obtained raise questions about Yovanovitch's testimony last fall and what else Congress may not know about the embassy's involvement with the Hunter Biden-connected Burisma firm.
"These new records clearly don't support Ambassador Yovanovitch's testimony under oath during [Rep. Adam] Schiff's sham impeachment. Her sworn testimony must be investigated and scrutinized just like in the case of General [Michael] Flynn," he said. "You can't have two sets of rules."
The impeachment hearings last fall, which focused on efforts by Trump and his lawyer Rudy Guiliani to find evidence inside Ukraine on the Bidens and Burisma and to remove Yovanovitch from her job as U.S. ambassador, included testimony from Yovanovitch herself.
During that deposition in October 2019 she made no mention of direct contact with Burisma representatives and instead suggested her knowledge about the company and its legal travails was limited mostly to a briefing she received in preparation for Senate confirmation as ambassador in summer 2016 and subsequent news media reports.
Hunter Biden's work for one of Ukraine's largest energy companies, which generated more than $3 million in payments to his American firm over two years, stirred controversy in both Ukraine and the United States because his father oversaw U.S. policy for Ukraine while Burisma was long a focus of a criminal corruption probe in Ukraine. State Department officials have said they believed the relationship created the appearance of a conflict of interest.
"What do you know about the investigation of Burisma?" Yovanovitch was asked at one point during her October testimony.
"Not very much. And, again, that happened before I arrived," she testified. "... Burisma wasn’t a big issue in the fall of 2018 — 2016 when I arrived."
"Were you aware at that time of Hunter Biden's role with Burisma?" she was asked at another point.
"Yes. As I mentioned, I became aware during the Q&A in the prep for my testimony," she answered.
Yovanovitch said she believed she learned from press reports that Burisma's criminal case had been dormant by the time she arrived in Kiev in late summer 2016.
"I'm trying to understand your testimony, because earlier in the day you said that, based on press reports, your understanding was that it was dormant. You may have had additional information it was dormant, or you don't know?" Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., inquired at one point.
"Yes. And all I can tell you is it was a long time ago and it just wasn't a big issue," she said. 
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Posted by Frank G 2020-05-14 00:00||
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