[Yahoo via MSN] WASHINGTON — A Ukrainian company that employed Hunter Biden paid more than $450,000 to a prominent Washington think tank, including picking up the tab for energy-related conferences as part of a campaign to burnish its image in the United States after it was accused by Western officials of corruption. Burisma’s support of the Atlantic Council was detailed last week by the Wall Street Journal, which said the company had given the think tank $100,000 per year for three years starting in 2016. The council lists Burisma as a contributor on its website.
The Atlantic Council told Yahoo News Tuesday that in addition to the $100,000 given annually by Burisma, the company “also reimbursed speaker travel and event costs, which ... amounted to around [$50,000 to $70,000] per year.”
In the public impeachment proceedings starting Wednesday, Republicans, led by House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., will likely focus on Burisma to justify efforts by President Trump and his associates to pressure the Ukrainian government to publicly announce it was investigating the company. Republicans have already delved deep into the dealings of Burisma in closed-door depositions over the past month.
The Democrat-led impeachment inquiry in the House is based on the allegation that because Trump wanted the Ukrainians to investigate the son of former Vice President Joe Biden — a leading rival for the presidency — he attempted “to coerce a foreign nation to engage in political investigations designed to help his campaign,” as House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., put it on Tuesday.
There is also the issue of an Atlantic Council-sponsored trip that brought a dozen or so congressional staffers to Ukraine in August. The trip included Republican and Democratic staffers, but one — Thomas Eager — worked for Schiff’s Intelligence Committee, and the group at one point met with Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine.
