One legitimately can be skeptical about the timing of the leak, which happened contemporaneously with the Amazon product page for the book going live. One can argue, as Robert Spencer has done, that Bolton sold the president out because “Trump represents a strong challenge to the foreign policy establishment views that have failed again and again, and of which Bolton is a foremost exponent.” But it does not really matter. Even if, for the purest of reasons, Bolton wants to tell what he knows at the Senate trial about his direct interactions with President Trump concerning the temporary hold on the release of the security assistance, it would not be worth prolonging the Senate trial to hear him.
Like all human beings, presidents and other politicians persuade themselves that their actions seen by their opponents as self-serving are primarily in the national interest. In order to conclude that such mixed motive actions constituted abuse of power, opponents must psychoanalyze the president and attribute to him a singular self-serving motive. Such a subjective probing of motives cannot be the legal basis for a serious accusation of abuse of power that could result in the removal of an elected president. Yet this is precisely what the managers are claiming.
* Ukraine has a history of pervasive corruption.
* Burisma, a major Ukrainian energy company, was run by Mykola Zlochevsky, a reportedly corrupt oligarch.
* Former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, joined Burisma’s board in April 2014, the same month his father visited Kiev officially on behalf of the Obama administration and one month after the United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office opened a money laundering case into Burisma. Hunter Biden was paid at least $50,000 per month by Burisma, despite having no experience in the field of energy or with Ukraine itself.
* Hunter Biden’s tenure on Burisma’s board coincided with his father’s serving as the Obama administration’s point man in Ukraine, ostensibly to influence the policies of Ukraine’s government on matters dealing with corruption and energy issues. House Democrat witnesses called to testify during the impeachment proceeding, including Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent from the Department of State, testified there was at least a potential appearance of a conflict of interest. Hunter Biden himself admitted during an interview that if his last name was not Biden, he probably would not have been asked to be on Burisma’s board.
Burisma’s founder was under investigation by then-Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin, whom Joe Biden demanded in late 2015 be immediately fired. The former vice president threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees for Ukraine if that demand was not met. Biden claimed that he shared with other Western government leaders concerns that Mr. Shokin was not doing enough to combat corruption in his country. However, one of the focal points of grave corruption that Mr. Shokin was investigating at the time was Burisma. The Ukrainian prosecutor general obtained a renewal of a court order to seize the assets of Burisma’s reportedly corrupt owner, Zlochevsky.
On March 29th, 2016, the Ukrainian parliament voted to fire the prosecutor general who was investigating the owner of Burisma, on whose board Hunter Biden sat. Two days after the prosecutor general was voted out, Vice President Biden announced that the U.S. would provide $335 million in security assistance to Ukraine. Soon thereafter, he announced that the U.S. would provide $1 billion in loan guarantees to Ukraine. A clear case of quid pro quo.
While Hunter Biden sat on the board of Burisma and while Joe Biden was still the vice president, a Ukrainian court canceled the Zlochevsky arrest warrant for lack of progress in the case and all legal proceedings against Burisma and Zlochevsky were reportedly closed.
Officials in the Obama State Department were concerned enough about Hunter Biden’s connection to Burisma that they prepared Ambassador Yovanovitch on what to say during her confirmation hearings in case she was asked a question on this specific topic.
In short, we know what happened – the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma was fired following Vice President Biden’s demand at a time that his son was serving on Burisma’s board for a nice piece of change. However, we still don’t know why. We do not know for sure what was in Joe Biden’s mind at the time. He could have been trying to help his son. He could have been sincere in his belief that a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor had to go. More likely, he could have had mixed motives. Yet Joe Biden was not subjected to any impeachment proceedings for abuse of power, even by a Republican-controlled House of Representatives. But that should not mean his conduct while in office is forever immune from the scrutiny of investigators.
President Trump had sufficiently objective reasons, which served a legitimate public purpose, to ask the Ukrainians to investigate what happened involving the closing of an investigation into the corrupt Ukrainian company the former vice president’s son was working for. Joe Biden is not off limits to an investigation of his use of his official powers as vice president just because he is running in 2020 to defeat Donald Trump. Placing Joe Biden off limits would place the former vice president above the law.
President Trump has the constitutional authority as the nation’s chief executive officer to determine foreign policy priorities – not the House of Representatives impeachment managers, not career bureaucrats, and not presidential appointees advising him such as former national security adviser John Bolton. For that reason, it makes no difference whether Bolton is prepared to testify that, over his objections and those of other senior foreign policy advisers, President Trump said that he intended to hold up on releasing the security assistance until he got assurances on Ukrainian investigations of possible wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine in connection with Burisma. In any case, as we all know, the assistance was released without any strings attached. In short, President Trump used his powers appropriately. He certainly did not “abuse” them, whatever that means.
As Professor Dershowitz concluded, “It is inconceivable that the framers would have intended so politically loaded and promiscuously deployed a term as abuse of power to be weaponized as a tool of impeachment. It is precisely the kind of vague, open-ended and subjective term that the framers feared and rejected.”
John Bolton’s book is due for release this March. Let the American voters consider what Bolton has to say about his dealings with President Trump when casting their ballots. If the Senate decides to waste its time and call Bolton to testify, then in all fairness it must also call Hunter Biden.
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