From the EU Observer, September 4, 2015: "The new prosecution chiefs - first Oleh Mahnitskyi, then Vitaly Yarema, now Viktor Shokin - have presided over a system which still looks more like a crime syndicate than a law enforcement agency...Shokin also caused scandals by trying to quash anti-corruption probes into his clan."
From the Kyiv Post, February 15, 2016: "Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaly Kasko, who was given the job of cleaning up a corrupt, politically subservient and ineffective institution employing 15,000 prosecutors, quit on Feb. 15. In this farewell press conference, Kasko cited corruption and sabotage by General Prosecutor Viktor Shokin in combatting corruption and instituting the rule of law. 'The same political interference, direct and total pressure on investigators and prosecutors, intentional professional degradation, inaction and impunity hide behind the screen of an allegedly reformed body,' Kasko said. 'The Prosecutor General’s Office is currently a dead body, and no one believes in its independence and efficiency anymore'...The developments come as Shokin, despite working for a year in one of the most corrupt and lawbreaking nations in Europe, has failed to submit a single high-profile criminal case to court."
From Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, March 28, 2016: "Scores of protesters have rallied in the Ukrainian capital, demanding the resignation of the country’s top prosecutor, who has been repeatedly criticized as an impediment to badly needed anticorruption reforms."
From the Irish Times, March 29, 2016: "The European Union has welcomed the dismissal of Ukraine’s scandal-ridden prosecutor general and called for a crackdown on corruption...Ukraine’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to fire Viktor Shokin, ridding the beleaguered prosecutor’s office of a figure who is accused of blocking major cases against allies and influential figures and stymying moves to root out graft."
Yeah, a lot of people thought Viktor Shokin had to go. And not a goddamn one of them gave a happy monkey fuck about Hunter fuckin' Biden.
You know who else didn't give damn about Hunter Biden or Burisma? The fuckin' Congress. Yeah, in the Congressional Record for the 114th and 115th Congress (which covers 2015-2018), neither "Burisma" nor "Hunter Biden" are brought up. Not once. And Republicans were running the joint the entire time. Both houses. Why the fuck didn't they care? Why the fuck didn't Trump's Justice Department care starting in 2017?
You know what Republicans talked about in 2018? How fuckin' much they wanted the United States to continue to help Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. Here's what Iliena Ros-Lentinin of Florida said on December 18: "We must demonstrate by our words and actions that we remain fully
committed to assisting the people of Ukraine to defend their country." Indeed, before any of this shit, support for Ukraine was bipartisan and no one fucking talked about holding up money because of corruption once Shokin, the guy who didn't fight corruption, was gone.
The defense of Donald Trump in his impeachment trial has been a lesson in how emphatically you can lie and not pay any goddamn price. Every time one of the lawyers on Trump's team opens their filthy whore mouths, they lie. Every time they try to justify Trump's actions. they lie. And every time they mention Joe and Hunter Biden, they lie so extravagantly and so excessively that a righteous God would pop their heads like bloody zits. That'd be some motherfuckin' fact-checking.
You can say that it's shitty that the children of political leaders are given sweet jobs. But you sure as hell better say that about every child of every politician who gets that deal. Or about the children of a certain president who get trademarks and access to people that they never would have been able to get without Dad in the White House.
It's fucking amazing how degraded and devolved Republicans continue to be. They have decided to shitcan any law, all ethics, and any fact that threatens the power of their idiot king. They've decided that democracy is for pussies. And rules are for suckers. And go fuck yourself if you dare call them on it. Now, let's get this dictatorship in gear before 2020 fucks it up.
(By the way, you know that George W. Bush appointed Hunter Biden to the board of Amtrak? He wasn't a fucking locomotive engineer either. That's how this shit goes. Oh, and he was approved unanimously by a Republican Senate in 2006. Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham and the rest of the current cocks who were there in '06 didn't fucking care that Biden didn't know how a train works.)
