President Trump’s explanation for asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden — the basis of an impeachment investigation in the House of Representatives — is that Biden, as vice president, tried to quash an investigation into a Ukrainian company on whose board of directors his son Hunter served.

In 2016, Biden, as a representative of the Obama administration, did demand the firing of Ukraine’s State Prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who had earlier investigated the company, Burisma Holdings, a huge natural gas producer. But the investigation had been dropped by that time, and the European Union and many American allies backed the dismissal of Shokin, who was widely viewed as corrupt.

So although the allegation about Joe Biden has been widely discredited, Republican allies of the president who as a candidate vowed to “drain the swamp” of Washington influence peddling have a fallback issue to pursue: Why was Hunter Biden, who had no evident experience in either Ukraine or the energy business, appointed to the board of directors (for a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month) of a natural gas company in Kiev? Read more

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President Trump’s explanation for asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden — the basis of an impeachment investigation in the House of Representatives — is that Biden, as vice president, tried to quash an investigation into a Ukrainian company on whose board of directors his son Hunter served.

President Trump’s explanation for asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden — the basis of an impeachment investigation in the House of Representatives — is that Biden, as vice president, tried to quash an investigation into a Ukrainian company on whose board of directors his son Hunter served.