Despite Biden’s claim, Europeans WEREN’T trying to oust Ukraine prosecutor targeting Hunter’s firm
In fact, the Dec. 18, 2015, progress report, obtained by the New York Post, says that the European Union was satisfied that Ukraine had achieved “noteworthy” progress, including in “preventing and fighting corruption,” and thus was eligible for visa-free travel in Europe.
The European Commission noted that Shokin had just appointed the head of a specialized anti-corruption prosecution office, which it described as “an indispensable component of an effective and independent institutional framework for combating high-level corruption.”
The new office would help the newly established National Anti-Corruption Bureau combat corruption, the report noted, and urged Ukrainian leadership to ensure that both bodies were “fully operational” by the first quarter of 2016.
But Shokin was gone by March 29, 2016, forced out by Biden’s threats to then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that he would withhold $1 billion in US aid unless the prosecutor general was fired.
“Based on these commitments, the anti-corruption benchmark is deemed to have been achieved,” the European Commission report found. “The progress noted in the fifth report on anti-corruption policies, particularly the legislative and institutional progress, has continued.”
At the same time, the EU commissioner for migration, home affairs and citizenship issued a public statement on Dec. 18, 2015, praising Shokin and other officials for making “enormous progress” on reform, according to a report by John Solomon from Just the News.
