A More Detailed Look At The Shokin Timeline

Accounts of Devon Archer's testimony to the Comer committee on Monday give what appears to be a broad outline of the events that led up to the removal of Viktor Shokin as prosecutor in Ukraine to relieve pressure on Burisma:

Archer, a former Hunter Biden business associate, testified that Hunter Biden was being pressured in December 2015 to do something about Viktor Shokin, the Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Burisma Holdings, the Ukraine energy firm for which they both worked, lawmakers said.

In the same month, then-Vice President Joe Biden began applying pressure in a series of moves that got Shokin fired.

Archer also reportedly told the House Oversight Committee, to which he gave the closed-door testimony Monday, that Burisma would not have survived had it not been for the influence of the Biden family.

However, the existing record gives considerably more detail without the need for Mr Archer to corroborate it. For now, at least, the fire-Shokin story begins on November 2, 2015:

On Nov. 2, 2015, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi emailed Hunter Biden, who was serving as a Burisma board member, his associates Devon Archer, a fellow board member, and Rosemont Seneca Partners president Eric Schwerin about a "revised proposal, contract and initial invoice for Burisma Holdings," from lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies, according to emails from Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop, which have been verified by Fox News Digital.

Pozharskyi emphasized in his email that the "ultimate purpose" of the agreement with Blue Star Strategies was to shut down "any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine," referring to Zlochevsky, who also went by Nikolay.

. . . The email exchange came one month before then Vice President Biden traveled to Ukraine's capital of Kiev, where he gave a speech about rooting out corruption in politics.

Ahead of the trip, an associate at Blue Star Strategies emailed Blue Star executives, Hunter Biden, Archer and Pozharskyi about a White House conference call that "outlined the trip’s agenda and addressed several questions regarding U.S. policy toward Ukraine."

Archer's Monday testimony apparently adds some specific meetings and calls to this record:

[A]t a meeting in Dubai on Dec. 4, 2015, top executives of Ukrainian energy concern Burisma asked Hunter Biden and himself for help from D.C. At the time of the meeting, Hunter Biden’s dad, Joe Biden, was serving as Barack Obama’s vice president as well as his point person on Ukraine. Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma, and Vadym Pozharski, a Burisma executive, wanted to get Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired as he was investigating the company for corruption, Archer told members of Congress.

Hunter Biden put Zlochevsky and Pozharski on a call with “D.C.,” Archer said, noting he was not part of the phone call so couldn’t possibly know who exactly was on the other end of the line.

. . . A mere five days after the Dubai meeting and phone call, Vice President Joe Biden gave a speech to the Ukrainian Rada, its parliament in Kyiv, attempting to lay the groundwork for firing Shokin.

It took just a few short months before Shokin was fired. Joe Biden bragged in a public speech in January 2018 that he was personally responsible for getting that firing accomplished so quickly. In fact, he claimed he had bullied the Ukrainian government into firing the investigator by threatening to withhold a billion-dollar loan guarantee unless he got what he wanted.

Blue Star Strategies by most accounts was closely involved in all these events. According to Politico in 2022,

Democratic lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies has registered retroactively as a foreign agent for work it did in 2016 on behalf of Nikolai Zlochevsky (also known as Mykola), an executive at Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, according to documents with the Justice Department filed late last week.

. . . — Hunter Biden, the son of the then-vice president, sat on Burisma’s board at the time and helped broker the energy company’s arrangement with Blue Star, The New York Times reported — a tie that ultimately triggered the series of events leading to President Donald Trump’s first impeachment.

— The filings appear to affirm testimony provided to congressional investigators by [Blue Star executives] Tramontano and Painter, disclosing that Blue Star was asked in 2016 to broker meetings between U.S. government officials and Zlochevsky’s attorneys to “present an explanation of certain adverse proceedings in the U.K. and Ukraine.” The firm disclosed meetings in February and March of 2016 with Amos Hochstein (more on him in last week’s West Wing Playbook) and Cathy Novelli, officials at the State Department who handled energy matters.

In June of this year, Fox News reported on Amos Hochstein's involvement in the Shokin matter:

President Biden’s senior energy adviser, who met with the then-vice president Biden two days after his infamous Ukraine trip for a one-on-one meeting, was in communication with Hunter Biden multiple times and appeared to be in contact with associates at Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings when Hunter was serving on the board, emails reveal.

Amos Hochstein, who served as special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs under the Obama-Biden administration, was tapped as Biden’s special coordinator for global infrastructure and energy security in August 2021. While he testified in September 2020 about his conversation with Hunter and a few meetings with then-Vice President Biden, he met with Biden several times between 2015 and 2016.

However, the story outlines numerous contacts and meetings between Hunter, Joe, and Hochstein over Burisma dating back as far as 2014, but there was a major uptick in meetings surrounding Joe's 2015 trip to Ukraine and Shokin's firing. By October 2015, according to Hochastein's testimony at the link,

"We were starting to think about a trip to Ukraine, and I wanted to make sure that he [Vice President Biden] was aware that there was an increase in chatter on media outlets close to Russians and corrupt oligarchs-owned media outlets about undermining his message—to try to undermine his [Vice President Biden’s] message and including Hunter Biden being part of the board of Burisma," Hochstein told Congress, according to the report.

According to Hochstein, Biden told Hunter about the meeting, prompting Hunter to request a meeting with Hochstein, according to the 2020 Senate Republican report.

. . . "Well, he [Hunter Biden] asked me for a meeting," Hochstein said in his testimony. "I think he wanted to know my views on Burisma and Zlochevsky. And so I shared with him that the Russians were using his name in order to sow disinformation—attempt to sow disinformation among Ukrainians."

The report said Hochstein "did not go so far as to recommend that Hunter leave the board," citing the New Yorker.

On Dec. 11, 2015, Hochstein met with Biden in the West Wing, just two days after the vice president returned from his infamous Ukraine trip, where he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid if Ukrainian leaders did not fire their top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. The Republican Senate report cited testimony that Hochstein also had a conversation with Biden on the flight over to Ukraine in December 2015.

. . . Hochstein visited Biden at least another six times in 2016, including the day after prosecutor Shokin’s firing in Ukraine.

Accordinmg t0 Wikipedia, Hochstein was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State from 2011 to 2015 and Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs from 2015 to 2017. It adds, "While at the State Department, Hochstein worked as a close advisor to Vice-President Biden." Also,

On August 10, 2021, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that he is appointing Hochstein as the Senior Advisor for Energy Security, and he was subsequently appointed Special Presidential Coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security.

. . . In June 2022, The Washington Post reported that Hochstein was serving as President Biden’s top energy advisor, or “energy whisperer,” in both domestic and international energy issues. In 2022, Hochstein "helped shape" the White House effort to reduce gas prices during the height of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and throughout 2022 often traveled with Biden to overseas meetings.

Every indication we have is that Hochstein has worked very closely with Joe since Joe was vice president and continues to work closely with him now. He also seems to have been near the center of US State Department policy overall.

The record indicates that he met frequently with Hunter during the critical period of Shokin's firing as prosecutor, even though he claims to have opposed Hunter's position on the Burisma board, and he met even more freqwuently with Joe himself, even accompanying him on the December 2015 trip to Ukraine. Yet despite his opposition to Hunter's presence on the Burisma board and Hunter's clear advocacy of Burisma's corrupt management, Hochstein appears to have endorsed the Biden family program of firing Shokin and allowing Burisma to continue business as usual -- which Devon Archer has testified would not have happened without Joe's influence.

And this leaves aside Secretary Blinken's claims that while Deputy Secretary in 2015, he was completely ignorant of the Burisma issue. It looks like we have a great deal more to learn.