US has started new proceedings regarding Ukraine’s meddling in elections—NYT

Author

Anton Korzh

In the United States, the Brooklyn Attorney's Office has initiated an investigation into the possible meddling of Ukrainian officials in the 2020 presidential election in the United States, the New York Times reported.

The publication, citing well-informed sources, reports that prosecutors in the framework of criminal proceedings are trying to find out whether Ukrainian officials really were assisted by President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, to disseminate false information about presidential candidate Joseph Biden.

The investigation was initiated in the last months of Trump in power and is being litigated separately from another case against Giuliani that concerns his agreements in Ukraine.

The main interest for prosecutors is to find out the facts of the use of the Giuliani channels by Ukrainian politicians to disseminate information about Biden's corruption.

The primary interest for prosecutors is to identify the facts of the use of the Giuliani channels by Ukrainian politicians to disseminate information about Biden's corruptness.

Giuliani himself denies his work in the interests of Ukrainian politicians and calls the proceedings against him political lynching.

According to the NYT, another suspect in the case is Ukrainian People's Deputy Andriy Derkach, who has been declared a Russian agent by the US Department of the Treasury. In the United States, Derkach is under sanctions. In May 2020, Derkach made public the tapes on which, according to him, the conversations between Biden and the former President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko were recorded.

The parties are discussing the dismissal of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Viktor Shokin, who at that time was investigating the activities of Burisma in Ukraine. This company was owned by the former Minister Mykola Zlochevsky, and Biden's son Hunter was a rather highly placed person in it. Also, a person with a voice similar to that of Biden states that the condition for providing Ukraine with $1 billion in loan guarantees will be to stop the investigation into the company and dismiss Shokin.

Biden's office declared Derkach's tapes fake and accused Russian agents of their emergence who allegedly wanted to damage Biden's reputation and disrupt his participation in the elections.

Context. During the presidential race in 2020, US President Donald Trump repeatedly recalled the corruption scandal that arose in Ukraine around Burisma and Hunter Biden. In July 2019, he asked the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy to initiate an investigation of Burisma; when the story went public, it nearly led Trump to be impeached.

When Joseph Biden came to power in the United States, the Burisma issue was finally buried and forgotten. And against Rudolph Giuliani, who on behalf of Trump promoted the idea of an investigation in Ukraine, several criminal cases were initiated.