The big picture: The facts surrounding the Bidens, Burisma and Shokin have been well-established over the course of two major congressional investigations: the first impeachment of former President Trump and a Senate probe led by Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).
- Republicans frequently point to a 2018 video in which Biden boasts about withholding the loan guarantee, and say the timing is suspicious because Burisma executives had just asked Hunter Biden for help alleviating government pressure, according to his business partner Devon Archer.
- But Shokin’s deputy says the office was not investigating Burisma at the time, and the Senate report found no evidence that Hunter Biden’s board position — while highly unethical — influenced U.S. policy.
- Trump’s former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker — a Republican-called witness — testified that the allegations against Biden were “not credible” and that Shokin’s firing “was widely understood internationally to be the right policy.”
- Former State Department official George Kent testified that Shokin had undermined a U.S. program — funded with “taxpayer money” — to “build an independent investigator unit to go after corrupt prosecutors.”
- David Holmes, a former diplomat in Ukraine, testified that his understanding was that Shokin “was not at that time pursuing investigations of Burisma or the Bidens.”
At least five more State Department witnesses — Geoffrey Pyatt, Amos Hochstein, Victoria Nuland, David Wade and Antony Blinken — independently confirmed those facts in the 2020 Senate investigation.