Biden Intervened To Block CIA Report On Ukraine Concerns Over Hunter’s ‘Corrupt’ Dealings

A newly declassified memo shows that then-Vice President Joe Biden’s office intervened to prevent the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from circulating a 2016 intelligence report detailing how top Ukrainian officials viewed his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings in the country.

The report, released Tuesday by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, compiled reactions from senior Ukrainian leaders following Biden’s December 2015 trip to Kyiv. It revealed that Ukrainian officials were concerned about what they described as the Biden family’s “corrupt” business ties, but Biden sought to keep the assessment under wraps.

“I just spoke with VP/NSA and he would strongly prefer the report not/not be disseminated … Thanks for understanding,” the vice president’s Presidential Daily Brief briefer, whose name was redacted, wrote to the CIA, according to the memo.

During the 2015 visit, Biden pressured then-President Petro Poroshenko to fire the country’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees unless Shokin was dismissed. At the time, Shokin’s office was investigating Burisma — the Ukrainian energy company where Hunter Biden served on the board.

Officials within Poroshenko’s administration “privately mused” about U.S. media coverage of Hunter Biden’s business ties and saw them as evidence of a “double standard” in Washington’s approach to corruption, according to the report.