this prosecutor gone because he was not prosecuting corruption, so did the europeans and the imf. it did not come from joe biden, he just delivered our message. give me the context, you were there. what s the context around this? because there is spinning going on about what joe biden was involved in with respect to this former prosecutor? the context very simply was that ukraine needed loans from the international community, the imf, the international monetary fund, was supporting the ukrainian committee, we were providing loan guarantees and it was clearly spelled out to the ukrainians that a condition for that assistance was they had to improve their fight against corruption. they had to reform the prosecutor s office, the prosecutor was supposed to be prosecuting corruption and by late 2015 it was clear to us that this chief prosecutor in
gas company burisma holdings and investigated by the prosecutor show kin. his office was under scrutiny for not prosecuting oligarchs and reiff with corruption. the united states and other western nations wanted shokin removed. biden said i ll withhold loan guarantees to ukraine unless you fire this guy. they balked at doing it. he gave them an ultimatum saying i m on a plane in six hours. if he have is not fired by then you will not getting the money. you could say that joe biden was acting at the beheft of the united states and others. even the president said he was a good guy in the transcript. there is this troubling connection between joe biden, hunter biden, shokin and
if president trump erases the transcript, democrats are going to want the transcript with putin. then republicans are going to want all the obama transcripts. dana: instead of releasing a transcript, if the white house were able to say, here are other examples where a president pressed a country ab corruption before we provide military aid. that would be more convincing. the white house keeps going back to this episode where joe biden was saying get rid of this prosecutor or you re not going to get $1.2 billion in loan guarantees. there were a lot of countries calling for shokin to go. dana: what a tangled web. we weave. dana: all right. great to have you here in new york. hope you can get around the city okay. you re always welcome to come back. you can never get around the city during the u.n. dana: you re always welcome back here. thank you, john. on the campaign trail, joe biden
already in ukraine. i m not looking to hurt him with respect to his son. joe s got a lot of problems. joe s got enough problems with that. but what he said was a terrible thing. and you know, he really made it a, it was an offer, it was beyond an offer. it was something where he said i m not going to give billions of dollars to ukraine, unless they remove this prosecutor. now, what the president is referring to, is biden s role in the crackdown on corruption in ukraine, including calling for the removal of ukraine s general prosecutor who at the time was also investigating a national gas company whose board included hunter biden. in fact, the western community viewed that prosecutor as a hindrance to anti- corruption efforts and he is one of many calling for the prosecutor to be fired, this is the threatening of withholding billions of dollars of loan guarantees if ukraine did not take action.
critics say leveraging the presidency could rise to the level of extortion and conspiracy. trump raises similar questions of propriety about vice president biden to hear rudy giuliani tell it, when in march of 2016 the then-vice president threatened ukraine with the loss of $1 billion in loan guarantees, unless it fired a prosecutor. then looking at a company where hunter biden had ties, it was joe biden who was leveraging his office. ironically it would be the trump administration that held up financial support for ukraine, due to concerns about corruption. trump and giuliani make their claims despite reports that say the investigation of hunter biden had already been shelved by the time vice president biden threatened the loss of loan guarantees. the new york times notes that quote hunter biden sat on the board of an energy company that had been in the sights of the ousted prosecutor general. meanwhile, despite the fact that we haven t seen the complaint,