Apparently Ukraine had already re-opened the Hunter Biden investigation before Trump’s call
How much press will this get?:
A newly unearthed document shows that Ukrainian officials had opened a new probe into the firm linked to Hunter Biden months before President Trump’s phone call with that country’s leader, Fox News contributor John Solomon reported late Tuesday.
Solomon said Tuesday on “Hannity” that the U.S. government knew Ukraine was planning to look again into activities at Burisma Holdings, an energy company that employed then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son as a member of its board of directors, early this year. The report is noteworthy because President Trump has been accused by Democrats of threatening in July to withhold foreign aid to Ukraine unless its new president pursued an investigation into the company and the younger Biden’s role there.
“The U.S. government had open-source intelligence and was aware as early as February of 2019 that the Ukrainian government was planning to reopen the Burisma investigation,” he claimed. “This is long before the president ever imagined having a call with President Zelensky,” he added, noting Petro Poroshenko was still Ukraine’s president at that time.
Considering what’s been going on lately, this should be covered with banner headlines in all the major papers. But when I Google it, nearly all I can find are news outlets and blogs on the right – plus Microsoft News, which has a video of reporter John Solomon saying it to Hannity on Fox. One other exception is something called The Floridian Press, and their story is here. However, I can’t tell if that paper is on the right or the middle or the left, so if it’s on the right it may just be preaching to the choir.
I wondered whether John Solomon, who broke the story, discussed it on Twitter. I discovered that he did. But if you look at that thread, the usually contentious Twitter crowd all seem to support him, which means that Solomon is also preaching to the choir on Twitter. If people on the left were reading him, there would be a bunch of attacks there but it would at least be an indication that the news was reaching some people on the left. But apparently it’s not.
Which does not surprise me and probably does not surprise you. It’s early, I suppose, so it’s at least theoretically possible that the story could pick up steam and spill over into the MSM. But don’t sit on a hot stove till it does.
And if you can find an article that shows the regular MSM is covering this news, please be my guest and post a link to it in the comments.
There were literally MONTHS of reporting on the Mueller investigation fizzling out before the report was released, yet the Left was completely flabbergasted when it happened.
Conservatives can live inside their own media bubble but at least it’s a transparent bubble where you can see what’s going on outside. It’s very rare for there to be a major story on the Left where there isn’t at least somebody on the Right talking about it as well. However, Trump seems to have turned the Left’s media bubble solid black and they don’t even acknowledge anything happening outside it.
And that even applies to the mainstream media if it conflicts with the demands of the moment. Politico, for pity’s sake, had stories in 2017 about Ukraine being in cahoots with Hillary and trying to undermine Trump. Not National Review. Not Instapundit. POLITICO. How many times has anyone mentioned that on MSNBC or CNN?
Mike
Politico, for pity’s sake, had stories in 2017 about Ukraine being in cahoots with Hillary and trying to undermine Trump. Not National Review. Not Instapundit.
MBunge: Instapundit did in fact link and comment on such a Politico article in 2017.
JANUARY 11, 2017
POLITICO: Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire.
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.
A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia. But they were far less concerted or centrally directed than Russia’s alleged hacking and dissemination of Democratic emails.
Is there anybody not trying to mess with our elections?
In a way it’s comforting, though. Even after eight years of Obama, other countries still think we matter.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/254250/
Yeah, the point is that this wasn’t something dug up by some conservative news source and, therefore, automatically ignored. This was reported by a mainstream journalism outfit and is entirely germane to the ongoing Ukraine/impeachment mess yet has been flushed down the memory hole as far as the establishment media is concerned.
Mike
America has also meddled in off shore elections, why is anyone surprised other nations meddle in our elections? The games nations play are as old as the first formation of nation states.
So, Trump was merely asking about the progress of an investigation in Ukraine which he knew was ongoing, not asking for one to be started. Nothing wrong with it at all.
Although it takes way too long to type, for at least 15 years, whenever I refer to the Fourth Estate, I call them the “unbiased”, “objective” “news” media and its shills “journalists”. I’m getting tired of all those keystrokes though, so I’m thinking of referring to them as the Fifth Column from now on.
Were they in high dudgeon when Obama was putting his thumbs on the scales in the Israeli election won by Netanyahu during his term?
geokstr,
What took you so long?
“This was the transfer of Burisma Group’s funds for lobbying activities, as investigators believe, personally to Joe Biden through a lobbying company. Funds in the amount of $900,000 were transferred to the U.S.-based company Rosemont Seneca Partners, which according to open sources, in particular, the New York Times, is affiliated with Biden. The payment reference was payment for consultative services,” Derkach said.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
“According to the documents, Burisma paid no less than $16.5 million to [former Polish President, who became an independent director at Burisma Holdings in 2014] Aleksander Kwasniewski, [chairman of the Burisma board of independent directors] Alan Apter, [Burisma independent director] Devon Archer and Hunter Biden [who joined the Burisma board of directors in 2014],” Derkach said.
When Trump is either (1) not impeached (through the proper process) because the House could not sustain a charge of high crimes or misdemeanors, or (2) not convicted because the Senate majority (including swing-staters) believes that none occurred, the Left’s minions will never understand why, any more than the German public understood before the Armistice that it was losing WWI.
Media black-out bubble, indeed.
John Solomon? LOL. Last we heard from him he had you convinced that the IG recommended Comey be charged.
Doesn’t it strike you as odd that Solomon’s own newspaper hasn’t reported this?
Doesn’t it strike you as odd that Solomon’s own opinion column doesn’t mention this?
Doesn’t it strike you as odd that Solomon is breaking this on Hannidy?]
Doesn’t it strike you as odd that FoxNews reports this simply as a “Solomon said” piece, as opposed to “Fox News can independently confirm…”
You guys need to wise up.
Manju the inappropriately snarky:
Who here has indicated the story is for certain the gospel truth? However, it’s an important story that needs to be covered, as I pointed out in this post – and discussed, analyzed, and dealt with. That is the point of the post. A great deal of Solomon’s work has turned out to be correct, more often than not. That does not mean he is 100% correct; I am sure he is not.
And of course, even you are aware (although you will never admit it) that if this story reflected poorly on Trump and well on whatever line the Democrats are pushing these days, you’d be the first to hype it to the skies.
And in fact Horowitz did refer Comey to the DOJ for possible criminal wrongdoing, exactly as Solomon had predicted. I don’t know what you’re referring to – and you have not provided a link – but I assume it is this piece by Solomon in the Hill on 7/31/19 (about a month before Horowitz’s report came out), which makes a reference to Comey being referred for prosecution by Horowitz but makes it clear that the DOJ would decide that he not be prosecuted:
So back in late July, that’s what Solomon was writing. He had sources saying that the Durham and Barr probes might “put Comey in jeopardy.”
They certainly might. And they might not. That remains true.
As for the Horowitz report, what occurred is what Solomon had said:
What’s more, I wrote in this post that I don’t think Comey will be indicted by anyone, and that includes Durham and Barr. I also wrote this about the IG report when released: “We had pretty much been told this is what we would get. And yes, this is what we got.”
So there was no surprise there.