Republican prevaricators are at it again. Trying to frame Biden for that which Trump is guilty.
In castigating Biden's effort to get the prosecutor general fired, Trump has declined to mention an important fact: a whole lot of other people were also trying to get him fired at the time.
The Obama administration, American allies, the International Monetary Fund and Ukrainian anti-corruption activists, among others, had all made clear that they were displeased with the performance of Viktor Shokin, who became prosecutor general in 2015.
Shokin was widely faulted for declining to bring prosecutions of elites' corruption, and he was even accused of hindering corruption investigations. His deputy, Vitaliy Kasko, resigned in February 2016, alleging that Shokin's office was itself corrupt.
The International Monetary Fund warned Ukraine in February 2016 that it risked losing financial support if it did not clean up its act. The Financial Times explained in its article on the warning that then-President Petro Poroshenko was facing pressure to replace Shokin, whom the newspaper described as a "long-time loyalist" of the president; the article continued, "Mr. Shokin has been criticized for failing to bring to justice any of the snipers who killed dozens of protesters in central Kiev in the final days of the revolution, and for dragging his feet over investigating senior officials and businesspeople."
In a September 2015 speech, the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, used blunt language in criticizing Shokin, blasting "corrupt actors within the Prosecutor General's Office" who were "making things worse by openly and aggressively undermining reform." Then, during a visit to Ukraine, Biden, who had long handled Ukraine issues for the Obama administration, applied public and private pressure on the government.