Although its scope was broader, Republicans decided to examine a specific claim made by Trump: that Biden had corruptly lobbied for the removal of Ukraine’s top prosecutor, who was investigating Burisma, as a favor to his son. Trump’s pursuit of this accusation, including the pressure he tried to put on the Ukrainian leader to investigate it, was what motivated his impeachment last year.
Senators found no evidence to support him. Current and former government officials testified that the decision to dismiss the prosecutor was not merely Biden’s position, but that of most Western nations determined through a rigorous political process.
The report’s main finding – that Hunter Biden’s presence on the Burisma board posed a challenge for American diplomats – was based heavily on the testimony of George P. Kent, a State Department official involved in Ukrainian politics. Mr. Kent raised concerns in 2015 and 2016, including with Mr. Biden’s team, that the millions of dollars in payments to Hunter Biden through Burisma would make it “very strange for all US officials who advocate an anti-corruption agenda in Ukraine “.
But Mr. Kent’s statements are not new. He played a prominent role in the House’s impeachment investigation last year, when he detailed his concerns about Hunter Biden, but also said he “has not witnessed any effort by any US official to protect the Burisma from scrutiny.”
“So there was no time, as I witnessed, that the U.S. government, the U.S. Embassy ever made a decision” about the owner of Burisma or the company itself “where we take into account the presence of a private citizen on the board”, He said to Mr. Johnson’s team. Other former diplomats, including the ambassador to Ukraine at the time, made similar statements.
Neither Biden’s campaign nor Johnson said whether he had sought information directly from the former vice president, and a lawyer for Hunter Biden did not respond to a request for comment.
In an interview last week before the report was released, Johnson said he was simply conducting the type of oversight his committee was tasked with and suggested that the investigation had been entrusted to him because Biden chose to challenge Trump. The senator said he “never thought Joe Biden should run for president” and hinted that the former vice president had cognitive problems, an unfounded attack frequently launched by Trump.