Burisma's Devon Archer Met With Then-Secretary-of-State Kerry Just As Biden Was Ordering Ukraine to Fire Viktor Shokin

Not a speck of corruption.

Hunter Biden's former business partner and fellow Burisma board member, Devon Archer, met with then-Secretary of State John Kerry just weeks before the Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Burisma was fired in 2016.

Former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired on March 29, 2016, less than four weeks after Archer met with Kerry at the State Department in Washington, D.C., according to a State Department email.

"Devon Archer coming to see S today at 3:00pm -- need someone to meet/greet him at C Street," reads the redacted email on March 2, 2016, which was previously released via the Freedom of Information Act.

Fox News Digital can confirm that "S" refers to Kerry, based on multiple other email communications. However, it is unclear what Archer and Kerry discussed at the meeting or whether Burisma came up in conversation.

At the time of the meeting, Archer and Hunter Biden had been sitting on the board of Burisma for about two years, and then-Vice President Joe Biden had recently wrapped up a trip to Ukraine where he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid if Ukrainian officials didn't fire Shokin, claiming he was too lax on prosecuting corruption.

When the email was first released in 2019, Sens. Grassley, R-Iowa and Johnson, R-Wis., expressed concerns about the meeting and sent a letter to then-Secretary of State Pompeo requesting all records from the meeting in addition to other meeting, including Hunter's 2015 meeting with Blinken.

Hey -- let's get David Weiss to investigate this. He's been a real Clouseau so far.

Or maybe not, writes Jonathan Turley:

House Republicans had previously demanded that Weiss and his team answer questions about the investigation and the plea bargain. And an appearance before a House committee was planned when Garland suddenly preempted that by doing what many of us have demanded for years: He appointed a special counsel. To the amazement of many, though, he appointed the one prosecutor who should have been categorically excluded -- David Weiss.

Section 600.3 of the DOJ's code on special counsels requires an appointment from outside the Justice Department, for obvious reasons. While another prior special counsel, John Durham, also came from within the Justice Department, Durham was retiring from the department at the time of his appointment. Not only did Garland have to ignore his own regulations to appoint Weiss but he also had to ignore the main qualification: The appointed outside counsel should be someone with "a reputation for integrity and impartial decision-making."

Weiss could well have a legitimate defense to Republican complaints that he ran a fixed investigation into Hunter or accusations that he made false statements to his own team. However, he clearly remains under suspicion by many people. That is reflected in an ABC News/Ipsos poll in which almost half of Americans lack trust that the DOJ will conduct the Hunter Biden investigation in a "fair and nonpartisan manner."

In addition to this controversial appointment, Garland again refused to expressly extend the special counsel's mandate to include influence-peddling allegations involving President Biden.

Even some liberal pundits are mystified by these moves and why Garland would not simply appoint someone in compliance with the regulations who could guarantee a new and full investigation.

So Weiss is now investigating crimes that continue to dwindle in number due to the long delays in prosecution. It is like waiting for winter to go goose hunting in Canada, long after the geese have flown South. Everyone just gets dressed up and fires aimlessly into an empty sky.

Via Matt Vespa at Townhall.

David Weiss coordinated with Merrick Garland to harmonize their lies when responding to perfectly valid questions from Congressmen (who have oversight over them).

The fact that Weiss can't answer simple questions without checking in with Merrick Garland casts doubt on Weiss' claim that he had "ultimate authority" in charging Hunter.

Delaware US Attorney David Weiss consulted Justice Department officials about congressional requests for information regarding his five-year-long investigation of Hunter Biden, challenging the prosecutor's own signed statements that he had "ultimate authority" to bring charges against the first son.

Weiss's office traded emails with the DOJ's Office of Legislative Affairs and Office of Legal Counsel about how to respond to questions posed by House Republicans about the case, according to emails obtained by the conservative Heritage Foundation and viewed by The Post Monday.

The heavily-redacted messages show officials at main Justice offered to "take the lead" from Weiss in drafting responses to GOP lawmakers who brought up Hunter's case.

...

Heritage's Oversight Project, which sued the DOJ to obtain the messages as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, claims that they undercut Weiss' statement in a June 7, 2023, letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that he was given "ultimate authority" to bring charges in the case.

"It's insane that we needed a judicial order to produce a few documents after months and months of the Department of Justice throwing every roadblock they possibly could, at the taxpayers' expense of course," Oversight Project director Mike Howell told The Post. "They hadn't even turned these documents over to Congress, who asked for them at the same time we did."

"Now we know why they were fighting the release: the claims of Weiss' independence were a sham," he added. "Garland's political lobbyists were controlling congressional communications to the Hill, while the Hill thought they were going to be hearing from Weiss himself."

The disclosures were first reported by The Federalist.

posted by Ace at 12:07 PM

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