Thread by @thomasafine

So here's the bones of the timeline involving Biden, Biden, and Shokin. These are the parts I think are critical. There's obviously a lot left out.

February 21, 2014.

This is whole timeline is set up by Russia's plant of a president in Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, fleeing the country. Chaos ensues.

And by chaos, I mean — in part — a literal Russian invasion.

April 2014.

UK opens an investigation into Mykola Zlochevsky for money laundering. He was the Minister for Ecology and Natural Resources under Yanukovych. And owner of Burisma Holdings.

At some point, UK freezes his UK accounts.

May 13, 2014.

Hunter Biden announces he's joining the board of Burisma Holdings, a natural gas company that's owned by Zlochevsky.

June 7, 2014.

Petro Poroshenko becomes president of Ukraine. He's an oligarch, but sells of his holdings and promises to end corruption. (But alas...)

August 5, 2014.

Vitaly Kasko, a Ukraine prosecutor, opens a case in Ukraine against Zlochevsky. Kasko works for the Prosecutor General, Vitaly Yarema.

November 21, 2014.

VP Joe Biden's first official visit to Ukraine.

January 22, 2015.

UK unfreezes Zlochevsky's accounts. Zlochevsky claims this a victory. UK says they never got the documents they needed. While prosecutor Kasko had been helpful to the UK, his boss, PG Yarema had blocked all access to additional information.

February 2, 2015.

UK was done, but Kasko was not. In his case against Zlochevsky, a Ukrainian court seizes Zlochevsky's Ukraine assets.

February 10, 2015.

Viktor Shokin becomes the new Prosecutor General of Ukraine.

Summer 2015.

Despite early promises, there is a growing sense that Shokin is not doing anything. Including no action on the case against Zlochevsky (Burisma) that Kasko opened last August.

August 29, 2015.

A petition is being circulated to have Shokin removed for not doing anything to fight corruption (including no action on Zlochevsky/Burisma). It will gain over 25,000 signatures in the next two months.

September 24, 2015.

U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt mentions Shokin's lack of action against Zlochevsky in a speech about corruption reforms.

October 8, 2015.

Victoria Nuland (Assisant Secretary of State for European and Euroasian Affairs) testifies about Shokin's lack of action before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

November 2, 2015.

A draft resolution is introduced in Ukrainian Parliament to remove Shokin.

December 7, 2015.

Biden travels to Ukraine, and reportedly raises the issue of removing Shokin. As far as has been reported, this is Biden's first call to remove Shokin. Ten months after Shokin took over, and was in charge of an investigation into his son's company's owner.

During this visit, Biden reportedly gives a fiery speech in parliament, demanding that they eradicate "the cancer of corruption" and pursue their anti-corruption cases (implicitly including the case against his son's company's owner).

December 25, 2015.

A Ukrainian court rescinds the siezure of property against Zlochevsky. (Remember this, from all the way back in early February, before Shokin was PG?)

No representative of the PG office was there to argue for continuing the seizure of property.

February 2, 2016.

The PG office again seizes Zlochevsky's Ukrainian assets. It isn't clear who in the PG office initiated this.

February 15, 2016.

Kasko resigns, saying he can no longer work for a corrupt PG office.

February 18, 2016.

Biden and Poroshenko phone call.

February 19, 2016.

Shokin tenders resignation.

March 29, 2016.

Shokin's last day.

Yuriy Lutsenko will take his place (and unfortunately not be much of an improvement).

November 2016.

Lutsenko closes the case against Zlochevsky that Klasko opened more than two years earlier with no charges being brought.

I skimmed over a lot of details about protests against Shokin. There was a lot more local news about him in Ukraine, and quite a few international complaints against his performance as well, all before Biden had any direct involvement there.

But here's the point of all of this. There was a case against Burisma's owner the ENTIRE time that Hunter worked there, and the ENTIRE time that Joe Biden was involved, up until Shokin was removed.

VP Biden never called for Shokin's removal, until not only was it clear that Shokin was not going after Burisma, but also until lots of other people were asking to have Shokin removed for not going after Burisma (among others).

There's people who want to make hay out of that 2016/02/02 seizure of Zlochevsky's property as proof that Shokin was actually fighting Burisma, or that this was what caused Biden to ask for Shokin's removal.

But when you see the rest of the timeline, these don't make sense.

First, that seizure was a re-seizure. Second, and even more important, Biden had already called for Shokin's removal before that re-seizure ever happened.

This timeline is why my pinned tweet says what it says:

https://twitter.com/thomasafine/status/1194677704039137286

When Trump and his pals had these meetings with Ukraine, everything in my timeline above was common knowledge to Ukrainian politicians. Huge news.

They knew that Shokin was corrupt.
They knew that Joe never protected Hunter.
They knew that what Trump was asking for was a lie.

And I can't honestly say whether or not Trump knew this. Because he's an idiot. But all the people around Trump should have known this, and probably did know it, because that's their job.

More importantly in this moment, all of the GOP Senators trying to sell this pile of horse-shit, either DO know, or SHOULD know, that it is horse-shit. They have staffs who can do the same research I did. They will find the same set of facts.

And so we are here because the GOP is happy to lie to the American people.

And also because mainstream media is not sufficiently competent on the facts to report the truth.

If the the GOP lets Trump off, it will be because of this combination of lying and ignorance.