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Former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani says people in Cyprus and other countries were paid hush money in a global shakedown of the owner of Burisma in order to keep the Ukrainian energy company above scrutiny.
Giuliani, a former mayor of New York City and a former presidential candidate, has been dropping bombshell allegations on YouTube against the Bidens while also implicating Cyprus and a handful of other countries in Ukrainian corruption and money laundering.
This week in his latest video Giuliani said Burisma had been “acquired dishonestly” and further suggested that Ukrainian national Mykola Zlochevsky, who owns the energy firm, was “quite happy” to pay some $100 million in extortion and bribes in order to keep his $40 billion company.
The former mayor said he believed the shakedown money was over $100 million according to his calculations and that some of the money also went to people in Cyprus.
'We also had not only bribes to the Bidens, he had to take care of England and other countries, probably Cyprus, about three or four countries where he had to take care of people'
“We also had not only bribes to the Bidens, he had to take care of England and other countries, probably Cyprus, about three or four countries where he had to take care of people,” Giuliani said.
Earlier this week shocking revelations on the US senate floor suggested that a foreign national, believed to be Zlochevsky, had told an individual who is an FBI informant that he secretly recorded phone conversations he had with Joe Biden and son Hunter about millions paid to protect Burisma from scrutiny by authorities in Kiev.
Back in early 2015, Ukraine’s then-newly appointed chief prosecutor Viktor Shokin had began probing into Burisma dealings but was fired later that year, with Joe Biden later taking credit for the ouster.
Shokin became chief prosecutor one year after Hunter got a seat on the board of Burisma, while the position raised eyebrows in Washington circles over a conflict of interest for the VP who had Ukraine in his portfolio within the Obama administration.
Allegations in the media have been gaining traction recently about bribes paid to the Bidens, with an Oversight Committee in Washington pushing for more information from the FBI in order to ascertain whether any crimes were committed.
But there has been no evidence about any payments made from Burisma to the Bidens, with media pundits saying Zlochevsky is believed to have told the FBI informant that it would take years to follow the paper trail through a large number of shell companies.
US President Joe Biden dismissed the bribery allegations last week, following up on his previous rejections of such claims.
“Where’s the money? I’m joking. It’s a bunch of malarkey,” Biden said.
Cyprus in the mix
But former White House stenographer Mike McCormick says he knows about the payments and is ready to testify.
McCormick added Cyprus in the mix when he recently said a vice-presidential trip by Joe Biden to Cyprus in May 2014 was “suspicious” and further speculated that kickback payments from Burisma were carried out on the island.
Giuliani, who also implicated Cyprus back in 2019, has been raising questions over payments believed to have been made to the Bidens, alleging that Shokin was ousted to be replaced by someone else who found no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden or his son.
Last week Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said she believed bribes were paid to get rid of Shokin.
“They hired Hunter on the board to make the problems go away,” Greene said.
Giuliani argues that Shokin was fired after a raid on Burisma offices and also suggests that Zlochevsky had paid the Bidens in anticipation he would need to protect his interests.
“This is what he feared, that the government would take his company,” Giuliani said, adding “that’s when he brings Joe in.”
The former mayor cited “four frantic phone calls” between Biden and Ukrainian then-president Petro Poroshenko, adding that this could be additional evidence on top of alleged audio recordings made by Zlochevsky.
Joe Biden argues Shokin was corrupt and kept stalling investigations, with the US president adding that European governments also wanted the prosecutor gone.
Shokin insists he was fired when Joe Biden got personally involved with Kiev to prevent an international investigation of high-level corruption.
