Of all the revelations about Biden family members cashing in on Joe Biden’s influence — revelations arising from Ukraine, China, Iraq, Romania, Kazakhstan, and other places — those relating to Ukraine are likely the most damning. Certainly, the revelations relating to Ukraine are the ones that most definitively involve criminal conduct. After all, Ukraine is the country where Joe admitted (actually, bragged) on tape about threatening to withhold a billion dollars of U.S. aid unless a prosecutor got fired — a prosecutor who happened to be investigating the company where Joe’s son Hunter was getting $1 million per year to sit on the board. “And son of a bitch, he got fired.” That clear admission alone would prove the hardest part of what you would need to convict under 18 USC Section 201.

By contrast, the recent revelations from Hunter’s laptop and from Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski, while important, don’t necessarily show an independent crime by themselves. What they do show is clear contradiction of Joe’s prior statements about lack of knowledge or involvement in Hunter’s overseas business affairs; and they also show the Biden family, and Joe personally, beholden to the CCP. But these “laptop revelations” mostly relate to discussions of a prospective transaction in 2017, when Joe was out of office; and much of the transaction under discussion seems to have collapsed before consummation.

Ukraine is the place where all the elements of a quid pro quo corruption crime are right there in the public record. Joe became the “point man” for U.S. policy on the country in March 2014, and a month later in April 2014 Hunter miraculously joined the board of Burisma, a highly likely target of criminal investigation, for a million dollar per year stipend. In early 2015 Ukraine named a new head prosecutor (Shokin), and during 2015 it became clear that Shokin was investigating Burisma and its head, Zlochevsky. In late 2015 or early 2016 Joe Biden demanded that Shokin be fired, and in March 2016 he was fired. The investigation of Burisma then quietly disappeared.

With those facts, what even is Joe Biden’s defense? The gist has been that Biden did not get Shokin fired to help Burisma or Zlochevsky, and therefore by extension his son and family, but was only implementing the official U.S. policy recommended by others in the diplomatic service, who supposedly thought that Shokin was not prosecuting corruption with sufficient zeal. Here is the version from Washington Post “fact checker” Glenn Kessler on September 23, 2019, relying on a report from Bloomberg, which in turn relies on an anonymous source:

Bloomberg reported that “the U.S. plan to push for Shokin’s dismissal didn’t initially come from Biden, but rather filtered up from officials at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation.”

Is there anything to The Washington Post/Bloomberg version of events? You could find out by sending someone out to interview the relevant players, but that’s something in which our mainstream media have shown remarkably little interest.

Further to this question, several commenters and emailers have referred me to a series of videos recently issued by a guy named Olivier Berruyer. Berruyer is an independent French journalist and blogger. This Wikipedia article (French language) gives background on Berruyer. He runs a French-language blog of wide-ranging subject matter called Les-crises.fr, which, according to Wikipedia, has in some years been the number one ranked economics blog in the French language. Among his intellectual inspirations, Berruyer gives Noam Chomsky, George Orwell, and Edward Snowden — certainly a diverse bunch. Issues covered by Berruyer on his blog where he clearly disagrees with the Manhattan Contrarian include climate change, income inequality, and the effectiveness of lockdowns in response to Covid-19.

Berruyer’s series of videos about Biden can be found in English-language version at a website named ukrainegate.info. The videos have the general title “Joe Biden: Friend or Foe of Corruption?” You quickly learn that Berruyer’s answer is “friend.” Four videos have been issued so far. Here are links, together with a teaser on subject matter for each, provided by Berruyer:

• Part I: A Not So Solid Prosecutor. (50 minutes) The reference to a “solid” prosecutor comes from Joe Biden’s Council on Foreign Relations clip, linked above, where he claims that after Shokin was fired he was replaced by “someone who was solid,” namely Yuri Lutsenko. Berruyer’s intro: Although Joe Biden very often denounces the "cancer of corruption", this first episode shows that he has lied several times, and that his attitude remains very questionable on this subject. You will also discover three characters at the heart of UkraineGate. First, Mykola Zlochevsky, the Ukrainian oligarch through whom the scandal happened. Then, General prosecutor Viktor Shokin, whose resignation was obtained under pressure from Joe Biden, less than ten months after his appointment. And finally, the latter's successor, Yuriy Lutsenko, whom Biden was quick to describe as a "solid man".

• Part II: Not So “Dormant” Investigations. (40 minutes). Berruyer’s intro: This second episode focuses on the investigations of General prosecutor Shokin, described as "dormant" by the Biden clan. It demonstrates the fallacy of the narrative launched by Biden’s communication advisors. But you will also discover that Biden’s defense - widely reported by the mainstream media without any verification - has been challenged by Viktor Shokin in various interviews, of which we reveal several excerpts that have never been broadcast...

• Part III: A Not So Noble President. (71 minutes). The “not so noble president” referred to is Petro Poroshenko, President of Ukraine in 2015-16 at the time of Joe Biden’s demand for the firing of Shokin. Berruyer’s intro: In this third episode, we publish several important testimonials, through exceptional exclusive interviews. You will thus discover the revelations of several personalities, such as the Director of the Ukrainian Action Centre against Corruption, but also a former Prosecutor General of Ukraine, a former Ukrainian diplomat, and other famous specialists on Ukraine... We are particularly grateful to Oleksandr Onyschenko for the importance of his testimony. This oligarch, a former member of parliament, was a close associate of Petro Poroshenko, whose mission included corrupting Ukrainian elected officials. Disgusted by these mafia practices, he repented by becoming a whistleblower. Since our interview, he has been arrested in Germany, where he is awaiting an extradition judgment - Interpol having refused to prosecute him since 2016...

• Part IV: Shokin Strikes Back. (39 minutes). Berruyer’s intro: In this episode, we exclusively present the crucial testimony of the one who was forced to resign under pressure from Joe Biden, the former Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Viktor Shokin.

Abridged versions of the four videos (approximately 9 minutes each) can also be found at the ukrainegate.info site.

The gist here is that the Biden excuse for his conduct is baloney: Shokin’s investigations of Burisma and Zlochevsky were active; Shokin’s replacement Lutsenko was unqualified and corrupt himself; and the firing of Shokin and hiring of Lutsenko saved Burisma and Zlochevsky from prosecution. I know that trying to watch videos like these is time-consuming, and I would have preferred a written version by Berruyer of his findings. However, this is what we have. Berruyer, as a Frenchman, is not a participant in the American election; and, as an independent journalist, is not subject to the suppression of all information critical of Biden currently being enforced in most of the American media.

By the time you have watched a good chunk of this, you will be convinced that the corruption case against Biden is a lay-down. The videos have received remarkably little attention and viewership, so maybe Manhattan Contrarian readers can add to that at least a little.