Eight years after Hunter Biden’s tenure on the Ukrainian energy business Burisma board ended, a renowned legal practice with ties to the corporation has registered as a foreign agent.
According to a statement issued to Politico by the law firm Cravath, Swain & Moore, Thursday’s retroactive filing followed discussions over the scope of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) with the Justice Department.
Several foreign agents have registered after their jobs had ended, which is uncommon but understandable given the recent political scandals involving foreign lobbying and the Justice Department’s apparent heightened interest in enforcement.
As part of his duties representing Burisma and owner Mykola Zlochevsky, Cravath partner John Buretta met with three officials from the Obama administration and wrote to a fourth, as stated in the filing. U.S., Ukrainian, and British authorities were looking into the business and its owner at the time for potential wrongdoing.t.
Even though no charges came out of the Ukrainian and British probes, the incident had a lasting effect on American politics.
While his son, Hunter Biden, was sitting on the board of Burisma, then-Vice President Joe Biden oversaw U.S. policy toward Ukraine. During the 2016 reform effort in Ukraine, then-VP Joe Biden threatened to shut off U.S. help unless the country’s chief prosecutor was removed from office.
Those who supported former President Trump asserted that Joe Biden ordered the dismissal of prosecutor Viktor Shokin so that Burisma could avoid corruption accusations; however, American officials involved with the situation in Ukraine at the time stated that Shokin’s reluctance to pursue corruption allegations was the reason for his dismissal.
Joe Biden was the subject of an impeachment investigation launched by Republicans in the House last year, who claimed that he was engaged in a complex influence-peddling plot involving his family’s international business transactions.
