Former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin
alleged during a January 2019 interview with U.S. President Trump’s personal
attorney that he was indeed told to back off an investigation of the Burisma
natural gas firm involving the former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s son
Hunter, according to notes submitted to the U.S. Congress by the U.S. State
Department’s inspector general on Oct. 2. The Fox News television network said
it obtained a copy of attorney Giuliani’s notes from his January 2019 interview
with Shokin in which he claimed that his investigations stopped out of fear of
the U.S. government.
“Mr. Shokin attempted to continue the
investigations but on or around June or July of 2015, the U.S. Ambassador
Geoffrey R. Pyatt told them that the investigation has to be handled with white
gloves, which according to Mr. Shokin, that implied do nothing,” Giuliani’s
notes from the interview stated. The notes also claimed Shokin was told Biden
had held up U.S. aid to Ukraine over the investigation, according to the Oct. 3
report.