A federal judge removed a filing by former President Donald Trump’s legal team from the docket in his 2020 election interference case in Washington, DC, which apparently included an affidavit by Viktor Shokin — the Ukrainian prosecutor fired for allegedly investigating a natural gas company where President Biden’s son served on the board.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied the Trump attorneys’ motion to file the affidavit by Shokin — misspelled as “Victor Shorkin” — citing federal rules that prohibit amicus briefs in criminal cases as well as DC court guidelines.
“At this time, the court does not find it necessary to depart from the ordinary procedures course by permitting this filing,” Chutkan said in her Tuesday order.
Attorneys for the former president did not respond to a request for comment.
Chutkan also struck down six other petitions from Trump’s legal team, including other requests to submit amicus briefs — one from former judges and senior justice officials — a motion to intervene and a writ of habeas corpus.
Biden, 80, who is currently Trump’s prospective opponent in the 2024 election, has boasted about pressuring then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in late 2015 to fire Shokin in exchange for the release of $1 billion in US loan guarantees.
At the time, the Ukrainian prosecutor was probing the owner of Burisma Holdings, Mykola Zlochevsky. Then-second son Hunter Biden had served on the natural gas firm’s board since 2014, earning roughly $1 million per year.
“I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden told a Council on Foreign Relations panel in 2018 in recounting his visit. “Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”
Ukraine’s parliament later voted to remove Shokin in March 2016.
Trump was impeached in 2019 for leaning on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into allegations of corruption against Biden over the matter.
Democratic impeachment managers argued Shokin’s ouster was in line with US policy on Ukraine, which Biden oversaw for the Obama administration.
In a rare interview that aired on Fox News Saturday, Shokin said he believed Biden and his son took bribes to force him from office in March 2016.
“I do not want to deal in unproven facts, but my firm personal conviction is that, yes, this was the case. They were being bribed,” Shokin told host Brian Kilmeade. “And the fact that Joe Biden gave away $1 billion in US money in exchange for my dismissal, my firing, isn’t that alone a case of corruption?”
An FBI informant file released last month recorded claims by Zlochevsky that he was “coerced” into paying Joe and Hunter $5 million each to ward off the probe from Kyiv’s top law enforcement official.
The House Judiciary Committee is reportedly seeking testimony from Shokin about the president’s alleged corruption.
Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer, who also held a seat on Burisma’s board, told the House Oversight Committee in July that the first son got a board position so “people would be intimidated to mess with them … legally.”
Archer also said he was unaware of any bribery allegations related to Hunter’s time at Burisma, but suggested that the allegations may have stemmed from the high salaries both partners received.
In a subsequent interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Archer said Shokin was perceived as a “threat” to Burisma and ran Zlochevsky out of Ukraine shortly before his ouster.
As part of a separate case, attorneys for the House Ways and Means Committee submitted an amicus brief in Delaware federal court that included testimony from two IRS whistleblowers who alleged political interference from the Justice Department during the five-year probe into Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes.
US District Judge Maryellen Noreika denied a request from Hunter’s attorneys to keep the filings sealed after the first son’s plea deal blew up in court — and federal prosecutors withdrew the case to refile in another district.
Trump’s federal trial on his alleged unlawful attempts to remain in power will begin March 4, 2024, the day before “Super Tuesday” in the Republican primary.
