Former Vice President Joe Biden recently announced his bid to seek the Democratic presidential nomination and take on President Trump in the 2020 elections. Initial polling which pits Biden again Trump has the potential challenger leading. The RealClearPolitics general election polling average puts Biden at 47.8% and Trump at 40.3%. This lead, however, could be put to the test after Biden himself admitted to actions that led to the Current Ukrainian Prosecutor General, Yuriy Lutsenko, and his office to confirm the reopening of a case which was ended due to actions taken by Biden to remove the previous General Prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. His actions ended a wide-ranging corruption probe, led by Shokin, which involved a natural gas firm, Burisma Holdings, of which Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden, was a board member. John Solomon, of The Hill, reported on this emerging news.

During a live-recorded Council on Foreign Relations event, Biden describes how, on March 2016, he used the threat of the Obama administration pulling $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to pressure Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to remove the Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. Biden said:

“...we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said—I said, call him. (Laughter.) I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”

Since those comments were made, it has been confirmed by reporting from John Solomon of the Hill that the “solid” replacement, General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko, and his lead anti-corruption prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytskyi “confirmed to me in an interview that part of the Burisma investigation was reopened in 2018, after Joe Biden made his remarks.”

Around a “half-dozen senior Ukrainian officials” confirmed that this demand of Biden, which culminated on the day he described, was the result of pressure applied over several months.

Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden as a board member, was involved in a “wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm.” Shokin told Solomon he had “specific plans for the investigation that included interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden.”

Why would investigators be interested in Hunter Biden? Solomon states, “U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden’s American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts — usually more than $166,000 a month — from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia.”

Since, as Lutsenko says “members of the Board obtained funds as well as another U.S.- based legal entity, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, for consulting services.”

In the Ukraine, Lutsenko says board members can be paid for work they do “if it benefits the company’s bottom line.” Because it could not be established from the records what services Hunter Biden provided, Ukrainian officials have questions. Records show the Rosemont Seneca firm, between April 2014 and October 2015, received more than $3 million from Burisma accounts. Records also show that when money flowed into the account, Hunter Biden, specifically, would typically receive one or more payments of “$5,000 to $25,000.”

Regarding Joe Biden and his intervention to have the prosecutor fired who was probing his son’s company, Lutsenko said it was a matter to discuss with U.S. Attorney General William Barr. Specifically, he stated, “Of course, I would be happy to have a conversation with him about the issue.”

While many of the initial attacks on Joe Biden involve his inappropriate behavior towards women, this seems as if it could be a much more powerful attack, as there are more questions currently than answers. And those answers have the potential to be criminal.