The Ukrainian government is now looking into the removal of Viktor Shokin as the country’s leading prosecutor back in 2016 with the possible involvement of former Vice President Joe Biden. This comes after the conclusion of the historic impeachment of President Trump which was triggered in part by a telephone call of the president to his Ukrainian counterpart to urge him to launch the same type of investigation.

Former Vice President Joe Biden allegedly bragged about his threat to the Ukrainian government of holding back more than $1 billion in American loan guarantees if Shokin was not sacked. The fired prosecutor claims that his removal was caused by his investigation of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian gas company where the former vice president’s son Hunter Biden, served on the board of directors for several years up until 2019. Hunter lacked the qualifications that would entitle him to serve on the board of a gas company and during his time with the company, he received up to $50,000 per month in compensation.

“They need to investigate this. They have no other alternative. They are required to do this by the decision of the court. If they don’t, then they violate a whole string of procedural norms,” Oleksandr Teleshetsky, Shokin’s lawyer, said.

The probe has been confirmed by the State Bureau of Investigations of Ukraine. According to reports, the case does not refer to the former vice president by name. Biden is only referred to as a citizen of the United States. This is not the first time that the Ukrainian government has taken the initiative to take a look as to what happened with Burisma. Back in October 2019, the Ukrainian prosecutor general made an announcement that they will be looking into all of the previous cases that are linked to the gas company.

Hunter started serving on the board of Burisma at the time when his father was the one in charge of the American policy towards Ukraine. His obvious lack of qualifications raised some suspicions right away that he was taking advantage of his father’s influence.

The former vice president and his son have denied all allegations of wrongdoing. They claim that Shokin’s removal has nothing to do with Joe Biden but the former prosecutor maintains that he was removed because he looked into Hunter’s role in Burisma’s board. There have been officials and private individuals during the Obama administration who have raised concerns regarding the conflict of interest of having Hunter in the board of directors of a Ukrainian company while his father handled the official American policy towards that country, but Biden dismissed their concerns.

The former vice president is notoriously sensitive regarding the matter. Back in December 2019, Biden told a man that he was “fat”, “a liar”, and “too old to vote for me” after the man accused him of getting Hunter the job in Burisma. That happened during a campaign event in Iowa. It is unclear as to what the former VP called the Ukrainian investigators after he heard about the opening of the investigation.