Because nearly all attention on Biden in Ukraine has focused on Burisma, other important aspects of Biden’s vice-regency in Ukraine in 2014-2016 have more or less totally escaped scrutiny, despite the escalation of the proxy war following Biden’s return to office on 2021. One of the most important such issues is Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election while Biden was in de facto control of the Ukrainian government. This question was repeatedly raised during the 2019 impeachment hearings with one State Department official after another flatly denying any such interference by the Ukrainian government. But despite such denials, there is unequivocal evidence of such Ukrainian government interference. Much of the problem in recognizing the interference arose from Rudy Giuliani’s scattergun approach in which he was consistently distracted by irrelevant or impossible to prove connections, while ignoring unequivocal evidence of Ukrainian government interference in plain sight. Giuliani and others nearly always focussed on activity of Clinton campaign and DNC (including Alexandra Chalupa), while neglecting direct actions by Biden and associates who were running Ukraine in 2016.
On July 7, 2020, at his press conference (link), Ukrainian parliamentarian Andrii Derkach released an astonishing Biden-Poroshenko tape (link) from August 19, 2016, in which Poroshenko confirmed to Biden that the Ukraine government (under Poroshenko’s direction) had released the “important documents from the former Regions Party” [the Black Ledger references to Paul Manafort]. Poroshenko and Biden laughed heartily about the news that “one of the key adviser of Mr Trump, so-called Paul Manafort, is resigned today.” [Click below for audio.]
This tape was almost immediately suppressed by U.S. intelligence agencies. On September 10, 2020, Treasury OFAC (link) sanctioned Derkach, alleging that his release of Biden-Poroshenko tapes constituted “manipulation and deceit” and was a “Russian disinformation campaigns”, among many lurid allegations. The FBI immediately notified Twitter (and other social media) of the Treasury sanction (see email below); Derkach’s social media were immediately scrubbed; in addition, Derkach’s website (containing this and other Biden-Poroshenko tapes) was immediately taken down. The Biden-Poroshenko tape about Manafort and the Black Ledger was disappeared from view even more thoroughly than the Hunter Biden laptop four weeks later.
What returned these tapes to view was an incidental exhibit in a March 2023 TwitterFiles thread (link), which showed (but did not comment on) a September 10, 2020 FBI-Twitter email referring to Derkach sanctions. Disentangling these events both leads back to the Biden regency in Ukraine in 2014-2016 and Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election and forward to the censorship complex and the origins of the Ukraine proxy war.
The Black Ledger and Manafort Resignation
The “Black Ledger” was a logbook consisting of about 800 pages of handwritten ledger entries, said to show dates, amounts and payee of payments made by Yanukovych’s Party of Regions between approximately 2008 and February 2014 (the month in which the Maidan insurrection overthrew Yanukovych, the democratically elected President of Ukraine, and initiated the events leading towards the civil war in Ukraine.
During that period, Paul Manafort had provided an American-style political and election consulting operation for Yanukovych and the Party of Regions. In addition, Manafort had lobbied hard for Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, which was nearly accomplished in fall 2013. Yanukovych was from Donetsk and his political base was in Russian-speaking eastern and southern Ukraine (Donbas, Crimea); his arch-enemy at the time was Yulia Tymoshenko whose strongest base of support was in nationalist western Ukraine (Lviv, Volynhia). Tymoshenko was a favorite of Hillary Clinton, Victoria Nuland and the U.S. State Department.
On August 15, 2016, a blockbuster New York Times article by Andrew Kramer, Michael McIntire and Barry Meier alleged that entries in the Black Ledger showed “$12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for [Trump campaing manager Paul] Manafort” (link1) as part of an “an illegal off-the-books system” in Ukraine:
Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.
On August 18, 2016, the Ukrainian government (NABU link) released images of 24 “fragments” from the Black Ledger containing references to Manafort associated with $12.7 million in expenditures. An example entry is shown below.
In response to the allegations, Manafort flatly denied that he had ever received cash payments. Over the years, Manafort’s consulting company had charged millions of dollars for their services to the Ukrainian Party of Regions. Manafort himself was obviously very well paid for his services, but much, perhaps even most, of the expenditures went to employees, contractors and subcontractors, some of whom were identified or identificable from Mueller Report: Podesta Group, Mercury Consulting, Skadden Arps, FTI Consulting etc. However, Manafort insisted that all such payments were made by wire transfer, not cash. (This appears to be true.)
However, the Trump campaign was in no position to try to ride out the controversy. Trump moved quickly. On August 17, 2016, Kellyanne Conway was announced as the new campaign manager and Steve Bannon as the new campaign chief executive, and, on August 19, 2016, only four days after the New York Times article, Manafort resigned/was fired (link).
Later that day (August 19, 2016), Biden and Poroshenko celebrated the successful removal of Manafort from the Trump campaign in the astonishing conversation (link) cited above.
Manafort’s resignation as Trump campaign chair took place less than four weeks after Debbie Wasserman-Shultz’ resignation as DNC chair on July 24, 2016 (link), following Wikileaks’ publication of DNC emails (none of which were to or from Hillary Clinton.)
But whereas the publication of DNC emails has been the poster child and type exemplar for foreign interference allegations, U.S. officials and agencies have consistently lampooned and rejected the possibility of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election, despite direct evidence of foreign state (Ukraine) involvement in the release of Black Ledger information on Manafort and resulting decapitation of Manafort as Trump campaign manager.
This inconsistency deserves a thorough review, especially in light of the long concealed Biden-Poroshenko tape from August 19, 2016. In this first (long) article, I’ll review the known chronology of the Black Ledger operation. I urge reader to pay close attention to the names of the Ukrainian officials who are named in connection with the Black Ledger, as these names will be traced back in a follow-up article investigating origins of the operation.
Black Ledger Chronology
Maidan, 2014
According to Leshchenko’s November 24, 2019 memoir on the Black Ledger (link), the Black Ledger was removed from the Kyiv office of the Party of Regions during the Maidan insurrection:
In the last days of Yanukovych’s reign in February 2014, a fire occurred in the office of the Party of Regions in Kyiv. There is every reason to believe that the black ledger was taken out of there during that fire. We don’t know where the book was kept for the next several years.
Contemporary news quotations of New York Times (e.g. Smithsonian Magazine, Feb 18, 2014 link) dated the occupation and arson of the Party of Regions office to February 18, 2014, a date on which the Maidan insurrection dramatically and violently escalated (link):
According to an early version of New York Times article on events (link), the occupation of the Party of Regions Office by “young militants” was a key event in the escalation of violence by insurrectionists:
The violence began early on Tuesday when antigovernment activists moved out of their barricaded zone around Independence Square and advanced into a government-controlled district, battling riot police officers with stones and Molotov cocktails in the worst clashes in nearly a month. A group of young militants occupied and set fire to the headquarters of the ruling Party of Regions.
In a November 20, 2019 article (link), a few days before Leshchenko’s article cited above, Ukrainian journalist Volodymyr Boyko stated that the Party of Regions arson had been carried out by Tetiana Chornovol, then a prominent Maidan insurrectionist associated with Azov Battallion elements:
after the building had was set on fire in February 2014 by the then would-be member of the Ukrainian parliament Tetiana Chornovol. After the fire, all the documents found in the office of the Party of Regions were being kept in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine; then they were transferred to the Security Service of Ukraine where they were studied by FBI officers. Actually, it is then,
In April 2020, Chornovol was indicted (link) and placed under house arrest (link) for murder in connection with the death of an employee of the Party of Regions during the February 2014 arson. (Chornovol admitted the arson, but not the murder). But by March 2022, Chornovol had joined the notorious Azov Battalion (of which her deceased husband had been an active member until his death in battle) and remains an active soldier.
Leshchenko Parcel, February 2016
The first avatar of the Black Ledger, according to Leshchenko’s November 2019 article (link), came in February 2016, when 22 pages of the Black Ledger (none mentioning Manafort) were delivered to Leshchenko, but, as Leshchenko later recalled, he didn’t publish them at the time.
In February 2016, I received an envelope, sent to my mailbox in parliament. It contained 22 pages of what we later called the black ledger. The pages listed payments, presumably bribes, to different politicians in 2012. The receivers included the circle of then-President Viktor Yushchenko, who positioned himself as an opponent of Yanukovych and defeated him during the Orange Revolution five years earlier. However, there was not a word about Manafort in these 22 pages. Together with my aide, we tried to contact people who were indicated as senders on the envelope, but we were told that these people don’t live at the indicated address.
At the time (February 2016), Leshchenko2, who had become well-known as an “activist”, was a member of the Petro Poroshenko bloc in the Ukrainian parliament. During the Maidan insurrection, while Chornovol was burning down the Party of Regions office, Leshchenko, then a Reagan-Faskell Fellow (National Endowment for Democracy) visited Washington on February 2, 2014 and briefed his sponsors on events unfolding in Ukraine (link):
Later in 2016, Leshchenko visited Victoria Nuland in Washington and David Kramer and the McCain Foundation in Arizona. He was interviewed by the FBI in February 2017 during the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
Trepak Receives Black Ledger and Transfers to NABU, May 2016
The first public avatar of the Black Ledger came on May 28, 2016 , three months after delivery of the initial package to Leshchenko, when Viktor Trepak3, the former Deputy Head of Ukrainian SBU (his resignation had been accepted in April 2016) announced in a lengthy and pre-arranged interview with ZN.UA (link) that, earlier in May, he had anonymously received on his doorstep about 800 pages of ledger entries that supposedly revealed the inner workings of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions (ultimately called the Black Ledger) and had delivered the document(s) to NABU, the Ukrainian “anti-corruption” agency then co-ordinating closely with the U.S. Embassy and State Department:
Trepak claimed that the Black Ledger contained details of approximately $2 billion in bribes in cash (with payments through bank transfers on top of that:
According to available information, this criminal organization spent about 2 billion dollars on bribes and other bribes. Bribes in the amount of 500 thousand dollars. or a million dollars were almost the norm. Often they reached 5, 8 and even 20 million dollars. Note, cash! Mostly, these were one-time "payments", but systematic bribery also took place, in some cases it lasted for years. What went through bank transfers and other cashless devices is a separate topic.
Trepak even claimed that the Black Ledger showed that “Yanukovich came to power illegally and was not the legitimate president of Ukraine”:
Based on them, it can be proven that Yanukovych came to power illegally and was not the legitimate president of Ukraine.
Leshchenko Press Conference, May 31, 2016
On May 31, 2016, Leshchenko immediately followed up Trepak’s announcement with his own press conference, in which he published the 22 pages of the Black Ledger entries that he had received in February (link; link). Manafort was not mentioned in this excerpt or in the previous Trepak interview. Leshchenko’s excerpt covered approximately five months of 2012 in which expenditures totaled about $67 million.
An excerpt from page 2 of Leshchenko’s excerpt (article; pdf) is shown below. (The choice of excerpt will be explained below.)
Ukrainian Officials Condemn Trump, July-August 2016
In late July and early August 2016, in the weeks leading up to the August 15, 2016 New York Times article on Manafort and the Black Ledger, top Ukrainian officials vehemently condemned Trump for an insufficiently bellicose policy on Crimea. These tirades were subsequently reported by Ken Vogel in an important January 11, 2017 Politico article on Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election (link).
The Ukrainian animosity originated from Trump’s response to a question about Crimea from German reporter Mareike Aden (link; link) at his July 27 news conference, in which Trump gave a temporizing and non-committal answer rather than a declaration of Slava Ukraina and Roman salute.
Question: I would like to know if you became president, would you recognize (inaudible) Crimea as Russian territory? And also if the U.S. would lift sanctions...
Trump: We'll be looking at that. Yeah, we'll be looking.
This July 27, 2016 interview was the interview in which Trump made his notorious “Russia, are you listening” quip and took place only three days after Robbie Mook had alleged that his “experts” had told him that Wikileaks publication of DNC emails was due to Russia trying to assist Trump.
Trump’s answer was publicized by Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin (link; archive), who excoriated even the concept of “looking at” Crimea policy as having “never been U.S. policy”:
This is not and has never been U.S. policy and would signal Trump, in fact, is willing to write off European allies if Putin grabs them. Allies already unsettled by his statements about pulling back from Europe will no doubt be petrified.
Two days, on July 29, 2016, in an interview by George Stephanopoulos, Trump re-iterated that he would “take a look”, noting that “the people of Crimea, from what I've heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were” and that the separation of Crimea had been “done under Obama's administration”, not by Trump.
Trump: … And frankly that whole part of the world is a mess under Obama. With all the strength that you'r talking about and all the power of NATO and all of this, in the meantime, he's .... he takes Crimea, he....
Stephanopoulos: But you said you might recognize that…
Trump: I'm going to take a look at that. You know, the people of Crimea, from what I've heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were. And you have to look at that also. And, just so you understand, that was done under Obama's administration.
Trump: And, as far as Ukraine's concerned, it's a mess. And that's under the Obama administration. With these strong ties to NATO. So with all of these strong ties to NATO, Ukraine is a mess, Crimea has been taken. Don't blame Donald Trump for that. We'll do better. And yet we'll have a better relationship to Russia. Maybe. And having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing.
These remarks provoked hysterical condemnations from the highest ranks of Ukraine officials.
On July 31, 2016, Arseny Yatseniuk, then recently Ukrainian Prime Minister, warned that Trump had “challenged the very values of the free world.” (link1; link2; link3; link4)
Donald Trump's recent comments regarding Crimea and Putin during his ABC interview go beyond any form of domestic political campaigning. An official candidate for the United States presidential election has challenged the very values of the free world, civilized world order and international law. It can hardly be called ignorance. This is a breach of moral and civilized principles.
The United States is the leader of the free world. Without leadership and alliance the free world will be destroyed by the likes of Putin, Le Pen, Assad, Kim Jong Un and other dictators, demagogues and populists. The people of the United States of America deserve to elect a responsible and wise President and Commander in Chief. The role of this leader cannot be overestimated.
Donald Trump should seek the wise advice of the distinguished representatives of the Republican Party who know well what freedom, international law, and the free world mean. I have no doubt that many of them must dissociate themselves from Trump's words and realize the danger.
Also, on July 31, 2016, Arsen Avakov, then Ukraine’s powerful minister of internal affairs, savagely attacked Trump’s statement on Crimea (link) saying that Trump was “an even bigger danger to the US than terrorism” and showing the very offensive and undiplomatic cartoon of Putin and Trump kissing, closing with a derogatory invocation of Manafort:
On August 4, 2016, Ukrainian ambassador Valeriy Chaly severely chastised Trump for even contemplating the possibility of Crimean separation from Ukraine (link).
Soon after the controversy over Trump’s remarks on Crimea (by coincidence or not), Ukrainian special forces launched a sabotage operation in Crimea on or about August 7-8, 2016. The sabotage appears to have been mostly prevented by Russia, which issued a statement of condemnation. Both Ukraine and US denied any involvement in the sabotage, stating that the accusations had been fabricated by Russia. Many years later (July 2020), another Biden-Poroshenko tape excerpt from August 19, 2016 (different from the one linked above) showed that Ukraine had committed the sabotage after all. It also showed that Biden and Obama were not necessarily on the same page: Obama was angry at the (unauthorized) sabotage operation and had ordered Joe to call Poroshenko and ream him out; Joe did so very reluctantly. The conversation leaves little doubt that Obama was not as nearly as enthusiastic about Biden’s Ukraine project as Biden was.
The New York Times Article, August 15, 2016
Let’s return now to the New York Times article4,5 that brought the Black Ledger to the U.S. and to the specific issue of Ukrainian government involvement.
In December 2016, Andrew Kramer, its lead author, claimed (link) that their information was “not leaked but discovered through investigative reporting”:
However, the article itself repeatedly attributed its information about Manafort to NABU (the Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau) and, in an updated version on August 1, 2016, even linked to video of NABU director Artem Sytnyk6 (link).
Kramer et al began with an attribution of the “cash payments” to Manafort to "Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau”, then citing “investigators” [from NABU] to label the payments as part of an “illegal off-the-books system”:
Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.
Kramer et al then cited “anti-corruption officials there”:
Anti-corruption officials there say the payments earmarked for Mr. Manafort, previously unreported, are a focus of their investigation, though they have yet to determine if he actually received the cash.
Kramer et al then cited Vitaliy Kasko7, described as a “former senior official with the general prosecutor’s office in Kiev”. (Each name is relevant; Kasko will re-appear in a future post going back to Black Ledger origins.)
“He understood what was happening in Ukraine,” said Vitaliy Kasko, a former senior official with the general prosecutor’s office in Kiev. “It would have to be clear to any reasonable person that the Yanukovych clan, when it came to power, was engaged in corruption.” Mr. Kasko added, “It’s impossible to imagine a person would look at this and think, ‘Everything is all right.’”
Kramer et al (link) then cited NABU once again, citing a NABU statement announcing the appearance of Manafort’s name in the Black Ledger:
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau, which obtained the ledger, said in a statement that Mr. Manafort’s name appeared 22 times in the documents over five years, with payments totaling $12.7 million. “Paul Manafort is among those names on the list of so-called ‘black accounts of the Party of Regions,’ which the detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine are investigating,” the statement said. “We emphasize that the presence of P. Manafort’s name in the list does not mean that he actually got the money, because the signatures that appear in the column of recipients could belong to other people.”
Also on August 15, 2016, Artem Sytnyk, then NABU director, issued a video statement (link), confirming Manafort’s name in the Black Ledger. This video statement and link was promptly incorporated into a revised version of the the New York Times article (link).
NABU director Sytnyk stated:
“[Manafort’s] last name is mentioned in the list, the so-called Black Ledger of the Party of Regions. And, according to this list, more than 12 million dollars were spent to cover expenses related to this person starting from Nov. 20, 2007. The last record in the account book connected to Mr. Manafort was made on Oct. 5, 2012. But I underline that the simple mention of Mr Manafort’s name in this list does not mean that he received the money. as there were signatures of other people. The aim of this money was not specified as well. Pretrial investigation is underway and [it is too early] to talk about the perspective of this case.”
The New York Times article also included a discussion of Manafort’s failed business ventures and prior association with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska about ten years earlier. This information appears to have been provided to co-author Barry Meier by Fusion GPS, who had investigated the longstanding legal dispute between Deripaska and Manafort then active in Bermuda.
Michael McIntire, the other co-author of the New York Times article, had been a long-time reporter in Connecticut (where Manafort was from) and would have presumably added context on Manafort’s relevance. Russiagate researcher @walkafyre has hypothesized that Michael McIntire was the very first person interviewed (two heavily redacted August 2016 302s) by the FBI in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, but this hypothesis is far from established.
A few days later, CNN reported (link) that the FBI was pusuing an “overlapping inquiry” into corruption allegations related to Manafort.
Kholodnitskyi Statement, August 17, 2016
Two days later (on August 17, 2016), as international attention accumulated, Nazar Kholodnitski8, who had been appointed as Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor in November 2015, confirmed the appearance of Manafort’s name in the Black Ledger in an interview with CBS in Kyiv (link). Kholodnitski’s name will re-appear in a follow-up article on Black Ledger origins.
NABU Releases Manafort Excerpts, August 18, 2016
On August 18, 2016, NABU published copies of the 24 Black Ledger entries referring to Manafort (archive):
The first three such excerpts are shown below (my highlighting). The third example will be referred to later.
Leshchenko Press Conference, August 19, 2016
On August 19, 2016, at about the same time as Biden and Poroshenko were gloating about Manafort’s resignation, Leshchenko9 was gloating that the Black Ledger would make it impossible for Trump campaign and would be “last nail in the coffin” of both Manafort and Trump:
The Party of Region's Black Ledger saved the world... I doubt that Trump can ever recover after this blow. …
In a follow up tweet, Leshchenko added:
I think it's the last nail in the coffin of Manafort… I hope Trump is with him.
In his news conference later on August 19, 2016, Leshchenko stated (link):
I believe and understand the basis of these payments are totally against the law — we have the proof from these books … If Mr. Manafort denies any allegations, I think he has to be interrogated into this case and prove his position that he was not involved in any misconduct on the territory of Ukraine.
Biden-Poroshenko Call, August 19, 2016
The Biden-Poroshenko call discussed above took place in this context. The call took place only one week after their prior call (official readout link) and began with a reprimand by Biden to Poroshenko (apparently on direct instructions from Obama) about a Ukrainian sabotage operation in Crimea a week earlier. Both Ukraine and U.S. had publicly dismissed allegations of Ukrainian sabotage in Crimea as “Russian” “disinformation”, but, privately, both Biden and Poroshenko were well aware of Ukrainian responsibility for the sabotage (and that Obama was annoyed by it.)
After Biden’s obligatory (but very mild) criticism of Poroshenko for the sabotage in Crimea, the Biden-Poroshenko conversation moved on to the much more cheerful topic of Manafort’s resignation took place towards the end of the call. They promised to talk again at the beginning of the next week.
Biden: All right. I'll talk to you in the beginning of the week, all right?
Poroshenko: Good, Joe. Thank you very much indeed. And let me know about after meeting with the..., after lunch with Obama. And I can share with you the information from Berlin. Maybe we can do that tomorrow. Up to you, whenever you would be ready, just let me know about that.
Biden: All right. OK. Stay safe. Goodbye.
Steele Dossier Report #105, August 22, 2016
The Black Ledger events of August 14-19, 2016 made an appearance in Steele dossier report #105, dated August 22, 2016.
Steele and his Primary Sub-Source, Igor Danchenko in northern Virginia, (implausibly) purported to have breaking inside details of a supposed “secret” meeting between Putin and deposed former Ukrainian Yanukovych on August 15, 2016 “near Volgograd”, in which Putin was said to have been “worried” about whether Yanukovych had “fully covered the traces” of “kick-back payments” to Manafort:
None of Steele’s customers, including the FBI, seem to have found anything implausible about how Brookings alumnus Igor Danchenko, sitting at his computer in northern Virginia, managed to instantly have top secret information about a “secret meeting” between Putin and Yanukovych. How did he communicate this information from Russia to Danchenko (then in northern Virginia? Did the FBI ever check Danchenko’s telephone records? Who was the “well-placed Russian figure” who reported the inner details of this conversation to Danchenko? None of these questions seem to have been asked of Danchenko, either in his original January 2017 interview or in his long tenure as an FBI Confidential Human Source.
Nor did the details in the Steele report make sense. Manafort was handsomely paid by Ukrainian oligarchs for his political consulting services (including services of subcontractors like the Podesta Group, Mercury and Greg Craig of Akin Gump), but these payments weren’t “kick-backs” in any sense of the term.
The timing was also implausibly tight. The New York Times story was not published until the early morning hours of August 15, 2016 (Moscow.) It is, to say the least, implausible that Putin would have met with Yanukovych to discuss this later in the day of August 15, 2016 in Volgograd on such short notice.
Nor, per their Spreadsheet as of April 2017, was the FBI able to verify the existence of this meeting:
The FBI Spreadsheet “intelligence” discussion of the Steele dossier incorrectly characterized the Black Ledger reporting as saying that “Manafort was owed $12 million”: the Ledger, whatever its validity, purported to record payments, not debts.
As a curiosity, Paragraph 3 of this report 105 was the Charles Dolan “information” which was at issue in Durham’s poorly conceived Danchenko indictment. This paragraph was totally irrelevant to the main arc (or even minor arc) of Russiagate hoax narrative. That Durham focussed so heavily on this irrelevancy (and wasted a lifeline on it) appears to be connected to its avoidance of any confrontation with FBI over its handling and promotion of Russiagate hoax.
Financial Times and Leshchenko interview, August 28, 2016
On August 28, 2016, Roman Olearchyk of the Financial Times published a short article (link; archive) entitled “Ukraine’s leaders campaign against ‘pro-Putin’ Trump”, illustrated by a picture of Leshchenko holding Black Ledger-related papers:
The article stated that not just Leshchenko “but Kiev’s wider political leadership [had done] something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a US election”, referring directly to the publication of the Black Ledger by Ukrainian officials:
The prospect of Mr Trump, who has praised Ukraine’s arch-enemy Vladimir Putin, becoming leader of the country’s biggest ally has spurred not just Mr Leshchenko but Kiev’s wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a US election. Mr Leshchenko and Ukraine’s anti-corruption bureau published a secret ledger this month that authorities claim show millions of dollars of off-the-book cash payments to Paul Manafort, Mr Trump’s campaign director, while he was advising Mr Yanukovich’s Regions party from 2005.
The Financial Times referenced the statements of Yatsenyuk and Avakov cited above, plus anti-Trump comments by Anton Shekhovtsov and Natalie Jaresko. They cited Atlantic Council’s Adrian Karatnycky that Ukrainian “political figures” were “involved to an unprecedented degree in trying to weaken the Trump bandwagon”:
Adrian Karatnycky, a senior fellow at Washington’s Atlantic Council think-tank, said it was “no wonder that some key Ukrainian political figures are getting involved to an unprecedented degree in trying to weaken the Trump bandwagon”.
The Financial Times reported that "Leshchenko and other political actors in Kiev” would “continue their efforts” to prevent Trump’s election, citing Trump’s willingness to review Crimea policy (discussed above):
But Mr Leshchenko and other political actors in Kiev say they will continue their efforts to prevent a candidate — who recently suggested Russia might keep Crimea, which it annexed two years ago — from reaching the summit of American political power. “A Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy,” Mr Leshchenko, an investigative journalist turned MP, told the Financial Times. “For me it was important to show not only the corruption aspect, but that he is [a] pro-Russian candidate who can break the geopolitical balance in the world.”
In its penultimate paragraph, the Financial Times quoted a “former Yanukovich loyalist” for comment, resulting in an angry response:
The revelations provoked fury among former Regions party backers. Asked by telephone about Mr Manafort’s activities in Ukraine, a former Yanukovich loyalist now playing a lead role in the Regions party’s successor, called Opposition Bloc, let loose a string of expletives. He accused western media of “working in the interests of Hillary Clinton by trying to bring down Trump”.
Some years later, SSCI Report Volume 5 identified Kilimnik as the “former Yanukovuch loyalist” cited in this article. The SSCI cited contemporary correspondence between Kilimnik and Gates that observed (correctly) that “this article is actually very helpful to us” since “these idiots actually admit that [Poroshenko’s] government was deliberately trying to destabilize Trump’s campaign”.
However, the SSCI’s conclusion that “Kilimnik almost certainly helped arrange some of the first public messaging that Ukraine had interfered in the U.S. election” is yet another “intelligence” assertion unjustified by the evidence. The statements by Ukrainian officials had nothing to do with Kilimnik. Kilimnik merely pointed out to Gates that Ukrainian officials were publicly stating their opposition to the Trump, thus supporting Kilimnik’s characterization of events.
The subsequent section of the SSCI Report contains a discussion of how Manafort, Gates and Frank Mermoud, in an effort to reconcile Trump with Ukrainian leadership, had brokered a telephone call between Poroshenko and Trump on November 15, 2016. By coincidence (or not), later in the day of November 15, 2016, Poroshenko reviewed this call with Biden; the transcript of a relevant excerpt becoming available in summer 2020 from Derkach. According to Poroshenko in this call, Trump had been very (and surprisingly) conciliatory.
Vogel in Politico, January 2017
Over the next five months, the Black Ledger controversy mostly disappeared from view, replaced in public consciousness by other issues.
It briefly returned to view in a January 11, 2017 article in Politico by Kenneth Vogel published entitled “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire” (link). However, the Steele dossier had been published the previous day and Vogel’s article was totally lost in its slipstream. The Vogel article later became relevant when Rudy Giuliani subsequently attempted to revive the question of Ukraine interference in the 2016 election - a prominent topic in the 2019 impeachment hearings.
The Black Ledger operation was touched on in the Vogel article, but most of Vogel’s article focussed on the role of Alexandra Chalupa and the DNC, neither of which appear to have had significant roles in the Black Ledger operation. Vogel’s focus on Chalupa and the DNC (subsequently adopted by Rudy Giuliani) thus functioned as a distraction or diversion from the most consequential Ukraine government interference in the 2016 election.
Vogel reported that the documents damaging Trump campaign and Manafort had been “released by an independent Ukrainian government agency [NABU]” and “publicized by a parliamentarian [Leshchenko]” and, accordingly, that the Black Ledger operation “can be traced more directly to the Ukrainian government”:
one of the more damaging Russia-related stories for the Trump campaign — and certainly for Manafort — can be traced more directly to the Ukrainian government. Documents released by an independent Ukrainian government agency — and publicized by a parliamentarian — appeared to show $12.7 million in cash payments that were earmarked for Manafort by the Russia-aligned party of the deposed former president, Yanukovych.
Vogel then observed that Robbie Mook and other Democrat operatives had “seized” on the Ukraine story to allege that there were “more troubling connections” to Russia involving Trump:
Clinton’s campaign seized on the story to advance Democrats’ argument that Trump’s campaign was closely linked to Russia. The ledger represented “more troubling connections between Donald Trump’s team and pro-Kremlin elements in Ukraine,” Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, said in a statement. He demanded that Trump “disclose campaign chair Paul Manafort’s and all other campaign employees’ and advisers’ ties to Russian or pro-Kremlin entities, including whether any of Trump’s employees or advisers are currently representing and or being paid by them.”
By the time that Politico asked Poroshenko’s spokesman and Leshchenko about the operation (in January 2017 long after the election), both were trying very hard to distance themselves from their in-campaign interference. Poroshenko’s spokesman noted that NABU and FBI had “signed an evidence-sharing agreement with the FBI in late June — less than a month and a half before it released the ledgers”, but (falsely) claimed that there was “no targeted action against Manafort” and pretended that the anti-Manafort operation was a personal action by Leshchenko.
In a series of answers provided to Politico, a spokesman for Poroshenko distanced his administration from both Leshchenko’s efforts and those of the agency that released the ledgers, The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. It was created in 2014 as a condition for Ukraine to receive aid from the U.S. and the European Union, and it signed an evidence-sharing agreement with the FBI in late June — less than a month and a half before it released the ledgers.
The bureau is “fully independent,” the Poroshenko spokesman said, adding that when it came to the presidential administration there was “no targeted action against Manafort.” He added “as to Serhiy Leshchenko, he positions himself as a representative of internal opposition in the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko’s faction, despite [the fact that] he belongs to the faction,” the spokesman said, adding, “it was about him personally who pushed [the anti-corruption bureau] to proceed with investigation on Manafort.”
Vogel noted that an experienced Ukraine operative told him that, notwithstanding the formal statements from Poroshenko’s office, it was “highly unlikely that either Leshchenko or the anti-corruption bureau would have pushed the issue without at least tacit approval from Poroshenko or his closest allies”:
But an operative who has worked extensively in Ukraine, including as an adviser to Poroshenko, said it was highly unlikely that either Leshchenko or the anti-corruption bureau would have pushed the issue without at least tacit approval from Poroshenko or his closest allies.
The August 19, 2016 Biden-Poroshenko tape exerpt proves this point (if it were ever in doubt).
Leshchenko, February-March 2017
In February 2017, according to Leshchenko’s November 2019 article (link), the company that had rented Manafort’s former office in Kyiv found a keyless safe in the office and, upon opening the safe, discovered “a motley pile of documents”, including “two expired credit cards of Phil Griffin and Leonid Avrashov, employees of Manafort” and a “school report card for the daughter of Konstantin Kilimnik”.
One of the “motley” documents (“the most important document in the safe”) was an October 14, 2009 contract and invoice used as back up for a wire transfer of $750,000 from a bank account in Kyrgyrstan for a shell company in Belize to Manafort’s account at Wachovia Bank in Virginia, described in a March 20, 2017 article (link) by Keshchenko as follows:
the most important document in the safe was a contract and an invoice for transferring $750,000 to the account of Manafort in Wachovia Bank, Virginia, on Oct. 14, 2009. The money was transferred from the account of an offshore company Neocom Systems Limited (Belize) with a bank in Kyrgyzstan.
Leshchenko observed that the date and amount matched one of the 22 Manafort excerpts previously published by NABU, and published (for the first time) the Black Ledger page containing the October 1, 2009 excerpt previously published by NABU:
However, Leshchenko claimed that the match of date and amount of the October 1, 2009 invoice to the corresponding entry vindicated the “authenticity” of the Black Ledger:
Thus, the authenticity of the black ledger was confirmed by reconciling the amounts in it with transfers to Manafort’s account in the U.S.
Yes and no. While the dates and amounts matched, the invoice contained instructions for wire transfer to Davis Manafort Partners’ business account in Virginia. So rather than the new documents validating the original allegations of $12.7 million in cash payments, they actually supported Manafort’s original claim that he had received payments from Ukraine as wire transfers. But this was ignored by media and commentators. Ultimately, while Mueller identified numerous irregularities in Manafort’s financial affairs, Mueller never raised cash payments as an issue.
Leshchenko pointed out that the $750,000 invoice to Davis Manafort was from a company (Neocom Systems Limited) incorporated in Belize with a bank account in Kyrgyrstan:
Leshchenko publicly and vociferously urged the FBI to investigate Manafort for money laundering:
after receiving the Manafort agreement, there is every reason to start a criminal investigation both in Ukraine and in the United States. Since the money "laundered" in Kyrgyzstan came to Manafort's account opened with Wachovia Bank in Virginia, and the transaction itself was carried out in US dollars, the investigation of this scam falls under the jurisdiction of the US FBI. The author of these lines is ready to provide any possible assistance in disclosing the corruption scheme in which Yanukovych and his entourage have the status of accomplices.
By coincidence (or not), the money used by Burisma Holdings (Cyprus) to pay Hunter Biden also originated (link) with a Belize shell company (Wirelogic Technology S.A.), which had wire transferred funds to Burisma (Cyprus)’s account with AS Privatbank (Latvia), and not from operations in Ukraine. However, neither Leshchenko nor the FBI displayed the same interest in money laundering as it applied to Hunter Biden, as to money laundering allegations against Manafort.
In his March 2017 article (or in any of his voluminous reporting prior to November 2019 link, Leshchenko never disclosed that he had met with FBI in Kyiv twice in February 2017, more or less immediately after obtaining these documents. Walkafyre has identified two Mueller 302s which contain the precise dates of the February 2017 Leshchenko interviews with FBI (link).
In this article, Leshchenko reported (as fact) the fantastic Steele dossier anecdote cited above about the supposed secret meeting between Putin and Yanukovych about payments to Manafort as follows:
The fact that payments to Manafort could contain a time bomb was known or suspected by Russian President Putin. Last fall, Putin secretly met with ex-president Yanukovych to discuss evidence of Paul Manafort receiving payments from the Party of Regions, according to a high-profile dossier by a former intelligence agent. ..As it turned out, Yanukovych deceived this time as well - only now not the Ukrainian people, but his Kremlin patron.
The Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Manafort ratcheted up substantially in March and April 2017, following Andrew Weissmann’s meeting with Associated Press reporters and FBI agent Karen Greenaway - topics that will be the subject of a future article.
Politifact July 2017: Did Ukraine Interfere in the 2016 Election?
A Politifact article in July 2017 (link) was one of the very few attempts to discuss Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election, before a cone of silence was placed over the topic.
Politifact, ironically, cited Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes, as authority for the question:
"If everyone is running around with the assumption that it’s illegitimate to work with a foreign government in a campaign, then it’s perfectly fair to ask what was the relationship between the Clinton campaign and the Ukrainians," Wittes said.
As an editorial comment, this already frames the issue differently and more narrowly: the issue of whether Trump campaign colluded with Russia was different than the issue of whether Russia interfered in the campaign through Wikileaks publication of DNC emails. In the Ukrainian context, the most relevant question turns out to be the relationship between the Biden vice-regency in Ukraine and the Ukrainians, as opposed to the Clinton campaign itself.
Politifact observed that both the Trump and Clinton campaigns were “disrupted”, but purported to distinguish the respective disruptions on two grounds.
Citing Wittes, Politifact asserted that the Black Ledger was “the product of an official investigation”, whereas the DNC emails were “stolen dirt”:
The Russians got their materials through cyber-attacks, while the only telling document revealed by a Ukrainian lawmaker was the product of an official investigation.
"There’s a difference between dealing with the embassy and dealing with a covert intelligence operation," Wittes said. "Are you dealing with government records, or are you dealing in stolen dirt?"
Elsewhere in article, Politifact re-iterated the constrast between the Black Ledger “emerg[ing] from an anti-corruption investigation” whereas the DNC emails were “private emails acquired by the Russians and distributed through Wikileaks and DCleaks”.
However, the Black Ledger was not the “product of an official investigation” or an “anti-corruption investigation”. According to present knowledge (discussed above), the Black Ledger was removed from the Party of Regions office in a break-in and arson by nationalist militants during the February 2014 Maidan insurrection, an operation in which a Party of Regions employee was murdered. It was subsequently delivered anonymously to a former Deputy Head of the SBU. Its origin was not through due process of an “anti-corruption investigation”, but an attack that was far more violent than the DNC hack.
As discussed above, the Black Ledger was stolen from the Party of Regions office in an armed raid by Maidan insurgents and delivered to a hard-core and highly partisan former SBU official. In one case, the disrupting information was released by Ukrainian officials; in the other case, the disrupting information was released by a non-state party (Wikileaks.) Thus, the evidence of Ukrainian interference is direct, but the evidence of Russian interference is indirect. It is said to be very strong, but the supporting details remain withheld, so one’s confidence in the claim necessarily varies with one’s confidence in FBI and other counterintelligence agencies.
The other purported distinction proposed by Politifact was that “a variety of actors on the Ukrainian side [merely] sponded to American queries and provided public documents”, whereas “the Kremlin shaped and directed the email hacking of Democrats and subsequent distribution”:
If the broad outlines are similar, some key elements distinguish these episodes from each other. The Politico article highlighted a major one. "Russia’s effort was personally directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin (and) involved the country’s military and foreign intelligence services," the article said. "There’s little evidence of such a top-down effort by Ukraine."
So, according to American intelligence agencies, the Kremlin shaped and directed the email hacking of Democrats and subsequent distribution. In contrast, a variety of actors on the Ukrainian side responded to American queries and provided public documents.
There remains some dispute over attribution of the DNC emails, but, for the sake of this article, let’s stipulate the conventional attribution. But, once again, Politifact’s characterization of the Ukrainian events is contradicted by available public evidence. Rather than there being “little evidence” of a “top-down effort” by Ukraine, we now know that (as discussed above), there is an actual Biden-Poroshenko tape in which President of Ukraine took credit for the release of Manafort information. More conclusive evidence of a “top-down effort by Ukraine” can scarcely be imagined.
Even without this tape, in real time, the assertion that Ukrainian officials merely “provided public documents” in “respon[se] to American queries” is laughable. It is, of course, entirely possible (and perhaps even likely) that U.S. officials sought dirt on Manafort, but the Black Ledger references to Manafort were not “public documents”. In addition to the role of Ukrainian government agencies in providing the original information on Manafort to the New York Times, senior Ukrainian government officials immediately followed up and confirmed the story both in interviews with U.S. media and by official agency publication of the Black Ledger references to Manafort.
Continuing on, Wittes and Politifact assert that there was “nothing inherently illegal in the quest for information on how that might link Donald Trump to Russia” and that, since Manafort’s work took place in Ukraine, “you pretty much have to go to the Ukrainians to get that”:
Taking that difference one step further, there was nothing inherently illegal in the quest for information on Manafort and how that might link Donald Trump to Russia. Wittes noted that from a research perspective, since Manafort’s work took place in Ukraine, "you pretty much have to go to the Ukrainians to get that."
Wittes ignored the arson and murder at the Party of Regions office.
Interim Conclusions and Intermission
This is part 1 of several planned posts on the Black Ledger and Ukrainian interference in 2016 election.
On its face, the August 19, 2016 Biden-Poroshenko tape excerpt shows that:
Poroshenko confirmed to Biden that the public release of Manafort references in the Black Ledger had been authorized by the highest level of the Ukrainian government - Poroshenko himself.
Biden, then Vice President, knew that it was a Ukrainian government operation;
the FBI (which reportedly received Biden-Poroshenko tapes from Onyshchenko in early December 2016) knew that the release of Manafort references was a Ukrainian government operation and that Biden knew that it was a Ukrainian government operation.
Despite all the contemporary publicity about the Black Ledger, to my knowledge, the purported Black Ledger transactions were not used as evidence in the Manafort trial. Nor, to my knowledge, were any of the trial exhibits in Manafort trials related to purported Black Ledger transactions. Nor was Manafort ever charged in Ukraine or even seriously investigated in Ukraine.
While the publication of DNC emails that resulted in the resignation of DNC chair Debbie Wassermann Schultz was portrayed as an “attack” on democracy and used as a rationale for widespread state-sponsored censorship in the 2020 election and to present day, U.S. agencies, officials and media have mostly lampooned and rejected the possibility that Ukrainian release of Black Ledger entries referencing Manafort and which resulted in the resignation of Trump campaign chair Pail Manafort constituted election interference. As discussed above, it is extremely difficult to provide a principled and objective rationale for the different responses.
Saying that Ukraine interfered in 2016 election through its claims about Manafort and the Black Ledger doesn’t refute allegations of Russian involvement in publication of DNC emails. But neither does an assessment of Russian involvement in release of DNC emails refute Ukrainian election interference throught the Black Ledger. Two thing can be true.
In a future article, I will discuss the forward arc of these events, including Rudy Giuliani’s purported investigation of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election, questions and answers (or non-answers) on this topic in 2019 impeachment hearings with U.S. officials, how (in 2020) the U.S. intelligence community suppressed and extinguished any discussion of the Biden-Poroshenko tapes and perhaps some discussion of these tapes in context.
Still to come:
backstory to the Black Ledger operation, reviewing events from December 2015 and January 2016 forward to the release of the Black Ledger. Take note of the Ukrainians mentioned in news of the release of Manafort’s name occurrences in Black Ledger: Artem Sytnyk; Nazar Kholodnitsky; Vitaliy Kasko. Not just Leshchenko. In a follow up post, I’ll trace these names towards origin of Black Ledger operation
its connection to the search warrants against Paul Manafort;
the court case brought in Ukraine against Sytnyk, Leshchenko and NABU for interference in the 2016 U.S. election, including both the December 2018 conviction and reversal on appeal in July 2019;
the revival of allegations of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election during the 2019 impeachment hearings, together with the baldfaced denial - and even ridicule - of such interference by U.S. officials and agencies;
the suppression of public knowledge of the Biden-Poroshenko tapes by U.S. intel agencies, accomplished even more thoroughly than the suppression of information on the Hunter Biden laptop a few weeks later in 2020 campaign;
the connection of the Biden-Poroshenko tapes to Onyshchenko and Onyshchenko’s unsuccessful December 2016 attempt to involve the FBI.
A quick background on Leshchenko who plays an important role in the affair: he was born in Kyiv in 1980 and attended journalism school in Kyiv. In 2002, he became deputy editor-in-chief of Ukrayinska Pravda, an online newspaper. He subsequently became sponsored by the National Endowment for Democracy. (who later becomes a central figure in the Black Ledger story), then a Reagan-Fascell Fellow for the National Endowment for Democracy, briefed his sponsors in Washington on the ongoing insurrection in Ukraine (that was backed by US politicians and officials (Leshchenko on left below) (link)
In November 2014, he was elected to the Ukrainian parliament (the Verkhovna Rada) as a member of the party supporting President Petro Poroshenko (the Petro Poroshenko Bloc). In April 2019, Leshchenko left the Poroshenko Bloc and became an adviser to Zelensky’s transition team. Zelensky’s party required that its candidates NOT be prior members of parliament. Leshchenko ran as an independent in the July 2019 parliamentary elections but was defeated. In December 2019, Zelensky appointed him to a lucrative sinecure on the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian Railways.
Trepak (bio; bio) was born in 1975 in Lviv oblast and graduated in law from Ivan-Franko University in Lviv in 1997.
Ukraine is bifurcated into Ukro-nationalist regions in central and western Ukraine and Russian-speaking regions in the east. Lviv, a city in furthest west Ukraine (then in Poland), had welcomed the arrival of Nazis in July 1941 and, under the influence of Bandera’s OUN-B, west Ukraine was one of the earliest sites of both the Holocaust and ethnic cleansing. It remains a hotbed of modern Ukrainian nationalism and Banderism. Many of the leading figures in the post-Maidan Ukrainian government and military come from this region.
In contrast, deposed Ukrainian President Yanukovich came from Donbas, a region that was Russian-speaking, had supported Red Army against the Nazis, had supplied Soviet Union leaders in post-WW2 era and which had highly integrated trade relations with Russia. Donbas declared its independence from the Kyiv government following the US-backed regime change operation in February 2014. By April 2014, the Kyiv regime had attacked the separatist Donbas provinces militarily and the Ukrainian civil war was underway.
Trepak participated in this opening phase of the Ukrainian civil war in the Donbas against the separatists. Then, in July 2015, Trepak was appointed First Deputy Chief of the SBU, the Ukrainian security agency.
In April 2016, a couple of weeks after Shokin’s resignation in late March 2016, Trepak’s resignation as First Deputy Chief of the SBU was accepted. (The resignation letter had been submitted six months earlier when he demanded Shokin’s resignation.) Trepak doesn’t appear to have resigned from the SBU itself, but instead appears to have transferred to teaching the National Academy of the SBU (presumably a sort of Quantico). He later moved to an academic appointment at his alma mater, Ivan Franko National Lviv University, teaching criminal justice and criminology.
In October 2019, early in the new Zelensky administration, Trepak re-appeared with an appointment as Deputy Prosecutor General. This appointment was little noted in the West, but, in retrospect, was quite revealing about preferences of Zelensky administration.
The article was illustrated with an excerpt from the Black Ledger , described in the caption as having been “released by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau [NABU]”. By coincidence (or not), the excerpt exactly matches the second page of the Leshchenko excerpt released in early June:
Artem Sytnyk was born in 1979 (bio) in Kirovograd oblast in central Ukraine and graduated from Jaroslav the Wise Law School in 2001. In April 2015, he became the first director of the newly legislated National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), one of myriad Ukrainian public authorities ostensibly dedicated to anti-corruption. Sytnyk was alleged to have profiteered on privatization of state apartments - see Boyko link. Despite multiple controversies, Sytnyk served out his 7-year term and was recently transferred to another senior government appointment.
In early 2018, Sytnyk was …
Vitaliy Kasko (bio), like Trepak and so many others in the post-Maidan regime, came from Banderist west Ukraine. He was born in Lviv (in 1975) and graduated in law from Lviv National University in 1998. In May 2014, Kasko, then in private practice, was appointed Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine under then Prosecutor General Yarema, Shokin’s predecessor. (Yarema had been forced to resign in the wake of an early scandal involving Burisma cash seized in London and was succeeded as Prosecutor General by Shokin in February 2015). Volodomyr Boyko (link) said that Kasko had been “appointed under the quota of [Ukrainian mega-oligarch] Kolomoisky”. By December 2015, relations between Shokin and Kasko appear to have totally broken down.
On February 12, 2016, the Prosecutor General’s Office opened an investigation into an allegation of Kasko’s illegal appropriations of state-owned apartments, including the filing of forged documents on February 24, 2014 while, as Volodomyr Boyko put it (link), “the blood was being cleaned up off Maidan”. Appropriation of state-owned apartments by prosecutors seems to have been not uncommon among supposedly “anti-corruption” prosecutors. Sytnyk later faced similar corruption charges. Two days later, Kasko resigned but did not go quietly, instead proclaiming publicly that he was resigning in protest over Shokin. Read Boyko’s thorough account (link).
In October 2019, Kasko returned as Deputy Prosecutor General under the Zelensky administration, more or less concurrently with the appointment of Trepak as a fellow Deputy Prosecutor General. (Kolomoisky was also Zelensky’s patron.)
Tatiana Chornovol on Kasko (link)
Nazar Kholodnytskyi, appointed as Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor in November 2015, was (like Trepak) born in Lviv (in 1985) and had graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv in 2006. He served as Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor until 2020, amidst considerable controversy.
Steve, respectfully, I think you are making the case for Ukrainian interference when the better description of what the totality of evidence of 2016 presents is a DNC-Obama-USIC interference.
Biden played the part along with Chalupa only as coordinators of the Ukraine angle on framing Manafort, who had already been targeted If you consider the early 2016 interest in Manafort interest by Steele through his DNC (Clinton) clients, DOJ client (Bruce Ohr) and Oleg Deripaska (an independent client?), then the Chalupa and Ukraine angle seem just a follow on from the overall plan to create a phantom narrative to justify keeping the Trump campaign and Manafort under USIC surveillance.
(The only real question we should ponder is whether the USIC were the Clinton and DNC's clients or vice-versa. )