Zelenskyy's hold on power uncertain as criminal charges reach his inner circle



Volodymyr Zelenskyy — the Ukrainian leader who suspended elections, dissolved rival parties, sanctioned a political opponent on suspicion of "high treason," consolidated Ukraine's media outlets, banned a Christian denomination, and remains president despite his term officially ending 18 months ago — rose to power on a pledge to give Ukrainians "a life without corruption, without bribes."

Zelenskyy's hold on power, however, now appears uncertain, as it is threatened by a historic corruption scandal that has swept up some of his closest allies.

Zelenskyy, allies prove unable to hinder probe

Earlier this year, the Ukrainian president and his closest aides attempted to neutralize the independent anti-corruption agencies that were scrutinizing Zelenskyy's inner circle.

In July, Zelenskyy's party pushed through legislation stripping Ukraine's National Anticorruption Bureau of its independence and giving the prosecutor general, a Zelenskyy appointee, oversight. This took place the day after the State Bureau of Investigation — which is helmed by a Zelenskyy loyalist — arrested NABU officials and conducted numerous raids of corruption fighters' homes.

'Zelensky faces a day of reckoning.'

The director of the anti-corruption bureau, Semen Kryvonos, indicated at the time that "this pressure campaign is a direct response to the effectiveness of our investigations, including those targeting high-ranking officials and members of Parliament."

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Photo by TETIANA DZHAFAROVA/AFP via Getty Images

The Financial Times indicated that in the face of mass protests and outrage from Ukraine's Western partners, Zelenskyy and his allies ultimately had to abandon their efforts to torpedo the 15-month investigation.

Zelenskyy desperately condemns his close allies

Despite the obstacles erected by the regime, the anti-corruption investigation conducted by NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office exposed an alleged $100 million kickback scheme in which Zelenskyy officials and business figures allegedly conspired to force suppliers to Ukraine's nuclear power company, Energoatom, to pay kickbacks valued at 10%-15% of each contract's value.

In their searches of suspects' residences, law enforcement reportedly found duffel bags filled with cash and, in one case, a Kyiv apartment with a golden toilet.

Kryvonos indicated the funds allegedly pilfered as part of the scheme have largely been dispersed through a number of foreign nations and used to purchase property and other assets, reported the Wall Street Journal.

The Ukrainian president — who was "floored" by the scale of the charges made against members of his ruling clique, sources in the government told the Economist — has done his apparent best to distance himself from those named in the criminal corruption probe, which has been dubbed Operation Midas.

For instance, Zelenskyy, who was not named in the corruption probe, imposed sanctions last week on one of his closest associates and former business partner, Timur Mindich.

Mindich, who fled to Israel just prior to NABU's Nov. 10 raids, has been charged with allegedly managing a criminal organization that laundered millions of dollars.

Mindich is reportedly a close business associate of Israeli-Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky, a backer of Zelenskyy's presidential campaign who was arrested by the Security Service of Ukraine in 2023 on fraud and money-laundering charges, and a relative of Leonid Mindich, who was arrested by Ukrainian anti-corruption authorities earlier this year on charges of embezzling $16 million from an electric power company.

Zelenskyy also asked his ministers of justice and energy — German Halushchenko and Svitlana Grynchuk — to resign last week, stating, "This is also a matter of trust. If there are accusations, they must be addressed. The decision to dismiss them from office is prompt and necessary."

Grynchuk said in a Facebook post, "There have been no violations of the law in the course of my personal activities."

Halushchenko, who served as energy minister until his dismissal in July and was removed as justice minister on Nov. 12, has indicated that he will defend himself against the accusations.

According to Ukrainska Pravda, Timur Mindich allegedly built connections with Halushchenko through his relationship with Zelenskyy and then exerted influence over both the ex-justice minister and Rustem Umerov, secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council and ex-defense minister.

Although Umerov is presently in the U.S., Ukraine's Center for Counter Disinformation indicated he is planning to return to Ukraine despite reports that he was hoping to stay abroad to avoid charges.

Other suspects tied to the alleged kickback scheme reportedly include:

  • Ihor Myroniuk, an ex-adviser to Halushchenko and former deputy head of the State Property Fund whose lawyer claims he was not a member of a criminal organization;
  • former Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Chernyshov, a close Zelenskyy ally who was removed from his position in July after being charged with bribery and abuse of office, then arrested on Tuesday on charges of illicit enrichment in connection with the alleged kickback scheme;
  • Serhiy Pushkar, a current member of the National Energy Commission;
  • Oleksandr Tsukerman, a Ukrainian businessman accused of running the money laundering back office in the scheme, who reportedly left Ukraine for Israel and denies wrongdoing; and
  • Dmytro Basov, former head of the Energoatom security department, who also denied any wrongdoing.

Daria Kaleniuk, executive director at the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv, told France 24 on Monday that the investigation is far from over and that Zelenskyy has to look very closely into his closest inner circle, starting with his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, who Kaleniuk claimed is wielding unconstitutional powers in the country and is at the heart of the problem.

"If there will be more attempts from Zelenskyy to attack anti-corruption bodies like there was attempt[ed] in summer, there would be also for me the clear signal that Volodomyr Zelenskyy didn't learn his lesson," added Kaleniuk.

Sources close to the anti-corruption bodies made clear to the Economist that the investigation's next phase may focus on corruption in the defense sector, which may prompt greater demands for a full reset of the Ukrainian government.

"Zelenskyy faces a day of reckoning," a senior official told the Economist. "The choice isn’t great. Either he amputates a leg, or he gets an infection going through the whole body and dies."

"I think that right now, both society and the political class understand that a political crisis would be too dangerous," Volodymyr Fesenko, a political scientist based in Kyiv, told the Financial Times. "A lot depends on the next steps of the investigation, if new information comes out that involves Zelenskyy or the office of the president ... then of course, it'll be a new round."

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Jasmine Crockett funds lavish lifestyle off taxpayer dollars; staff calls her an ‘influencer’ and a ‘diva’



Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) has been heavily criticized by the right for changing her accent and persona based on who she’s speaking to — and now, not even her congressional aides can take it anymore.

“She is never in the office and is very disengaged. She does her b**ls**t that goes viral, and then freaks out over the most random things,” one aide told the New York Post.

“It is widely known that she’s not nice to staff and is just not a really dedicated member focused on constituents,” a second source said.

A third source who has worked with Crockett accused her of being “focused almost exclusively on being an influencer, not a member of Congress” and described her as “all diva, no wow.”


And apparently, when Crockett does go to the Hill, she forces her staffers to pick her up in rented vehicles — which she requires to be an Escalade or a similar higher-end vehicle. Most lawmakers allow their staff to pick them up in their own cars.

She then makes them open the door for her as she gets in the back seat.

“‘That’s the type of persona that I want to give the rest of the country,’” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales mocks on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.” “I mean, that is really embarrassing and that certainly is not indicative of someone who believes that they are there to serve the people.”

And that’s not even the worst of it.

According to the official congressional expense report for January through March of this year, her staff total was $293,198.61. Her travel total for those two months was $129,301. Other services totaled $18,679, rent/communication/utilities were $30,679, and her office was almost $383,000.

“Grand total, almost a million dollars. $854,313.75, just over a time of three months, which averages to $9,492.37 of your tax dollars spent per day,” Gonzales says.

“You see the way she carries on. You see the way she conducts herself,” she says, adding, “Of course she thinks that she’s entitled to all of that.”

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Zelenskyy — still holding onto power a year after his term ended — commandeers anti-corruption bureau, sparking protests



President Donald Trump ruffled feathers in February when he characterized Volodymyr Zelenskyy — the Ukrainian leader who suspended elections, dissolved rival parties, sanctioned a political opponent on suspicion of "high treason," consolidated Ukraine's media outlets, banned a Christian denomination, and remains president despite his term officially ending in May 2024 — as a "dictator without elections" who wants to "keep the 'gravy train' going."

Zelenskyy has faced continued criticism in the months since over his apparent efforts to appropriate and remain in power, including from the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, whose authority and responsibilities the Ukrainian president has effectively neutralized by appointing a rival military administration in the capital.

Klitschko, furious over the "raids, interrogations, and threats of fabricated criminal cases" apparently undermining his city council, told the Times (U.K.) in May, "This is a purge of democratic principles and institutions under the guise of war."

"I said once that it smells of authoritarianism in our country," continued the mayor. "Now it stinks."

Zelenskyy gave his critics further cause for suspicion and sparked mass protests on Tuesday by ratifying legislation that will give the country's prosecutor general — Zelenskyy's appointee — powers over Ukraine's National Anticorruption Bureau, thereby affording the president the ability to torpedo investigations into his administration.

Ukrainska Pravda indicated that the legislation drew protest from numerous members of parliament, which has not had elections since 2019, and stressed that the shakeup "means the destruction of the independence of anti-corruption bodies."

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Daria Kaleniuk, a co-founder of the nongovernmental Anticorruption Action Center who helped establish the NABU following Ukraine's 2014 regime change, told the Wall Street Journal, "What's happening is the demolition of the anticorruption infrastructure in Ukraine."

Olena Tregub, executive director of the Independent Defense Anti-Corruption Commission, suggested on LinkedIn that "weakening NABU and [the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office] is a dangerous mistake."

"It threatens to derail Ukraine's EU aspirations, fuels political polarization, and could erode public trust in the president who once promised to make the fight against corruption a cornerstone of his leadership," wrote Tregub. "Independent anti-corruption institutions are not simply a box to check for European integration. They are essential for building a democratic, transparent, and truly European Ukraine."

Zelenskyy said in a video statement on Tuesday that "the anti-corruption infrastructure will work, only without Russian influence — it needs to be cleared of that."

"Criminal proceedings must not drag on for years without lawful verdicts. And those who work against Ukraine must not feel comfortable or immune to the inevitability of punishment," Zelenskyy added in a separate statement concerning his meeting with top Ukrainian law enforcement and anti-corruption agencies.

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Zelenskyy signed the bill the day after the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, which operates ultimately under the authority of Zelenskyy, launched a series of raids on NABU offices largely on the basis of allegations that agency officials were cooperating with Russia.

The SBU claimed in a statement on Monday that while acting under the procedural guidance of the office of Zelenskyy's prosecutor general, it "exposed the agent penetration of [Russia's Federal Security Service] into the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine."

'This decision endangers not only the functioning of anticorruption institutions but also Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic aspirations.'

NABU indicated that as of Monday evening, the SBU, the State Bureau of Investigation, and the Prosecutor General's Office had executed at least 70 raids in relation to the anti-corruption bureau's employees.

"In most cases, the grounds cited for these actions are the alleged involvement of certain individuals in traffic accidents," said NABU. "However, some employees are being accused of possible connections with the aggressor state. These are unrelated matters."

The anti-corruption bureau indicated that the raids took place while its director, Semen Kryvonos, was on an official visit to the United Kingdom.

Kryvonos suggested that the law effectively handing over NABU to Zelenskyy was pushed by officials who were actively being investigated by the bureau, reported the Wall Street Journal.

"This pressure campaign is a direct response to the effectiveness of our investigations, including those targeting high-ranking officials and members of Parliament," said Kryvonos. "This decision endangers not only the functioning of anticorruption institutions but also Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic aspirations."

"The president of the European Commission was in contact with President Zelenskyy about these latest developments," a European Commission spokesperson told Politico. "President von der Leyen conveyed her strong concerns about the consequences of the amendments, and she requested the Ukrainian government for explanations."

The European Commission spokesperson added, "The respect for the rule of law and the fight against corruption are core elements of the European Union. As a candidate country, Ukraine is expected to uphold these standards fully. There cannot be a compromise."

In 2012, Ernst & Young ranked Ukraine in the top three of the most corrupt countries in its 12th Global Fraud Survey. Transparency International rated it the most corrupt country in Europe after Russia and ranked it 130th among 180 countries in its 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index.

The country has, however, showed some signs of improvement, such that it now ranks 105th on the Corruption Perceptions Index, with a score of 35. By way of comparison, America's score is 65, with 100 signaling perfection.

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House drops its Biden impeachment report — and it's damning



The House Oversight, Ways and Means, and Judiciary Committees brought their nearly yearlong impeachment probe of President Joe Biden to an end Monday, concluding that the Democrat who unwittingly made Kamala Harris' second presidential bid possible has engaged in "egregious" and impeachable offenses.

According to the investigators' nearly 300-page report, "overwhelming evidence demonstrates that Biden participated in a conspiracy to monetize his office of public trust to enrich his family."

"Among other aspects of this conspiracy, the Biden family and their business associates received tens of millions of dollars from foreign interests by leading those interests to believe that such payments would provide them access to and influence with President Biden," said the report.

Bank records reportedly show that when accounting also for the Biden family's business associates and their companies, the international "influence peddling schemes totaled over $27 million from foreign sources" just from 2014 to 2023.

Contrary to the repeated suggestion by Biden and boosters that he had no hand in his son's shady dealings with foreign nationals from Ukraine, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, and elsewhere, the report maintains that Biden "knowingly participated in this conspiracy" — that it is "inconceivable that President Biden did not understand that he was taking part in an effort to enrich his family by abusing his office of public trust."

In August 2019, Biden said, "I have never discussed with my son, or my brother, or anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses."

The following month, Biden said, "I've never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings."

Days after indicating that he stood by his previous protestations, Biden noted on Oct. 15, "I never discussed a single thing with my son about anything having do with Ukraine. No one has indicated I have. We've always kept everything separate."

Biden made similar denials on at least a dozen more occasions, well into his presidency.

Despite his protests, the report indicates that no such distance existed and that some of the proceeds from the influence-peddling scheme indeed went to Joe Biden. Among the funds from the scheme that ended up in Joe Biden's bank account, hundreds of thousands of dollars were allegedly "directly traceable to China."

'Joe Biden has exhibited conduct and taken actions that the Founders sought to guard against in drafting the impeachment provisions in the Constitution.'

The report indicated that Biden's active participation was sometimes expressed in American policy changes, as evidenced by the leveraging of a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee to Ukraine to secure a result favorable to a company affiliated with his son, convicted felon Hunter Biden.

Not only does the report accuse Biden and his ilk of engaging in this conspiracy, it claims they also did their best to cover it up:

Foreign money was transmitted to the Biden family through complicated financial transactions. The Biden family laundered funds through intermediate entities and broke up large transactions into numerous smaller transactions. Substantial efforts were also made to hide President Biden’s involvement in his family’s business activities.

House Democrats may be prickled to learn that precedents they set in 2019 in their impeachment of President Donald Trump have been turned on Biden.

The House Democrats of yesteryear argued that "'abuse of office,' defined as the exercise of 'official power to obtain an improper personal benefit, while ignoring or injuring the national interest,' is an impeachable offense."

House Republicans were evidently willing to accept this legal interpretation as instructive in their investigation of Biden.

The House Democrats of yesteryear also apparently argued that "'the House may properly conclude that a President's obstruction of Congress is relevant to assessing the evidentiary record in an impeachment inquiry' and 'where the President illegally seeks to obstruct such an inquiry, the House is free to infer that evidence blocked from its view is harmful to the President's position.'"

House Republicans, met with obstruction and refusals to cooperate from the White House, the Biden-Harris administration, and the DOJ, were again willing to embrace the supposed wisdom of their peers and similarly infer guilt.

Extra to hammering Biden over his alleged sale of American political destiny for self-enrichment, the report separately accuses Biden of using "his official position to conceal his mishandling of classified information as a private citizen."

Robert Hur, who led the investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents, apparently figured the president too decrepit to face legal culpability, though he ultimately chose ultimately not to exonerate him outright.

The report underscored that "Joe Biden has exhibited conduct and taken actions that the Founders sought to guard against in drafting the impeachment provisions in the Constitution: abuse of power, foreign entanglements, corruption, and obstruction of investigations into these matters."

It recommended that under the Constitution, the remedy is clear: The House must impeach Biden and the Senate should remove him from office.

Although the report could prove a black eye for the Democratic president whose political career is now all but over, it may similarly dog the Department of Justice, since it reiterates and buttresses past claims about the DOJ's apparent efforts to give Hunter Biden "special treatment" and spare him from the kind of accountability those outside the top echelons of the Democratic Party might otherwise face.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, stated on X, "The evidence produced by our impeachment inquiry is the strongest case for impeachment of a sitting president the House of Representatives has ever investigated. We have exposed the truth."

"The facts speak for themselves, and Democrats can no longer stretch the truth to cover for President Biden," wrote House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). "As Democrats celebrate Joe Biden and crown Kamala Harris as his heir apparent this week, Americans should remember the reality of the Biden-Harris Administration: crime, chaos, and corruption."

Politico noted that it would be historically anomalous now for an impeachment vote not to follow the inquiry, not to mention politically risky for House Republicans facing re-election.

While an impeachment vote might succeed in the House, where Republicans enjoy a sliver majority, it is all but guaranteed to fail in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

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New evidence TEARS APART Biden's claim that he had Ukrainian prosecutor FIRED over corruption



President Biden’s Ukraine corruption lies are starting to unravel.

Glenn Beck warns that this means it’s time to peacefully stand up and “make sure that your voices are heard in a chorus all over the country.”

“It looks like fascism is coming, and it’s gonna come faster and faster because the Biden thing is falling apart,” he adds.

Biden’s story had been that he threatened to withhold a loan to Ukraine only because the prosecutor, Shokin, was not meeting anti-corruption standards.

“This is now provable lies on multiple levels,” Glenn says, noting that we now know that it was around two weeks before Biden told his story that his son was in a Burisma meeting talking about how that same prosecutor was snooping into Burisma and asking questions about Hunter.

“Within two weeks this incident happens where he goes and he says, ‘I want this guy fired,’” Glenn adds.

Documents report that the State Department had defended Shokin, saying that Biden’s claims were not true.

Now, there’s new evidence.

“We have evidence from the EU, where the EU concluded Shokin had met benchmarks on anti-corruption reforms. In fact, it’s pretty glowing what they write about him,” Glenn says.

“Remember,” he continues, “this narrative came out because what did Donald Trump do? Donald Trump said ‘Hey,’ he calls up the president in Ukraine, ‘I want you to find out what’s going on because there is corruption with Biden and I want you to look into it.’ He knew this was happening.”

Democrats called this election interference.

“That’s what the press sold you,” Glenn says, adding that “eventually, as we did our homework on this during the trial, we laid it all out on a huge chalkboard and said Biden is doing exactly what he’s saying that Trump was doing.”

“And this whole firing of Shokin smells really bad,” he adds.


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