{"id":76268,"date":"2020-02-14T17:05:11","date_gmt":"2020-02-14T15:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=76268"},"modified":"2020-02-14T09:00:28","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T07:00:28","slug":"19-05-47","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=76268","title":{"rendered":"AP Interview: Ex-Polish president defends Biden and Burisma"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>AP Interview: Ex-Polish president defends Biden and Burisma<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

VANESSA GERA [November 28, 2019]<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former Polish president and currently a board member for Ukrainian gas company Burisma, speaks to The Associated Press in his office in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Nov. 28, 2019. Kwasniewski says that when Hunter Biden was tapped in 2014 to join its advisory board, he told then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son that the company was working to overcome a difficult past and was determined to be well-managed and transparent. Kwasniewski also said he also told the younger Biden that if Burisma succeeded in tapping into Ukraine’s gas deposits, it would help Ukraine gain energy independence from Russia, a key part of its broader struggle to exist as an sovereign nation.(AP Photo\/Czarek Sokolowski)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

WARSAW, Poland (AP) \u2014 Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former Polish president who is on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, said Thursday that Hunter Biden<\/strong><\/span><\/a> was indeed chosen to join its advisory board because of his name. He said that is simply how the world of business works.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Kwasniewski (kvash-NYEF-skee) insisted in an interview with The Associated Press that Biden was an active board member who helped the company, and that he never used his relationship with his father, Joe Biden, to further the company\u2019s interests.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI understand that if someone asks me to be part of some project it\u2019s not only because I\u2019m so good, it\u2019s also because I am Kwasniewski and I am a former president of Poland,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd this is all inter-connected. No-names are a nobody. Being Biden is not bad. It\u2019s a good name.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kwasniewski also said Burisma members never tried to use Hunter Biden to curry favor with the administration of Barack Obama when Joe Biden was vice president.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a normal member of this group,\u201d he said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t ask him \u2014 and he never said anything \u2014 about his father.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Only at dinners was Biden sometimes asked how his father was doing and on one occasion Biden spoke about the death of his brother, Beau, Kwasniewski said.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said Hunter Biden carried out research and brought a unique American perspective to the company, including in the areas of corporate governance, capital markets and gas drilling equipment, where Americans are world leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe collected information,\u201d Kwasniewski said. \u201cHe was useful for us because he knew something that we didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Biden\u2019s time on the board from 2014 to 2019 has become a focus of the impeachment hearings<\/strong><\/span><\/a> into President Donald Trump. Trump is under scrutiny for pressing Ukraine\u2019s young new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to carry out investigations into the Bidens and Burisma, withholding for a time nearly $400 million in military aid as a war drags on in Ukraine\u2019s east against Russia-backed separatists.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kwasniewski said requests made to Ukraine\u2019s prosecutor by Trump\u2019s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, seeking to obtain comments depicting Burisma as corrupt, created a dangerous situation for the company.<\/span><\/p>\n

Asked to respond to Trump describing Hunter Biden as a \u201cdisgrace\u201d due to his Burisma connection, Kwasniewski shot back: \u201cThis man is speaking about someone who is disgraced? Donald Trump? It should be forbidden for him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, some U.S. officials at the time thought it was inappropriate for Hunter Biden to be serving on the company\u2019s board when his father, as vice president and Obama\u2019s emissary to the region, was pushing Ukraine to clean up systemic corruption.<\/span><\/p>\n

During the impeachment inquiry this fall, George Kent, a career diplomat overseeing Ukraine policy, testified that in 2015 he warned the vice president\u2019s staff that his son\u2019s position with the company \u201ccould create the perception of a conflict of interest\u201d but nothing was done about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky, who had been the minister of natural resources under former President Viktor Yanykovych, ran into trouble after Yanukovych\u2019s 2014 ouster. Prosecutors accused him of abusing his position to embezzle state money.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was in that context in 2014 that Kwasniewski, Hunter Biden and others were invited onto the board as part of a strategy by Burisma to clean up its reputation.<\/span><\/p>\n

His strategy worked and the company has continued operating. However, Zlochevsky, who lives abroad, is still facing a probe on suspicions of large-scale embezzlement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kwasniewski acknowledged that the company has a difficult past \u201cbecause the past of all companies, all fortunes in Ukraine \u2014 diplomatically speaking \u2014 are very complicated.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut now the company is really well organized,\u201d Kwasniewski said. \u201cThey want to work according to the rules. The role of this company is very important for Ukraine because the success of Burisma means less dependence of Ukraine on Russia.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When Hunter Biden was tapped for Burisma, Kwasniewski had a short phone call with him in which he told him Burisma was determined to be well-managed and transparent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kwasniewski also recalled telling him that if Burisma succeeded in tapping into Ukraine\u2019s gas deposits, it would help Ukraine gain energy independence from Russia, which is key to its broader struggle to exist as a sovereign nation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kwasniewski, who was Poland\u2019s president from 1995 to 2005, explained that that was his own reason for signing on to Burisma\u2019s advisory board.<\/span><\/p>\n

He jokingly called Burisma \u201cthe most popular company in the United States,\u201d but turning serious, said Burisma colleagues are upset at being dragged into a U.S. political affair and feel like \u201csailors on a small boat in the middle of a cyclone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor the company it\u2019s a difficult time,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd they are innocent in this situation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said Burisma now produces about 25% to 30% of the gas on the Ukrainian market and Ukraine \u2014 where Russia in past winters has turned off the gas flow as a form of political pressure \u2014 is in fact becoming \u201cless and less dependent on Russia.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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AP Interview: Ex-Polish president defends Biden and Burisma VANESSA GERA [November 28, 2019] Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former Polish president and currently a board member for Ukrainian gas company Burisma, speaks to The Associated Press in his office in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Nov. 28, 2019. Kwasniewski says that when Hunter Biden was tapped in 2014 to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76268"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76268"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76274,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76268\/revisions\/76274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}