We Had the Quid, Now We Have the Quo

Prosecutor General of Ukraine Ruslan Ryaboshapka.Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto via ZUMA

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Ukraine has gotten its $400 million in military assistance and its visit to the White House, where President Zelensky dutifully reported that he had felt no pressure from the Trump administration to open an investigation into the Biden family. So this, I suppose, is just an amazing coincidence:

Ukraine’s new chief prosecutor said Friday his office will conduct an “audit” of an investigation into Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that had recruited Hunter Biden for its board.

Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka reiterated at a news conference Friday that he knows of no evidence of criminal activity by Biden. He said that he is aware of at least 15 investigations that may have touched on Burisma, its owner Nikolai Zlochevsky, an associate named Serhiy Zerchenko, and Biden, and that all will be reviewed. He said no foreign or Ukrainian official has been in touch with him to request this audit.

See? Ryaboshapka has been on vacation on Mars for the past few months and just got back. And when he did, he immediately turned around to his deputy and said, “Hey, we really need to audit the investigations of Burisma. It just seems like the right thing to do.”

Then he picked up a paper and saw what had been going on. But, honest man that he is, he’s going ahead anyway. After all, his decision had absolutely nothing to do with anyone asking about this.

Snark aside, I suppose this is a good thing. Ryaboshapka will probably find nothing especially wrong with Burisma that isn’t known already, and he’s sure to give both Joe and Hunter Biden a clean bill of health. I doubt that will assuage the fever swamp, but it will help everyone else.

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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