A July 9, 2020 commentary examining the double standard surrounding Trump’s impeachment, Joe Biden’s demand for the removal of Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, Hunter Biden’s position at Burisma Holdings, the Steele dossier, Russiagate, and the influence of the Washington establishment.

July 9, 2020
The Bidens and the Ukraine Controversy: Burisma, the Removal of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, and the Double Standard Behind Trump’s Impeachment
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
This text is taken from an article by Soju Watanabe published in the monthly magazine WiLL under the title “Trump’s Enemies: Their Appalling True Faces.”
Soju Watanabe is one of the world’s leading researchers of modern and contemporary Japanese–American history.
This article should be read not only by the Japanese people but also by people throughout the world.
It presents facts and arguments concerning the deepest structures of American politics that could never be learned by relying solely on news programs produced by NHK or newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun.
The phrase “Drain the Swamp,” which Donald Trump used during the 2016 presidential election, was a declaration that he would confront the political, bureaucratic, and corporate establishment entrenched in Washington, together with the military-industrial complex, intelligence agencies, government officials, the major media, and enormous special-interest groups.
For that reason, the course of the Trump administration became an intense struggle against the existing power structure.
Watanabe described these established forces as “monsters” entrenched within American society.
The first monster was the neoconservative faction that had entered the center of the Obama administration and promoted military intervention and regime change in other countries.
The second was the network of anti-Trump officials within government organizations, intelligence agencies, the military-industrial complex, and the major media outlets that amplified their information.
The third was the Democratic Party’s money-driven political establishment, whose members were suspected of using their positions and family connections to obtain enormous financial benefits.
As an example of this third monster, Watanabe examined the controversy surrounding the Biden family and the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings.
The reference to “M16” in the original Japanese text has been corrected to “MI6,” the British Secret Intelligence Service.
The original text also stated that Biden used military aid as leverage.
More precisely, the leverage concerned a United States loan guarantee of approximately one billion dollars, and that wording has been corrected in this published version.
The Four Monsters That Were Defeated
Let us look back at the many monsters defeated by President Trump.
The first and most prominent was the neoconservative faction entrenched within the Obama administration.
I discussed the neoconservatives in detail in my book The Collapse of the American Democratic Party, published by PHP Institute.
In brief, they were a group of interventionists and internationalists hostile to Russia who were willing to pursue regime change in countries they disliked.
They promoted interventions and regime changes in Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere.
President Trump ended what he regarded as pointless foreign interventions and shifted to a diplomatic policy aimed at reaching necessary accommodations with Vladimir Putin’s government in Russia.
He rejected the foreign policy of the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton and removed neoconservatives from the center of his administration.
The second monster was the Deep State, meaning the neoconservative-aligned permanent bureaucracy together with the major media.
After Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election, the Democratic Party used the so-called Steele dossier, prepared by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele, to pursue President Trump.
The dossier contained a series of claims portraying Trump as being under the influence of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Watanabe described it as a fabricated document intended to depict Trump as Putin’s puppet.
The dossier became a major basis for the investigation known as Russiagate, which examined alleged coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
Following the FBI investigation, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team conducted a lengthy inquiry into the relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The investigation did not establish facts sufficient to bring a criminal conspiracy charge against the Trump campaign for coordinating with the Russian government.
The credibility of major media outlets, represented by CNN, which had repeatedly reported as though collusion between Trump and Putin were virtually certain, was seriously damaged.
It was also revealed that the cost of producing the Steele dossier had ultimately been paid, through a law firm and other intermediaries, by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
A dossier portraying Trump as a Russian puppet had therefore been financed by the political side competing against him in the presidential election.
James Comey, who was then Director of the FBI, had previously held a senior position at the defense company Lockheed Martin.
Watanabe argued that Russiagate exposed the connections among neoconservative foreign policy, the military-industrial complex, government bureaucracies, intelligence agencies, and the major media.
The third monster was the Democratic Party’s money-driven political establishment.
The Democratic Party claimed that President Trump had used military assistance approved by Congress for Ukraine as leverage to pressure the Ukrainian government into investigating Joe Biden and his son.
This became known as the Ukraine controversy.
In December 2019, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives approved articles of impeachment against President Trump.
However, the Senate did not reach the number of votes required for conviction, and President Trump was acquitted.
Watanabe argued that it was, in fact, Biden who had applied direct pressure to the Ukrainian government.
Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, had joined the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings and received substantial compensation.
The question of why Hunter was selected for a highly paid board position despite having little professional experience in the Ukrainian energy industry was one that naturally required examination.
Viktor Shokin, who was Ukraine’s Prosecutor General at the time, attracted attention in connection with controversies surrounding Burisma and its owner.
While serving as Vice President, Joe Biden told the Ukrainian government that a United States loan guarantee of approximately one billion dollars would not proceed unless Prosecutor General Shokin was removed.
Biden later described this intervention publicly.
Biden’s representatives maintained that the demand for Shokin’s dismissal reflected the shared position of the United States government, European countries, and international institutions because Shokin had failed to combat corruption adequately.
Watanabe, however, argued that Biden’s actions raised serious questions of a potential conflict of interest because his son was serving on the board of Burisma.
The essential issue is not to accept the Biden side’s explanation without examination, but to determine thoroughly whether any connection existed between the company paying the Vice President’s son substantial compensation and the Vice President’s pressure on the Ukrainian government.
The Democratic Party impeached President Trump on the grounds that his request for Ukraine to examine matters involving Biden constituted an abuse of power.
At the same time, the fact that Biden himself had demanded the removal of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General while using a United States loan guarantee of approximately one billion dollars as leverage was not examined adequately by Japan’s major media organizations.
Allegations against President Trump were reported on an enormous scale day after day.
By contrast, the Clinton campaign’s financing of the Steele dossier, the relationship between the Biden family and Burisma, and the pressure Biden actually exercised on the Ukrainian government were not reported with the same scale or persistence.
Behind this disparity stood an enormous structure of established interests formed by the Democratic Party, government officials, intelligence agencies, the military-industrial complex, and the major media.
President Trump was not fighting merely against one political party or one presidential candidate.
He was fighting the Washington establishment that had long dominated American politics, administration, foreign policy, national security, intelligence, and reporting.
In both Russiagate and the Ukraine controversy, the essential questions were who created the allegations, who supplied the information, who amplified it through the media, and who ultimately obtained political advantage.
Was the same strict standard used to impeach President Trump also applied to Joe Biden and his family?
Unless that question is answered directly, the Democratic Party and the major American media cannot escape criticism that they operated under a political double standard.
To be continued.