Newly released tape appears to show Obama State Dept. plotting Ukraine coup using Biden’s help

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A previous version of this article previously marked the content as "news," when, in fact, this is an editorial piece.

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LET was approached by Newsguard with the following information pertaining to this article:

"We've seen no evidence that the 2014 revolution in Ukraine was a coup perpetrated or staged by the U.S. Ukraine's parliament unanimously voted to remove Victor Yanukovych from power after months of protests over his administration -- events that were widely covered by news outlets that include the BBC, the NYT and the AP. The phone call at the center of the LET story also isn't new, as is suggested; it was covered quite a bit back at the time of the revolution in 2014, and the state department through then-spokesperson Jen Psaki commented on this at the time: 'It should be no surprise that U.S. officials talk about issues around the world. Of course we do. That's what diplomats do.'"


Newsguard assigns "trust and credibility" ratings which heavily impacts the monetization of news outlets that they feel do not accurately represent Newsguard's presentation of what they determine to be facts. In this case, Newsguard has determined that the opinion of LET's writer is incorrect.

Given the submission of this piece by the author as an editorial analysis, we chose, intead of changing the words of the author, to add in the positioning of
Newsguard for additional context so the reader may be presented with all information and make their own informed decision.

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The following contains some content which is editorial in nature and is the opinion of the writer.  

UKRAINE- Law Enforcement Today recently reported on how the United States, under then-President Barack Obama assisted in staging a coup in Ukraine which destabilized the region and in turn provoked Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade and annex Crimea. Now we’re finding that one of the key players in that coup, Victoria Nuland, who served in the State Department under Obama was actually caught on tape planning that coup in Ukraine, Gateway Pundit (GP) reports.

Nuland is a voracious "anti-Trumper" who was believed to have a great deal of involvement in spreading the so-called "Steele dossier" that served as the basis for special counsel Robert Mueller's ill-fated probe of former President Donald Trump. Nuland is currently serving in the Biden administration—also known as Obama’s “third term”—as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Nuland recently testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and amazingly nobody, including Republicans, questioned her about her past actions in Ukraine.

As GP reports, in 2014 Nuland was a pretty busy lady in Ukraine, being witnessed passing out cakes to protesters in Kiev (now Kyiv), Ukraine. Just weeks afterward, the protests became violent and a number of Ukrainian citizens died during the riots which ensued. GP reports that during this time, Nuland had a telephone conversation with another American, Jeffrey Pyatt, to discuss the events in Ukraine. Pyatt currently serves as U.S. Ambassador to Greece. However between 2013-2016, he was serving as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. During that phone call, Nuland and Pyatt brought up two individuals…then national security adviser to the vice president, Jake Sullivan, and the vice president himself, Joe Biden.

The discussion between the two revolved around the State Department’s “pick” for prime minister of a so-called “unity government” in Ukraine. One might ask, why was the United States involved in deciding who should be the “pick” for prime minister of a foreign country? That’s a great question. During the review of the three candidates for the post, State picked a man named Arseniy Yatsenyuk. According to GP, Joe Biden was intimately involved in the decision, since Obama had appointed him as the “point man” for Ukraine.

Ironically at about the same time, Biden’s son Hunter Biden was appointed to the board at Burisma Energy Holdings, one of the largest such companies in Ukraine, despite having zero experience in the energy sector. So in essence what occurred was that the former government of Ukraine was deposed, and the United States, with Biden at the helm, helped stage a coup and then pick the man they decided should lead Ukraine, not the duly elected head of the government. In the leaked phone conversation between Nuland and Pyatt, the former expressed frustration with the European Union’s response to the situation then-occurring in Ukraine.

Following is what Nuland said. “So, that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and have the U.N. [United Nations] help glue it. And, you know, Fuck the EU.” Continuing the conversation, Pyatt said: “So let me work on Klitschko [former mayor of Kyiv] and if you can just keep…we want to try to get somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing. The other issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych [deposed Ukrainian president] but we probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place.”

Nuland: “So on that piece Geoff, when I wrote the note [US vice-president’s national security adviser Jake] Sullivan’s come back to me VFR [direct to me], saying you need Biden and I said probably tomorrow for an atta-boy and to get the deets [details] to stick. So Biden’s willing.” Continuing the conversation: Nuland: "Good. I don't think Klitsch should go into the government. I don't think it's necessary, I don't think it's a good idea." Pyatt: "Yeah. I guess...in terms of him not going into the government, just let him sort of stay out and do his political homework and stuff. I'm just thinking in terms of the process moving ahead and we want to keep the moderate Democrats together.

The problem is going to be Tyahnybok and his guys..." Nuland: "I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's the...what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week, you know. I think Klitsch going in...he's going to be at that level working for Yatseniuk, it's just not gonna work." So in essence, what that conversation entailed was two top U.S. officials, including the highest-ranking U.S. official who ostensibly represented the Obama administration, and the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine were in essence plotting a coup d’état in a foreign country against a duly elected president. A discussion of that phone call may be found here:

 

In politically correct terms, such activity is given the flowery term of “nation-building” or “spreading democracy.” In reality, it’s interfering in the affairs of a foreign country. In some ways, the U.S. under Obama was no different than what Putin is doing today, minus the killing and bloodshed. For our prior reporting on US involvement in Ukraine and appearance that US destabilization efforts may have provoked Putin in part to undertake his current invasion, we invite you to:

DIG DEEPER

Editor's note: This article is not an attempt to vindicate Putin, but merely to give context to the incidents leading up to his invasion of Ukraine. This article contains some content which may be editorial in nature. UKRAINE- While much has been made (rightfully so) of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of a free country, much of what is happening today was not only predictable but predestined. According to The Epoch Times, actions taken by top U.S. officials over the past ten years or so have played important roles in relations between the U.S. and Russia which led to the destabilization of Ukraine and the events we are witnessing today.

Much of this, the Times says started in 2008 with then-President George W. Bush, when he enticed membership in NATO to Ukraine during the so-called Bucharest declaration, saying at the time, “We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO. Such a declaration rightly drew concerns in Russia, which has remained steadfast in its opposition to any expansion NATO among countries adjacent to its border. Eighteen years prior, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, along with German Foreign Minister Dietrich Genscher promised the former Soviet Union not to further expand NATO eastward in exchange for the reunification of Germany.

With that said and despite those promises, NATO admitted an additional 14 Eastern European countries. Moreover, in a 2020 memoir, Biden CIA director Bill Burns “explicitly warned about the dangers posed by Ukraine gaining NATO membership,” the ET reported. In 2008, Burns told then-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin).” “In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests,” Burns wrote.

Adding to its importance as a geographic buffer between the East and West, Ukraine also has some other assets, including an abundance of agriculture exports and large supplies of minerals, iron ore, and coal which make it an attractive location. Yet despite of the riches upon which it sits, ET reported that the country’s political upheavals and influence from powerful oligarchs have rendered it one of the poorest countries in the continent. For example, Ukraine’s per-capita nominal GDP is only around $3,500 in comparison to the rest of Europe, where it stands at an average of $31,000.

Those political upheavals include the 2004 revolution, in which the apparent winner of the presidential election, Viktor Yanukovych, a candidate supported by Russia was deposed. In 2010, Yanukovych made a political comeback when he once again appeared to have won the presidential election, ET reported. Just four years later, Yanukovych was again unseated when a coup, supported by the United States, installed a new government in Ukraine. Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who was the candidate pushed by the U.S. was installed as the country’s prime minister, however was forced to resign in disgrace only two years later in the midst of corruption allegations.

That coup, referred to as the Maidan Revolution was viewed as a triumph of democracy over oppression, however that definition of events ignored the fact the coup culminated in the removal of a democratically elected leader of Ukraine. With Ukraine now becoming a focal point in a new so-called cold war with Russia, many American officials willfully ignored “a dangerous rise in fascist sentiments and Neo-Nazi movements within the country,” ET reported. Further, it is reported that Andriy Parubiy, co-founder of the fascist Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU), recently served as the chairman of the Ukrainian parliament from April 2016 until August 2019.

That party, which Parubiy co-founded in 1991 with Oleh Tyahnybok, now the current leader of the ultranationalist Svoboda party, was radical nationalism and neo-Nazism. During the Maidan Revolution, Parubiy served as the “commander” of various paramilitary units, with his forces playing a substantial role in the U.S.-backed coup leading to the overthrow of Yanukovych. All of this, ET says, should have raised alarms in the United States, that being the growth of a fascist movement within a country that “was serving as the battleground for a new cold war between the U.S. and Russia.

Instead of distancing themselves from those elements, leaders in the West chose to apparently embrace them." For example, the late-Sen. John McCain met with Tyahnybok in the lead-up to the 2014 coup, with then-Vice President Joe Biden meeting with him shortly afterward in April 2014. In June 2017, Parubiy received an invitation to the White House where he met with a number of U.S. politicians, including McCain and then-House Speaker Paul Ryan. During the events surrounding the 2014 coup is when Biden became the “point man” for the Obama administration where it concerns Ukraine.

ET reports that intercepted phone conversations between Victoria Nuland, then serving as assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs in the Obama State Department, showed that department was actively attempting to oust Yanukovych and the installation of opposition leader Yatsenyuk as prime minister. That conversation took place between Nuland and then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. While it is not known exactly when the discussion occurred, it is only known it took place prior to Feb. 7, 2014.

In that conversation, Nuland related she was told by Jake Sullivan, then serving as national security adviser to Biden, that “you need Biden” for the successful installation of Yatsenyuk. Nuland concluded the conversation by telling Pyatt that “Biden’s willing.” Sullivan now serves as the national security adviser for the Biden administration. Only two weeks after that phone conversation, on Feb. 22, 2014, Yanukovych was removed as president of Ukraine and only three days later, Nuland’s preferred candidate was installed as prime minister of Ukraine.

In helping perpetrate this coup, the United States participated in the removal of a democratically-elected leader friendly to Russia and installed a leader selected by the United States. So what was the result? Only days later, Russia invaded and annexed Crimea. Of course, you know all of this comes back to tie in to Burisma Energy Holdings. According to ET, one of those who lost his position in the Ukrainian government as a result of the coup was Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma. He had served as minister of ecology and natural resources, ET reported, and later as deputy secretary for economic and social security.

During his term in government, Zlochevsky’s companies allegedly received an “unusually large number of permits to extract oil and gas.” In April 2014, British prosecutors seized some $23.5 million in assets owned by Zlochevsky which at the timer were being held in a London bank, alleging he had engaged in criminal conduct in Ukraine. Shortly after Zlochevsky lost his government position, Burisma appointed the son of Obama’s point man Joe Biden, Hunter Biden to the board of Burisma Holdings. In addition to Hunter Biden, his close friend and business associate, Devon Archer was also appointed to the board.

It should be noted that Archer was recently imprisoned in New York for his part in a scheme to defraud a Native American tribe over some $60 million. The appointments of Hunter Biden and Archer came in April 2014, which occurred right around the same time that Zlochevsky’s funds were seized in Great Britain. While Hunter Biden’s appointment was not announced until May 12, 2014, Burisma posted a picture of Archer and Joe Biden on its website on April 17, 2014, with the picture having been taken only the day before at the White House.

During that first year Hunter Biden was at Burisma, the company paid a $7 million bribe to Ukraine’s chief prosecutor’s office in order to sideline the British investigation in to Zlochevsky, according to State Department emails. Shortly afterward, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office sent a letter to their counterparts in Britain notifying them there was no longer an active case against Zlochevsky, which forced prosecutors in the UK to release the previously impounded funds, ET reported. At the time the first alleged bribe was paid in 2014, Hunter Biden was shown by Burisma as the head of the company’s legal unit.

After Vitaly Yarema, the chief prosecutor resigned in Feb. 2015, his replacement, Viktor Shokin was brought out of retirement to take over as prosecutor general of Ukraine. You know that all of this ties back to Joe Biden and it doesn’t disappoint. While Shokin’s appointment was initially deemed positive by U.S. officials, late in 2015 that changed—ironically at the same time Vadym Pozharskyi, the head of Burisma’s board sent an email to Hunter Biden on Nov. 21, 2015. The contents of that email directed Hunter Biden to produce so-called “deliverables,” while stating that the “ultimate purpose” was to “close down any cases or pursuits” against Burisma’s owner, Zlochevsky, in Ukraine.

Quite “ironically,” just three weeks later Joe Biden began demanding Shokin be removed, who by that time had reinstituted the investigation into Zlochevsky, and who had been successful in receiving an order from Ukrainian courts seizing Zlocehvsky’s assets. Not even seven weeks after the seizure of Zlochevsky’s assets, Shokin was fired. The back story of that is that Biden leveraged $1 billion in government loan guarantees to force Shokin’s removal. And then bragged about it! Remember, Donald Trump was impeached for far less. ET notes that to this date, Shokin has never been formally charged with wrongdoing.

Moreover, Joe Biden was privately warned by Amos Hochstein, a U.S. Special Envoy about his son’s dalliances with a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch. Biden ignored those warnings, ET reports. In the aftermath of Ukraine’s being destabilized and with Moscow livid over U.S. interference and perpetration of the coup in 2014, and with relations between the two world superpowers on shaky ground, the Hillary Clinton campaign undertook the decision to accuse Russia of interfering in the 2016 presidential election to the benefit of Donald Trump. That served to further deteriorate relations between the U.S. and Russia.

In case you’re unfamiliar, the Clinton campaign hired Christopher Steele, a former British spy to compile a phony dossier which attempted to paint Trump as a Russian asset in an attempt to push a collusion hoax between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. The scheme continued after Trump was elected president, with the Clinton campaign allegedly spying on Trump both before he was president and afterward, which was revealed in a recent court filing by Special Counsel John Durham. It wasn’t only the Clinton campaign that was furthering these accusations.

Working in concert with the intelligence community in Washington, DC, both entities continued to push the narrative that Donald Trump was a secret foreign asset of Russia. Eventually the wheels came off the entire hoax, however, to date few people have been indicted for their role in perpetrating the Russia hoax which resulted in derailing the first few years of the Trump presidency. Continuing efforts to demonize Russia, the conspiracy theorists emerged again in October 2020 during the campaign between Joe Biden and President Trump.

An abandoned laptop owned by Hunter Biden was unearthed just weeks before the 2020 election, a laptop which contained damaging emails and other incriminating information against the Biden family, which included an email from the head of Burisma’s board demanding Hunter Biden get investigations into Burisma’s owner shut down. This is when social media companies decided to get involved in throwing cover for the Biden family and Democrats, effectively banning any mention of the laptop on their platforms, which had that information been released could have compromised Biden’s presidential aspirations.

With the assistance of many in the intelligence community, mainstream media and social media, Biden  and Democrats soon began to go back to the same old adversary…Russia…to blame for perpetrating “Russian disinformation.” The usual suspects began to back the story, with leftist hack, former CIA Director John Brennan (an infamous never-Trumper) claiming in a statement that Hunter Biden’s laptop story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” As we have since learned, everything on that laptop was authentic, not a “Russian plot.”

Despite the fact Russian madman Vladimir Putin has repeatedly declared that admitting Ukraine to NATO was a “nonstarter,” members of the Biden administration, including Biden himself, have admitted that they were open to admitting Ukraine to NATO, with Biden saying the same back in December. In addition, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has left the door open, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also saying last October that the “door was open” for Ukraine to join NATO. All of this came despite the fact Biden’s CIA director, Burns had previously said NATO membership for Ukraine was the “brightest of all red lines” for Putin.

All of the above, which clearly has provoked Putin, would seem to fly in the face of what the United States should have been doing in its approach to the Russian dictator. What all of this has served to do, as noted in The Epoch Times is to push our two fiercest adversaries—Russia and China—closer together. All of this came, or much of it came as a result of “self-serving actions of top U.S. officials such as [Hillary] Clinton and Biden,” which has undermined the goal of keeping those two countries from forming a close alliance.

With war having broken out in Ukraine and the subsequent isolation of Russia from much of the rest of the world, that only leaves pretty much one nation currently sympathetic to Putin…China. That spells trouble for the United States and the rest of the free world.
 
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The opinions reflected in this article are not necessarily the opinions of LET
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