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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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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