New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is in the midst of a showdown with New York City Mayor Eric Adams over the legality of foie gras, a luxurious, but controversial form of duck liver.

Adams’ administration has sought to enforce a ban on the delicacy over animal rights complaints, as producing the fatty liver requires force-feeding ducks at specialty farms elsewhere in the state.

Former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio had first signed the ban in 2019, and it was scheduled to take effect in November 2022. Hochul’s state Department of Agriculture and Markets stepped in and ordered the city not to enforce the ban.

Proponents of the state government’s move say NYC authorities were overreaching by essentially trying to close farms roughly 100 miles away from the city. Advocates of the ban, however, argue that NYC should be free to regulate itself, according to Politico.

City officials won their first victory earlier this month, when a county judge struck down the state’s order preventing the enforcement of the ban. Their opposition has filed to appeal the decision.

Voters for Animal Rights, a lobbying group that was instrumental in getting the city to pass its initial ban, says state officials are intentionally dragging out the process, as existing farms are permitted to continue providing foie gras so long as litigation continues.

‘They just want to drag this out as long as possible to keep profiting for as long as possible,’ Bryan Pease, the lawyer representing VAR, told Politico. ‘They’re not going to be able to maintain this completely frivolous position that they have that they can strike down laws wherever they want, just because it might have some indirect upstream effect on a farm somewhere in Upstate New York. If that was the case, then you couldn’t ban anything.’

Hochul’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, competing for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, sidestepped Sunday on whether he would support Donald Trump if the former president is convicted in any criminal case, arguing that President Biden too ‘has trampled on the Constitution of the United States.’ 

‘I signed a pledge to be on that stage to say I would support the Republican nominee. I remain confident, more confident after Wednesday night, that the Republican nominee will not be the former president, and we’re going to give the American people a standard-bearer for the GOP that’s going to be able to lead us to victory against Joe Biden and the radical left – I raised my hand to say I’ll support the Republican nominee,’ Pence said during an appearance on CBS’s ‘Face The Nation.’ 

‘I could never support Joe Biden,’ Pence continued. ‘I mean Joe Biden’s policies have been disastrous, he and his family are under an ethical cloud themselves, and frankly Joe Biden has trampled on the Constitution of the United States, he’s failed to faithfully execute our laws – the southern border of the United States created the worst crisis in American history, and that student loan giveaway where he was going to ask truck drivers to pay their taxes to pay off the student loans of graduate students, was essentially an unconstitutional power grab that I rejected. So I’ll support the Republican nominee, and I’m going to continue to work my heart out that it’s me.’

Pence said it was ‘heartening’ to hear from fellow GOP contenders, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. and former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, that they agreed he ‘did his duty’ or ‘did the right thing’ in certifying Biden’s election victory amid the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. 

During last week’s first GOP debate hosted by Fox News in Milwaukee, Pence argued he believed Trump asked him to put him before the Constitution. 

‘I’ve made it clear I had hoped that the issues surrounding the 2020 election and the controversies around Jan. 6 had not come to this, had not come to criminal proceedings. I would rather they had been resolved by the American people and the American people alone,’ Pence said on the debate stage Wednesday. ‘But no one’s above the law. And President Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence that every American is entitled to. And we will make sure and extend that to him. But the American people deserve to know that the president asked me in his request that I reject or return votes unilaterally, power that no vice president in American history had ever exercised or taken. He asked me to put him over the Constitution, and I chose the Constitution, and I always will.’ 

Also during the ‘Face The Nation’ segment Sunday, Pence condemned the recent mass shooting in Jacksonville, Florida, as ‘evil,’ vowing that if elected president he would expedite the death penalty for mass shooters. He also went after Biden for his record on inflation, record-high mortgage rates and the Afghanistan withdrawal, among other issues.  

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, 81, defended President Biden, 80, against voter critiques that he lacks the energy and vigor to continue leading the United States.

‘I met with the president … five or six weeks ago, we had a great discussion. He seemed fine to me,’ Sanders, an independent, told NBC News’ Chuck Todd on ‘Meet The Press’ Sunday morning.

Todd had asked the self-described democratic socialist if he had advice for the president on ‘how he should assuage those concerns [to] the public about his age.’

‘One way that you make it clear that age isn’t a factor with you is you’re pretty energetic. We see you travel the country, you show up and do interviews. … It is clearly an issue for many voters when it comes to President Biden,’ Todd said Sunday.

Sanders responded that voters have to evaluate Biden on ‘a whole lot of factors.’

‘A candidate, whether it’s Joe Biden or Trump or Bernie Sanders, anybody else, you know, they have to evaluate a whole lot of factors,’ Sanders said.

‘I think, at the end of the day, what we have got to ask ourselves is what do people stand for? Do you believe that women have a right to control their own bodies? Well, the president has been strong on that. Do you think that climate change is real or do you agree with the Republicans that it’s a nonissue?’ he added.

Sanders ran for president in 2020 but has since thrown his support behind Biden, including for the 2024 election.

‘So, age is an issue, Chuck, but there are a lot of broader issues than just that,’ he said.

–>

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s campaign slammed Vivek Ramaswamy for supposedly flip-flopping on the issue of Jan. 6 on Sunday, highlighting the candidate’s past comment condemning the incident.

Pence’s campaign produced multiple instances where Ramaswamy appeared to contradict his own past statements regarding the pro-Trump storming of the U.S. Capitol.

‘On August 4, 2023, [Ramaswamy] refused to say he would have certified the results of the 2020 election on January 6, 2021,’ the Pence campaign wrote. ‘Yet at Wednesday’s GOP debate, he raised his hand in support of what Mike Pence did in following the Constitution.’

The campaign cited a Jan. 11, 2021, op-ed Ramaswamy wrote for The Wall Street Journal, in which he referred to the ‘disgraceful Capitol riot’ as a ‘stain on American history.’

The following day on Jan. 12, 2021, Ramawamy referred to his op-ed in a statement: ‘What Trump did last week was wrong. Downright abhorrent. Plain and simple. I’ve said it before and did so in my piece.’

A litany of other examples followed. The Pence campaign referred to Ramaswamy’s own book, ‘Nation of Victims,’ which was published in 2022.

‘It was a dark day for democracy. The loser of the last election refused to concede the race, claimed the election was stolen, raised hundreds of millions of dollars from loyal supporters, and is considering running for executive office again.’ Ramaswamy wrote. ‘I’m referring, of course, to Donald Trump.’

‘I was especially disappointed when I saw President Trump take a page from the Stacey Abrams playbook,’ Ramaswamy wrote. ‘His claims were just as weak as Abrams’.’

 Ramaswamy’s tune on the Capitol riot seemed to change in June and July, as he appeared to take a far more sympathetic view of the incident.

‘I will pardon *all* Americans who were targets of politicized federal prosecutions & those who were denied due process. This includes all peaceful Jan 6 protesters. It’s important that every candidate is clear about where we stand on the hard issues, not just the standard GOP talking points,’ he wrote June 8 on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The candidate emphasized that view again in mid-July, stating that ‘pervasive censorship’ caused Jan. 6.

‘You tell people in this country they cannot speak. That is when they scream. You tell people they cannot scream. That is when they tear things down,’ he said at the time.

Ramaswamy was asked about the issue again Sunday morning during an appearance on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’ He now says he would have championed ‘reforms’ to the voting process and made the certification of the election result contingent on passing those reforms.

Hunter Biden’s former business partner and fellow Burisma board member, Devon Archer, met with then-Secretary of State John Kerry just weeks before the Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Burisma was fired in 2016.

Former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired on March 29, 2016, less than four weeks after Archer met with Kerry at the State Department in Washington, D.C., according to a State Department email.

‘Devon Archer coming to see S today at 3:00pm – need someone to meet/greet him at C Street,’ reads the redacted email on March 2, 2016, which was previously released via the Freedom of Information Act.

Fox News Digital can confirm that ‘S’ refers to Kerry, based on multiple other email communications. However, it is unclear what Archer and Kerry discussed at the meeting or whether Burisma came up in conversation.

At the time of the meeting, Archer and Hunter Biden had been sitting on the board of Burisma for about two years, and then-Vice President Joe Biden had recently wrapped up a trip to Ukraine where he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid if Ukrainian officials didn’t fire Shokin, claiming he was too lax on prosecuting corruption.

When the email was first released in 2019, Sens. Grassley, R-Iowa and Johnson, R-Wis., expressed concerns about the meeting and sent a letter to then-Secretary of State Pompeo requesting all records from the meeting in addition to other meeting, including Hunter’s 2015 meeting with Blinken.

During an interview Saturday with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, Shokin said he was fired at Biden’s insistence because of his investigation into Burisma – a claim the White House has disputed.

‘I have said repeatedly in my previous interviews that [then-Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko fired me at the insistence of the then-Vice President Biden because I was investigating Burisma,’ Shokin said in the interview.

‘[Poroshenko] understood and so did Vice President Biden that had I continued to oversee the Burisma investigation, we would have found the facts about the corrupt activities that they were engaging in. That included both Hunter Biden and Devon Archer and others.’

However, in a statement to Fox News, the White House pointed to indications that Shokin was fired because he had been too soft on corruption.

The White House also stated that Shokin’s office had not been investigating Burisma or Hunter at the time of his ouster in March 2016, and it pointed to three reports published within weeks of each other in 2019 by the Washington Post, Associated Press and New York Times that said Shokin’s office wasn’t investigating Burisma.

Archer said in a closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee in July that, amid pressure from Shokin’s office and other entities investigating Burisma, company leaders turned to Hunter for help.

He went on to say that Hunter and Burisma executives ‘called D.C.’ in December 2015, just days before the vice president’s trip to Ukraine, to ask the Obama administration to help get Shokin fired.

Burisma executive Vadym Pozharsky emailed Hunter Biden, Archer and fellow Hunter associate Eric Schwerin in early November 2015 about a ‘revised proposal, contract and initial invoice for Burisma Holdings’ from lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies. Hunter reportedly connected Burisma with Blue Star Strategies to help the energy firm fight corruption charges levied against Mykola Zlochevsky, the company’s owner.

Pozharski said in his email that the ‘ultimate purpose’ of the agreement with Blue Star Strategies was to shut down ‘any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine,’ referring to Zlochevsky, who also went by Nikolay.

‘The scope of work should also include organization of a visit of a number of widely recognized and influential current and/or former US policy-makers to Ukraine in November aiming to conduct meetings with and bring positive signal/message and support on Nikolay’s issue to the Ukrainian top officials above with the ultimate purpose to close down for any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine,’ Pozharsky continued.

This wasn’t the first time that a Burisma board member met with a top State Department official in the middle of a growing pressure campaign to help protect Zlochevsky and Burisma from investigations. In May 2015, Hunter and then-Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken were exchanging emails about setting up a meeting at the State Department. After the first scheduled meeting, which appeared to have been canceled due to the death of Hunter’s brother, Beau, the pair rescheduled and met in July 2015.

Hunter forwarded Archer a couple of the email exchanges between Hunter and Blinken about planning for the first meeting, prompting Archer to respond, ‘Roger,’ in one reply.

’12:00-1:30pm- Lunch with Tony Blinken (State Department),’ Hunter’s schedule reads. ‘Enter at main entrance (‘Diplomatic Entrance’), 22nd & C St, NW. Proceed to receptionist area where Kenny Matthews will be waiting to escort you to Tony’s office.’

The longtime Biden family friend and business partner, who is facing jail time in an unrelated case for his role in a $60 million bond fraud scheme, worked as an adviser to Kerry during his failed 2004 presidential campaign.

Kerry now serves as Biden’s special presidential envoy for climate (SPEC).

In 2013, Archer exchanged emails with Kerry’s then-chief of staff at the State Department, David Wade, organizing a call between Kerry and then-Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Yerlan Idrisov.

‘Devon: understand you spoke to the Secretary re having him call Foreign Minister Idrisov today, can you let me know topics Idrisov wants to talk about/any requests he’ll have of the boss, so we can get paper prepared for a call,’ Wade wrote.

Archer told Wade that Idrisov wanted to speak with Kerry about keeping open a direct line of communication between the two of them as well as brief him on a ‘subject as it relates to Afghanistan.’

Wade went on to advise Hunter on rapid response related to Burisma after leaving the State Department in June 2015, Fox News Digital previously reported.

Archer co-founded Rosemont Seneca Partners with Hunter and Kerry’s stepson, Christopher Heinz, his Yale roommate, in 2009.

In a 2012 email chain, when then-Sen. Kerry was serving as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Archer listed him as one of his top references for Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners (RSTP) after one of the firm’s partners told Archer and Hunter they needed their ‘bazooka references.’

An individual with knowledge of the reference list told Fox News Digital they were not aware of Kerry ever vouching for RSTP or its clients. The individual, who requested anonymity, went on to say that Hunter and Archer’s role was to help navigate Washington but also said they would sever ties with Hunter after he was kicked out of the Navy Reserve for cocaine in late 2014 and that Archer’s position was cut the following year because he wasn’t doing any work for RSTP.

The State Department and Archer’s lawyer did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

Fox News’ Thomas Catenacci contributed to this report.

For more of Fox News Digital’s reporting on the Hunter Biden investigation, please click here.

Political advisers to both President Biden and Vice President Harris were reportedly annoyed with Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom over a planned debate with the Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a 2024 Republican presidential hopeful.

‘It’s disrespectful,’ an outside adviser to Harris said, according to a report from NBC News on Sunday. ‘Joe Biden is running with Kamala Harris. That’s the Democratic ticket.’

The adviser is one of several in the Biden and Harris orbit that have begun to view Newsom as a nuisance, according to the report, in part because of the California governor’s planned debate with DeSantis. While many Biden advisers no longer see Newsom as a potential primary challenger to the president, they do believe the planned debate would carry more risks than rewards.

The debate, which is slated to be televised on Fox News and hosted by Sean Hannity, has the potential to make some voters believe that Newsom is running a shadow campaign against the president in 2024, the report said. The debate comes at a time when many Democrat voters have expressed a desire for change at the top of the ticket, the report noted.

The debate has been viewed in an even more negative light by those in Harris’ orbit, with some reportedly seeing it as an attempt by the California governor to position himself ahead of the vice president for the 2028 Democratic presidential primary.

Newsom made the standing challenge to debate DeSantis this month, an invitation that was seemingly accepted by the Florida governor. But the two camps have yet to agree on the rules and format, calling into question whether the event will go ahead as planned.

DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond to a Fox News request for comment.

Not everyone in the Biden camp expressed concern about the prospects of the debate, with some saying such a move could actually be helpful to Biden’s reelection chances the report said.

‘What he’s doing here is appropriate for a surrogate. It would not be appropriate for the president or the vice president,’ one Biden adviser said, according to NBC News.

‘We’re in close touch with him,’ this adviser continued. ‘This is the kind of thing we want surrogates to do.’

Kevin Munoz, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, expressed a similar sentiment, telling NBC News that Newsom and the campaign have closely coordinated.

‘Governor Newsom is a strong partner and surrogate for the Biden-Harris campaign,’ Munoz said. ‘We coordinate closely on campaigning, whether it’s fundraising or media. When he brought the debate idea to us, we endorsed it.’

The Biden-Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a Fox News request for comment.

–>

27, August 2023 – The chances of a government shutdown on October 1 are high.

In fact, the possibilities of a shutdown may be even greater now than they were for the 35-day government shutdown from mid-December, 2018 until late January, 2019.

That is not to say the government will shutter. There are just a number of factors which are working against keeping the government open this time around. In fact, few saw the government shutdown of several years ago coming. It was generally thought that the House and Senate reached a spending accord just before Christmas in 2018 – until former President Trump torched the package. That came after the president signaled he would sign the deal. The Senate passed a bill which it presumed the House would adopt. But then the House altered the package over border and immigration provisions. Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., punted the measure back to the Senate and the shutdown was on.

This year, the problems are more complex. 

First of all, there isn’t much time. The House has approved one of the annual spending bills which fund the government: The Senate: zero. That means the only way to keep the government open is to approve a short-term bill (known as a Continuing Resolution or ‘CR’) which funds the government at present levels for a short period of time.

The House and Senate could likely approve a CR with the proper mixture of Democrats and some Republicans. But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., must be mindful of advancing any measure with significant Democratic support. The Speaker faced backlash from conservatives after cutting a deal with President Biden in the spring to avoid a collision with the debt ceiling. Conservatives didn’t think the spending levels agreed to in the debt ceiling pact showed significant fiscal savings. So they demanded lower spending numbers for the 12 annual appropriations bills heading into the fall.

Want to know why the House has only approved one bill? Infighting among Republicans. Remember that the GOP is in the majority in the House. Some Republicans approve of the steep cuts for the appropriations bills. Other GOPers can’t abide the cuts. Democrats won’t sign on because the cuts are really something they’d never agree with. So, there’s an impasse. 

But remember: a coalition of Democrats and Republicans could approve a CR. The question is whether McCarthy is willing to do that and what backlash he faces from conservatives and the Freedom Caucus. Recall what I said a moment ago about a CR simply renewing federal spending for all programs at last year’s levels? Well even that is something which many conservatives can’t go for. That’s because the spending from last year is too high for the right. Conservatives may only agree to a package which cuts spending. A CR, by definition, does not. 

So here we are.

Here’s another set of issues.

Republicans loyal to former President Trump are incensed at the spate of indictments over the past five months. Some Republicans want to restrict or withhold funding for the Justice Department because of these inquests. In particular, some Republicans aim to cut money to Special Counsel Jack Smith who is prosecuting the former president. That’s to say nothing of a new front which emerged over the past month: GOP questions about Delaware U.S. Attorney and now Special Counsel David Weiss. Weiss negotiated the initial plea deal for Hunter Biden. A federal judge later torpedoed that agreement. Attorney General Merrick Garland then appointed Weiss as Special Counsel. Republicans have plenty of questions about the entire exercise.

The circumstances surrounding Weiss, Hunter Biden, Garland and funding for the Justice Department are likely to be a donnybrook when it comes to funding measures this fall. This dynamic alone could trigger a government shutdown.

Another longstanding grievance for the GOP: the border and funding for the Department of Homeland Security. 

Many Republicans are skeptical of how Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas handled the border. Again, GOP issues about the border and funding for DHS may have been enough to prompt a government shutdown before the rhubarbs about former President Trump. The border issue faded slightly into the background for now – only because it can’t maintain the political pace of the Trump indictments and Hunter Biden. But funding for DHS remains a prominent subject.

If lawmakers did everything by the book, they’d approve 12 spending bills to operate the federal government each fiscal year. But it’s common for Congress to also okay additional spending measures. These are ‘supplemental’ spending packages, often crafted for wars, the pandemic, 9/11 or natural disasters. 

President Biden is pushing Congress to okay a supplemental spending package to assist Ukraine in its battle against Russia. Congress is torn over the issue – especially Republicans. Some Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are vocal advocates for Ukraine. But there is vitriolic opposition to boosting Ukraine from right-wing members like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. 

Then there is the call for disaster aid – especially after the hellscape which descended on Maui. Some fiscal conservatives oppose latching disaster aid to other spending packages. That’s because it makes the extra money easier to pass. But critics of the congressional spending process refer to this as logrolling. Unpopular items – be it money for the war or something else – are hard to defeat because it’s taped to the rest of the spending package. Hence, logrolling. 

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has advocated detaching the war money from the disaster assistance. 

But here’s the problem: there are only so many spending bills leaving the congressional train station. So lawmakers must hook war aid and/or disaster aid to something. Congress is reduced in recent years to approving a CR or two, perhaps an omnibus or a few other spending packages where the they lump several bills together. This means there are only so many opportunities to approve disaster or war aid. 

It’s unclear how Congress will manage these issues. Proponents of Ukraine aid and the Hawaii delegation will howl if Congress fails to deliver assistance in some form. Those who oppose helping Ukraine, or are enraged at the federal prosecution of former President Trump and wary about how DHS handles the border will be vocal if there aren’t reductions in spending for those areas as well.

As written earlier, the obvious way to avert a government shutdown is to find the right blend of Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill. But that could create internal political headaches for McCarthy. 

And that’s why many congressional observers believe the chances high for a government shutdown later this fall.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News, former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin detailed the involvement he believed President Biden, the then-vice president, played in his firing and how it involved Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

During the interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, Shokin said he was ousted in 2016 because he was investigating Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company where Hunter Biden served on the board. Shokin also claimed that Joe and Hunter Biden accepted bribes in the case, and that the then-vice president ultimately hurt America’s reputation and created the groundwork for Russia to invade Ukraine.

‘I have said repeatedly in my previous interviews that Poroshenko fired me at the insistence of the then Vice President Biden because I was investigating Burisma,’ Shokin told Fox News in the interview which aired Saturday evening.

‘You understood me correctly, this is how it was,’ he added after a follow-up question from Kilmeade about Biden’s involvement. ‘There were no complaints whatsoever and no problems with how I was performing at my job. But because pressure was repeatedly put on [then-Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko, that is what ended up in him firing me.’

Shokin did not provide additional evidence of his claim that the Bidens accepted bribes or elaborate on the allegation. 

In March 2016, Poroshenko ousted Shokin, who was appointed one year earlier, after facing pressure from the U.S. government. The international community, led by the U.S. and then-Vice President Biden who led U.S.-Ukraine policy, believed Shokin was allowing corruption to fester in the nation’s government and his own office.

In December 2015, Biden traveled to Kyiv, Ukraine, where he demanded Poroshenko root out corruption and fire Shokin, threatening to withhold a key U.S. aid package. During a speech delivered with the country’s leaders present, Biden said the Office of the General Prosecutor ‘desperately needs reform’ and warned about the dangers posed by corruption in the government.

Biden urged Ukrainian president to fire Shokin

A year after leaving the White House, Biden recounted his closed-door conversations with Poroshenko during the 2015 trip. He explained how he told Ukrainian officials the U.S. would withhold up to $1 billion in aid money earmarked for their country if Shokin remained in his position.

‘I said, ‘Nah, I’m not going to – we’re not going to give you the billion dollars.’ They said, ‘You have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said –.’ I said, ‘Call him,’’ Biden recounted during a January 2018 event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations. ‘I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the $1 billion.’’

‘I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here,” Biden continued. ‘I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.’

Republican lawmakers and Shokin himself, however, have pointed to Shokin’s investigation of Burisma and its owner Mykola Zlochevsky at the time of his ouster. In February 2016, one month before Shokin was fired, his office filed a legal petition to seize Zlochevsky’s property, including four homes, two pieces of property and a Rolls-Royce sports car, the Kyiv Post reported at the time.

The investigation took place while Hunter Biden served on Burisma’s board of directors. Hunter joined the firm in 2014 and departed in 2019 after his term on its board expired. 

In a statement to Fox News, the White House pointed to indications that Shokin was fired because he had been too soft on corruption. 

‘For years, these false claims have been debunked, and no matter how much air time Fox gives them, they will remain false,’ White House spokesperson Ian Sams told Fox News. ‘Fox is giving a platform for these lies to a former Ukrainian prosecutor general whose office his own deputy called ‘a hotbed of corruption,’ drawing demands for reform not only from then-Vice President Biden but also from U.S. diplomats, international partners, and Republican senators like Ron Johnson.’

The White House also stated Shokin’s office had not been investigating Burisma or Hunter at the time of his ouster in March 2016, and it pointed to three reports published within weeks of each other in 2019 by The Washington Post, Associated Press and New York Times stating Shokin’s office wasn’t investigating Burisma.

Shokin: Burisma merited ‘special attention’

‘The reason I oversaw the Burisma case was because I was the prosecutor general. Burisma was an ordinary case. There wasn’t anything particularly different about it,’ Shokin told Fox News.

‘The reason that I was handling it was because it deserved a special mention,’ Shokin continued. ‘It was on a list of cases to merit special attention because Hunter Biden was involved with Burisma and of course, his father, the vice president, Biden at the time oversaw Ukraine affairs for the White House. This is why.’

He added that he had ‘no doubt’ Burisma was engaged in illegal activities and stated it would take him ‘half a day’ to explain them all. Among the allegations, he said Burisma illegally produced, sold and utilized natural gas supplies.

‘I have no doubt that there were illegal activities engaged in by Burisma,’ Shokin said. ‘As a matter of fact, the criminal case had been started before me.’ 

‘It continued to expand and Zlochevsky, who at the time held the post of minister and was the founder and CEO of Burisma, started bringing in people who could provide protection for him,’ he said. ‘Hunter Biden was among them and the corruption network expanded as a result. So, yes, to answer your question, there was no doubt in my mind that Burisma was engaged in illegal activities.’

Hunter Biden ‘called D.C.’

Echoing Shokin’s claim that Hunter Biden was hired solely to protect Burisma by leveraging his father’s role in the White House, Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer, who also served on Burisma’s board, confirmed in a closed-door interview in July that company leaders turned to Hunter for help amid pressure from Shokin’s office and other entities. 

Archer said Hunter ‘called D.C.’ to help get Shokin fired.

‘When Burisma’s owner was facing pressure from the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the company for corruption, Archer testified that Burisma executives asked Hunter to ‘call D.C.’ after a Burisma board meeting in Dubai,’ House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said after Archer’s testimony.

Fox News Digital recently reported that, on Nov. 2, 2015, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharski emailed Hunter Biden, Archer and fellow Hunter associate Eric Schwerin about a ‘revised proposal, contract and initial invoice for Burisma Holdings,’ from lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies. Hunter reportedly connected Burisma with Blue Star Strategies to help the energy firm fight corruption charges levied against Zlochevsky, the company’s owner.

Pozharski emphasized in his email that the ‘ultimate purpose’ of the agreement with Blue Star Strategies was to shut down ‘any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine,’ referring to Zlochevsky, who also went by Nikolay. 

‘The scope of work should also include organization of a visit of a number of widely recognized and influential current and/or former US policy-makers to Ukraine in November aiming to conduct meetings with and bring positive signal/message and support on Nikolay’s issue to the Ukrainian top officials above with the ultimate purpose to close down for any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine,’ Pozharskyi continued.

Biden made the infamous December 2015 trip to Ukraine a month after the Pozharski email and would host a holiday party at his residence days after he returned that included Hunter and multiple Burisma-linked associates.

Shokin accuses Bidens of taking bribes

Shokin added in the interview Saturday that if he had been allowed to continue his investigation, he would have uncovered a scheme involving the Bidens and Archer. He also said he believed both Joe and Hunter Biden took bribes in the case.

‘Had I continued to oversee the Burisma investigation, we would have found the facts about the corrupt activities that they were engaging in,’ Shokin said. ‘That included both Hunter Biden and Devon Archer and others.’

‘I do not want to deal in unproven facts, but my firm personal conviction is that, yes, this was the case. They were being bribed,’ the former prosecutor general added. ‘And the fact that Joe Biden gave away $1 billion in U.S. money in exchange for my dismissal, my firing isn’t that alone A case of corruption?’

After Shokin’s ouster, The New York Times reported that Shokin had been criticized in Ukraine for not prosecuting officials, businessmen and lawmakers for corruption while Viktor Yanukovych was president. The U.S. government and International Monetary Fund had believed in 2016 that Shokin wasn’t doing enough to fight corruption, which ran rampant throughout Ukraine.

Both former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Bridget Brink testified during a Senate hearing in 2020 that Shokin’s decision not to pursue a Burisma investigation or root out corruption elsewhere were reasons for his firing.

‘It was our conclusion by then that, in fact, the dismissal of Prosecutor Shokin would be counter to Burisma’s interests, because not only was he not pursuing the Burisma case, he was responsible for protecting those who had helped get the case dismissed,’ Nuland said.

However, Shokin pushed back when asked about the media reports and claims made about his alleged corruption, saying there hasn’t ever been an example given. He added he doesn’t have enough money to sue news outlets for defamation.

‘I would appreciate if any of these highly respectable publications could come up with a single instance or a single example of my personal corruption or any offense whatsoever allegedly committed by me,’ Shokin told Fox News. ‘Since I was fired, nobody, including Joe Biden, has cited or mentioned or provided any examples of my corruption or any offense allegedly committed by me.’

‘I would gladly [sue for defamation],’ Shokin continued. ‘But suing somebody costs money and I simply don’t have the money to do that because I am a retiree and my monthly pension constitutes the equivalent of $800.’

And Shokin concluded saying that Biden has harmed America’s reputation abroad through his actions in Ukraine.

‘There is no doubt that his actions have damaged the US reputation in Ukraine. It is public knowledge,’ he said. ‘Everybody knows that it was because of Joe Biden’s actions that Russia was able to claim Crimea without firing a single shot, which of course eventually led to a full scale war that is currently under way.’

Shokin did not elaborate on how Biden’s actions contributed to Russia’s rapid takeover of Crimea in 2014. According to reports about the White House’s response to the invasion, Biden urged then-President Obama to send lethal assistance to Ukraine, but was overruled. The White House noted that Shokin took office after Russia seized Crimea.

Shokin told Fox that his book addresses the role Biden has played in Ukraine in his book.

‘But, yes, the damage has been done. Definitely,’ Shokin concluded. ‘I have long been concerned about my personal safety and security. I’ve already died technically, twice as I was poisoned with Mercury.’

The Trump 2024 presidential campaign confirmed to Fox News on Saturday that they have pulled in nearly $20 million in fundraising over the last three weeks, which coincides with the federal indictment in Washington, D.C. and mugshot from Atlanta seen around the world.

Former President Trump’s camp said of the almost $20 million, $7.1 million was collected after his mugshot was taken in Atlanta on Thursday evening.

Trump’s team said they raked in $4.18 million on Friday, which was the highest grossing day of the entire campaign.

The campaign added that they expect to cross the $20 million mark in fundraising in a few days.

‘Organic money has skyrocketed, especially after President Trump tweeted out the picture along with the website,’ the campaign told Fox News.

The spike in fundraising also appears to be fueled, in part, by merchandise they have been selling through their online store.

Once Trump was taken into custody, the campaign started selling shirts, posters, bumper stickers and beverage coolers, all with Trump’s mugshot.

The items also include the tagline, ‘NEVER SURRENDER!’

Politico first reported the Trump fundraising news on Saturday evening, which was confirmed by his campaign team to Fox News.