Cruz Grills Biden's Estonia Pick on Hunter and Burisma, Reads Biden's Own Boast: 'You're Not Getting the Money' (November 29, 2022)

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, turned a routine ambassador hearing into a cross-examination of President Biden’s Ukraine record on Nov. 29, 2022. He pressed nominee George Kent on whether Biden did anything to help the oligarch who was paying Hunter Biden, then read Biden’s own 2018 account of forcing out Ukraine’s top prosecutor. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., cut off the questions.

Kent, a career diplomat, was before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as Biden’s pick for ambassador to Estonia [1][2]. He had testified as a witness in the first Trump impeachment inquiry [4]. The video above shows the heart of the exchange. Quotes are from the committee’s official hearing transcript and the Council on Foreign Relations transcript of Biden’s 2018 remarks.

”Corruption in the Current Administration”

Cruz made clear from the start where he was headed. “Mr. Kent, you have been outspoken throughout your career, speaking against corruption. And I want to talk about corruption. I want to talk in particular about corruption in the current Administration,” he said [1].

He reminded Kent of his own testimony to Congress on Nov. 13, 2019, and read it back to him. In it, Kent said that soon after he learned Hunter Biden was on Burisma’s board, “in a briefing call with the National Security staff at the office of the Vice President in February of 2015, I raised my concern that Hunter Biden’s status as a board member could create a perception of a conflict of interest” [1].

Asked why, Kent pointed to Burisma’s owner. “The issue at hand was the owner of the companies, Zlochevsky, had awarded himself gas contracts,” he said, adding that the FBI had been pursuing a freeze of the ex-minister’s assets [1].

”Other Than the Fact That His Daddy Was the Sitting Vice President”

Cruz then went after Hunter Biden’s credentials. Did Kent know whether Hunter speaks Ukrainian? “I have never talked to Hunter Biden, no,” Kent answered [1].

“To your knowledge, did Hunter Biden have any qualification whatsoever for that board job other than the fact that his daddy was the sitting Vice President at the time?” Cruz asked. Kent said no one consulted him about Burisma’s board and, pressed again, replied: “I am not familiar with his resume, sir” [1].

“He was paid $83,000 a month by this Ukrainian oligarch,” Cruz said. “You are an expert in Ukraine. Have you ever been paid $83,000 a month?” Kent: “I am a public servant, sir. I have never served on a corporate board” [1].

”Someone Who Disagrees With You, Mr. Kent, Is Joe Biden”

Then came the question at the center of the clip. “While his son was on the board of Burisma, making $1 million a year, did Joe Biden do anything that benefited the corrupt oligarch who was paying his son?” Cruz asked [1].

“Vice President Biden led our efforts to fight corruption in Ukraine,” Kent said. Cruz asked again. “He did not,” Kent answered [1].

“He did not. Well, it is interesting, someone who disagrees with you, Mr. Kent, is Joe Biden,” Cruz shot back, and he began reading from Biden’s appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations on Jan. 23, 2018 [1].

Here is what Biden said that day, according to the council’s transcript. “I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kiev. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t” [3].

Biden went on: “I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.” He followed with an expletive and the punch line, “He got fired,” to laughter from the audience. He added: “And they put in place someone who was solid at the time” [3].

Biden never mentioned Burisma in those remarks. While reading, Cruz added his own description of the prosecutor as the one “that was investigating Burisma,” which the committee transcript prints outside the quotation [1][3].

Shaheen Shuts It Down

Cruz closed the loop. “Do you think Joe Biden holding $1 billion hostage to force the Ukrainian Government to fire the prosecutor that is investigating the corrupt oligarch who is paying his son $1 million a year, did getting that prosecutor fired benefit that oligarch?” [1]

Shaheen, who was presiding, moved to the next senator. “Are you going to allow me to answer the question, Madam Chairman?” Cruz asked. “I am not going to allow him to answer the question,” she said [1].

“Why are you covering for the Vice President?” Cruz fired back. Shaheen said it was “unfortunate” for Cruz to put ambassador nominees in “uncomfortable” positions, and that she wanted “to move on because the votes have started” [1].

“Was his testimony true or false that Biden did nothing to benefit the oligarch?” Cruz pressed. “Let him answer the question. Why are you afraid of him answering the question?” Shaheen relented: “Yes, you can answer yes or no” [1].

Kent did not give a yes or no. “The prosecutor who was fired by the Ukrainian parliament did nothing to investigate Zlochevsky. And everything the Vice President Biden, the State Department and the U.S. Embassy did acted in good faith to reduce corruption and help the Ukrainians,” he said [1].

“So firing him did not benefit the oligarch?” Cruz asked. Shaheen called on Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. “You are protecting the President well,” Cruz said [1]. Fox News reported the clash the next morning [4].

The Democrats’ Answer

Van Hollen used his time to defend Biden. He asked Kent to confirm that there was “absolutely no evidence zero, including in the Johnson, Grassley investigation,” that Biden or any other official changed U.S. policy because of Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board. “Yes, Senator,” Kent said [1].

That has been Biden’s defense all along: pushing out Viktor Shokin was official U.S. policy, shared by European allies. A Bush-era U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, John Herbst, told a Senate panel in 2016 that “by late fall of 2015, the EU and the United States joined the chorus of those seeking Mr. Shokin’s removal” [5]. Ukraine’s Western backers saw Shokin as an obstacle to fighting corruption, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported when the parliament approved his resignation [6].

Republicans saw it differently. Fox News noted that Burisma was under investigation in 2016 by Shokin, “who himself faced allegations of corruption” [4]. House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., later said Biden “was ‘the brand’ that his son sold around the world to enrich the Biden family” [7].

By the Numbers

$1 billion: The U.S. loan guarantee Biden said he held back until the prosecutor was fired [3].
$83,333 a month: What Burisma paid Hunter Biden to sit on its board from May 2014, according to invoices on his abandoned laptop reported by the New York Post. The amount was cut to $41,500 effective May 2017, after his father left office [8].
“As much as $50,000 per month”: The figure in the September 2020 Senate Republican report, according to PolitiFact, which in January 2022 called the paper trail on Hunter Biden’s Burisma pay unverified [9].
289 votes: Ukraine’s parliament approved Shokin’s resignation on March 29, 2016, well over the 226 required [6].
20-plus times: How often, according to Comer’s summary of Devon Archer’s testimony, Hunter Biden put his father on speakerphone during business meetings [7].

What Happened Next

Kent got the job. He took up the post in Tallinn in early 2023 and presented his credentials to Estonian President Alar Karis that February [10]. He was preparing to leave as President Trump returned to office in January 2025, with his replacement, Roman Pipko, already announced [11].

Archer talked. On July 31, 2023, Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer told House Oversight investigators that “various folks in D.C.” had spun him a narrative that “Shokin being fired was a — was not good, because he was like under control as relates to Mykola,” a reference to Zlochevsky. “I have no way to verify that,” Archer said. Asked whether he had any basis to believe Biden’s call for Shokin’s removal was driven by anything other than U.S. anticorruption policy, he said, “I have no proof or thought that that — that he fired him for that reason.” Asked if it was fair to say Hunter was selling “the illusion of access” to his father, Archer said, “Yes,” though he called a follow-up version of the question “almost fair” [12].

The House GOP report. On Aug. 19, 2024, three Republican-led House committees released a nearly 300-page report concluding that Biden had engaged in impeachable conduct [13]. The report stopped short of formally recommending that the House move forward with impeachment [14]. White House spokeswoman Sharon Yang called the inquiry a “failed stunt” [13].

A key informant went to prison. Former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, whose claim that Burisma executives paid Joe and Hunter Biden $5 million each had fueled the inquiry, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and to tax evasion. He was sentenced on Jan. 8, 2025, to six years in prison. Investigators found his dealings with Burisma began in 2017, after Biden’s vice presidency [15].

The pardon. On Dec. 1, 2024, President Biden granted his son a “full and unconditional” pardon for any federal offenses he committed or may have committed from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024. That window covers Hunter Biden’s entire Burisma tenure, from 2014 until he left the board in April 2019 [16][8]. Biden said he believed “raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice” [17].