DOJ allowed Burisma’s U.S. law firm to retroactively file ‘foreign agent’ registration but prosecuted Manafort

by WorldTribune Staff / 247 Real News January 6, 2024

The lawyer for Ukrainian gas firm Burisma, which paid Hunter Biden millions of dollars, has registered as a foreign agent for work in 2016, according to papers filed on Thursday night.

Hunter Biden

“In January 2016, Mr. (John) Buretta [Burisma’s lawyer] was retained to represent Mykola Zlochevsky in connection with possible investigations by governmental authorities in the United States,” the newly filed paperwork states.

“The representation thereafter broadened to include Burisma Holdings Limited, as well as governmental investigations in Ukraine, and continued until April 2017. The representation of Burisma was governed by the same engagement letter with Mykola Zlochevsky and included both registrable and non-registrable activities.”

Hunter Biden’s five-year stint on Burisma’s board ended in April 2019.

“This proves once and for all Hunter Biden violated FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act),” the War Rooms’ Natalie Winters noted in a post to X.

A spokesperson for Buretta’s law firm, Cravath, Swaine, & Moore, said the decision to file a disclosure this week came after a discussion with the U.S. Department of Justice.

“After discussions with the Department of Justice regarding FARA’s scope, Cravath has filed a retroactive registration covering legal services provided to two former clients in March and September 2016, and a supplemental statement terminating the registration as of September 2016,” a spokesperson for Buretta’s firm told the Washington Examiner.

Cravath, Swaine, & Moore is a white collar law firm with offices in Washington, D.C., New York City and London.

The DOJ prosecuted Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, for failing to register as a foreign agent for work Manafort had performed in Ukraine.

Manafort and others were not permitted to file retroactive disclosures in order to avoid criminal charges.

The filing is significant because it raises questions over the representation of Burisma by Hunter Biden himself. Burisma was, without being FARA registered, actively lobbying Joe Biden while Hunter sat on its board.

Buretta met with three Obama administration officials in March 2016 and wrote a letter to another in September 2016, according to the document.

March 2016 is the same month that Ukraine’s then-prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, was fired at the behest of then-Vice President Joe Biden.

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