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Declassified Docs: Obama Admin Withheld Reports Critical of Biden’s Ukraine Visit at the VP Office’s Request
A November 29, 2024 photo shows US President Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden stepping out MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Bradley Jaye
7 Oct 2025
The Obama administration withheld reports revealing Ukrainian officials questioned the legitimate purpose of Vice President Joe Biden’s 2015 visit to Ukraine as questions swirled regarding his corrupt business dealings in Ukraine, newly declassified documents show.
According to documents declassified Monday by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Ukrainian administration officials believed not only that Biden’s December 2015 official government visit to Ukraine served no compelling government purpose but that Biden was being hypocritical in professing to target corruption within Ukraine’s government.
The documents also reveal that the report, which met standards for reporting as they contained intelligence valuable to policymakers, was withheld after a request by Biden’s office.
Withholding a document in defiance of normal procedures is “extremely rare and unusual,” according to a senior CIA official, raising questions about the politicization of intelligence in the Obama administration as well as who may have been involved.
The report makes clear that Ukrainian officials mused about the connection between Biden’s trip and alleged corruption in the country.
“After the visit, these officials assessed that the Vice President of the United States had come to Kiev almost exclusively to give a generic public speech, and had no intention of discussing substantive matters with [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko or other officials within the Ukrainian government,” according to the declassified report.
The Poroshenko administration and other “Ukrainian officials expected the U.S. Vice President to discuss personnel matters with Poroshenko during the visit, and had assumed that the U.S. Vice President would advocate in support of or against specific officials within the Ukrainian Government.”
Yet no discussions took place, bewildering Ukrainian officials.
After Biden’s visit, “Officials within the Poroshenko administration privately mused at the U.S. media scrutiny of the alleged ties of the U.S. Vice President’s family to corrupt business practices in Ukraine,” the declassified report reads. “These officials viewed the alleged ties of the U.S. Vice President’s family to corruption in Ukraine as evidence of a double-standard within the United States Government towards matters of corruption and political power.”
The CIA declassified the documents Monday after career intelligence officials determined that the documents met the criteria for intelligence reporting at the time and should have been disseminated due to its value to U.S. government officials in their dealings with the Ukrainian government.
According to the senior CIA official, under normal procedures, this intelligence report would be disseminated to individuals with appropriate clearance and need to know within the US government.
However, in February 2016, Biden’s National Security Adviser, Colin Kohl, told his intelligence briefer that he would strongly prefer the report not be disseminated.
After the request from Biden’s top staffer, the report never saw the light of day.
It is not clear from the heavily redacted document how the information was shared with the Vice President’s office. It is also unclear from the heavily redacted document if President Barack Obama, or who else at the White House, may have seen the document before its removal from dissemination.
But the document includes an email from one of President Obama’s Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) briefers, whose name is redacted, expressing Kahl’s diplomatic request that the report not be disseminated.
The many redactions in the document are necessary to protect CIA sources and methods, a senior CIA official explained to Breitbart News.
In late 2024, the CIA began an internal review of historical agency records and databases which led to the discovery of the until-now non-disseminated intelligence report as well as the email documenting that Biden’s office wanted to withhold the report despite its intelligence value.
“Director Radcliffe believes this is an example of the kind of politicization of intelligence that we need to work to eliminate in the intelligence community, and for which we will have zero tolerance,” the senior CIA official said.
Biden’s son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine, and Joe Biden’s knowledge and direct involvement, were a longstanding thorn in the president’s side as a steady flow of revelations continued undermining his denials.
As president, Joe Biden had long maintained he would not pardon Hunter.
Yet after the November 2024 election, ahead of sentencing after Hunter’s conviction on gun charges and tax evasion charges for which he pleaded guilty, Joe Biden issued a pardon for Hunter which included any offenses committed as far back January 1, 2014.
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From Breitbart
Link:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...fices-request/
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