Michael R. Caputo - The Ukraine Hoax: How Decades of Corruption in the Former Soviet Republic Led to Trumps Phony Impeachment

Advance praise for The Ukraine hoax

In The Ukraine Hoax, Michael Caputo gives an important historical perspective to the Obama-Biden policies and people that were at the nexus and inception of this entire ordeal. So many questions emerge, but one answer is clear: there must be investigations.

Sean Spicer

Michael Caputo is a dedicated patriot and truth-teller, who reveals the facts about Ukrainian corruption and its interference in our 2016 election.

Steve Cortes

Michael Caputo is a hard-bitten operative with a no-nonsense approach to the combat of modern politics. In The Ukraine Hoax , he gets to the heart of the shakedown that the grifter Joe Biden launched from the West Wing of Obamas White House. Read Caputos book, get angry, and join President Trump in demanding a formal investigation.

Steve Bannon

Across three decades of friendship, Ive watched Michael Caputo search for truth and The Ukraine Hoax is a solid result: a detailed, intuitive examination of a deep end of the swamp where shady globalists get rich and get away with murder.

Roger Stone

A BOMBARDIER BOOKS BOOK

An Imprint of Post Hill Press

ISBN: 978-1-64293-569-1

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-64293-570-7

The Ukraine Hoax:

How Decades of Corruption in the Former Soviet Republic Led to Trumps Phony Impeachment

2020 by Michael R. Caputo

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Post Hill Press

New York Nashville

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Published in the United States of America

To my long suffering wife Maryna and my daughters Maria, Ana, and Lia, who will always remember that the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible clawsbut together, we sailed away.

Contents

O leg Sheremet and I drank a lot, one toast at a time. We were quite a pair. I had just stepped off my Miami Beach tugboat home for the first time in months to fly to Kyiv, Ukraine in summer 2007. I hadnt cut my shoulder-length hair. I hadnt shaved my unkempt beard, nor did I leave my faded straw hat aboard. I looked about as out of place in the well-groomed, good-looking crowds of Kyiv as I could possibly be.

Oleg was well put together and vibrated with the enviable energy of an entrepreneur. His enthusiasm was beguiling; his knowledge was invaluable. I loved spending time with him.

Normally, we met at Magyar Haz, a Hungarian restaurant near my Pechersky District apartment, to eat paprika-soaked food that made you want more vodka. Goulash, drink. Cabbage rolls, drink. By the time the Indianer cream puffs showed up for dessert, we had solved the world s problems.

I spoke no Ukrainian and Oleg, no English. We talked politics, business, music, and film through his translator, Maryna. He would tap his barrel chest when he talked about his country. For him, and for most Ukrainians, every political move affects them, so it becomes quite personal.

We talked a lot, despite our language difference, and Maryna translated Olegs harmless dirty jokes, blushing and smiling through the embarrassment. He was luminous; she was endearing. Two years later, I married her.

That was 2007, when we three worked together on a Ukrainian parliamentary campaign. I was a general consultant, and he was our campaign team manager. In former Soviet Union races, nobody wants to see American faces, so global experts hide behind local managers who execute Western-standard campaign plans.

Oleg was a master of his craft and a world-class campaign operative in his own right. He was brilliant and cunning and could tell a story over chilled vodka like nobody else. As our candidate rose unexpectedly in the polls, Oleg got the credit. He also got the blame.

Our dark horse candidate won on Election Day. All the Kyiv wags were shocked, Oleg most of all: an assassin fired several rounds from a Kalashnikov into his chest. His young children were nearby when he was murdered.

Since then, Ukraine has descended further into corruption, cronyism, and war. Kyiv today is Casablanca in the 1940s: rippling with intrigue and crawling with spies, double agents, mercenaries, and phony diplomats. And, of course, Ukrainians who yearn to live normal lives.

But theres a problem: Ukraine is rich in oil and gas, crisscrossed by critical pipelines, and everybody wants it. What I learned in 2007, the world knows now: Ukrainian politics ain t beanbag.

On April 24, 2019, almost twelve years after Oleg was gunned down in Kyiv, my wife and daughters and I rushed down a windowless White House corridor that led to the Oval Office. My mother-in-law, Nina of Cherkasy, Ukraine, herded our four- and six-year-old girls along the way. Busts of famous men, paintings of lush American landscapes, and the pinching new shoes we had picked up just hours before at Ross kept the girls distracted. But Madeleine Westerhout, the presidents longtime assistant, kept us at a brisk pace as she led our squad toward a familiar voice.

I told my children to take it all in, that they would remember that day for the rest of their lives.

Wheres Michael? Wheres Michael? It was Donald J. Trump, the president of the United States; I could hear his distinctive voice from down the hall.

We rounded a tight corner and entered a small office. Standing there was my friend and former 2016 campaign office mate, Dan Scavino, the presidents social media director. He offered his hand.

Great to see you, Michael. You have to know Dan Scavino; everybody should. He is perhaps the most hardworking, honest, loyal, and authentic person Ive ever met in politics. Of course, he didnt come up in the business, so he retained his soul. We talked about our families now and then in Trump Tower, so I introduced him to Maryna and tried to get my six-year-old, Ana, to say hello. She was holding my leg and craning her neck in the direction of an open door.

Michael! How are you?

I reached out, shook President Trumps hand, and nearly hugged him. It had been over two years since we saw each other, but I stopped myselfyou dont hug the president of the United States. My left arm was already around his shoulder, so I patted him on the back as if that was my plan all along. Thats fine, I guess, for a couple guys who first met in 1988. But a hug? That would have been a disaster.

I was relieved to be there. After more than two years of enduring the Russia hoax, testifying before the House and Senate intelligence committees and Robert Muellers Special Counsel investigators, our family life was destroyed. Summoned to the White House, talking with the president again, felt like the ending we were hoping for since the Special Counsel investigation concluded and the Mueller report was revealed.

My attorneys advised me not to call the president during the life of the investigations. I always assumed he got the same counsel. This was a long- awaited reunion.

I introduced my wife, kids, and mother-in-law to the president and the radiant first ladywho lit the room, as always. Of course, they had met Maryna before, but I assumed the president had forgotten that she and her family were from Ukraine. They had never met our kids.