Sanctioned Ukrainian lawmaker leaks Biden call where VP knocked 'slow' Trump transition

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A Ukrainian politician sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department and identified as an "active Russian agent" leaked more edited segments of a 2016 call between former Vice President Joe Biden and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko during which Biden criticized the Trump transition team.

"The incoming administration has been very, very slow on getting ready for transition," Biden said on the call, which took place weeks after President Trump won the election. "Quite frankly, like most of America they didn't think they were going to win the election, so they did not have a fulsome transition team. As a matter of fact, they changed their transition team."

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Andrii Derkach, a member of Ukraine's Parliament, played audio of the call during a press conference Wednesday. The Treasury Department said last week it is sanctioning Derkach for attempting to influence the 2020 presidential election months after Derkach leaked edited audio purportedly of Biden from 2016. Biden asked Poroshenko about a conversation between the Ukrainian leader and then-president-elect Trump during the Nov. 16, 2016, call.

"Transition is a very, very delicate and precise dance, it goes on from administration to administration over the last 100 years and it requires the exchange of classified information and the like," Biden said. "And the people they put forward to be part of the transition have to be cleared. ... They have not done that, they're trying to catch up and do it now since they fired the guy who headed up the transition just last week. The reason I bother to tell you that is I have been somewhat limited on what I am able to tell their team about Ukraine."

Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach attends a news conference in Kiev, Ukraine, Oct. 9, 2019. (REUTERS/Gleb Garanich)

Days earlier, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had been dropped from Trump's transition team, something he blamed on Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner in a book.

During the call, Poroshenko asked Biden to visit on Nov. 21, 2016, but the former vice president demurred. He said he worried that the incoming Trump administration would think he was trying to "game them" if he were to visit before they had been briefed.

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"I don't plan on going away. As a private citizen, I plan on staying deeply engaged in the endeavor that you have begun and we have begun," he told Poroshenko.

"But if I go beforehand, I’m worried that they don't know enough, they will think I'm trying to game them. They will think I am trying to put them in a corner. They will question my motives in going before they are fully briefed. And I'm sure you understand that, you're a good negotiator," Biden continued.

Biden speaks before participating in a roundtable discussion with veterans, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

A White House statement from the same day of the Biden-Poroshenko call said the two "discussed Ukraine's reform trajectory and emphasized the need for continued swift progress, including on steps needed to secure Ukraine's next tranche of [International Monetary Fund] funding."

Other portions of the call were previously leaked.

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Derkach has been active in leveling unsubstantiated corruption allegations against Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who used to sit on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company. That effort has included publicizing leaked phone calls.

Fox News' inquiry to the Biden campaign was not immediately returned.

Fox News' Gregg Re and Andrew O'Reilly contributed to this report.