President Joe Biden‘s alleged “criminal bribery scheme” is tied to payments reportedly made by the Ukrainian energy company Burisma to members of the Biden family, GOP House Oversight Committee members said Thursday after viewing an FBI document related to the claims.
Amid the threat of being held in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena, FBI Director Christopher Wray allowed members of the committee to review the FBI-generated FD-1023 document regarding the alleged bribery scandal on Thursday.
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The document, consisting of allegations relayed to a paid FBI informant, is currently being used in an active and ongoing investigation, committee chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) said. The information comes from a “trusted, highly credible” paid FBI informant, according to Republicans, including Comer.
Hunter Biden held a lucrative position on the board of Burisma while his father was vice president. The GOP said Thursday that the scheme was related to Joe Biden’s efforts as vice president to pressure the Ukrainian government to fire Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin. Republicans said the FBI form indicated Ukrainian businessman and Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky allegedly told the FBI informant that he paid $5 million apiece to Hunter and then-Vice President Biden to shake off a corruption investigation.
Burisma became a hot-button issue when President Donald Trump referenced it in a July 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The call spurred a whistleblower complaint, which sparked Democratic-led impeachment proceedings in the House, where Democrats denied Shokin had truly been investigating Burisma and Republicans argued he had been.
The allegations raised in the FBI document have not been publicly verified as true by the FBI but came from information the confidential human source learned from a foreign national.
Within the document, members of the committee said there were references to two other FBI documents related to the bribery allegations, which Comer and Oversight Committee ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) are expected to review next week, according to two people familiar with the plans.
A number of Republicans talked with reporters after viewing the document, but most Democrats declined to comment on what they had reviewed.
According to the Republicans who viewed the document in a secure location on Capitol Hill, it alleges an executive at Ukrainian energy giant Burisma paid “multiple” members of the Biden family $5 million each, and those payments were routed through multiple bank accounts to get to Joe Biden’s coffers. Republicans said they would use the new information to sift through further bank records and suspicious activity reports to advance their investigation into Biden family finances.
President Biden said the bribery allegations were “a bunch of malarkey” when asked about them Thursday, after he first quipped, “Where’s the money? I’m joking.”
“It is abundantly clear that there was only one reason that Hunter Biden was brought into this, and that’s because of his relationship with his father,” Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) told the Washington Examiner. “I mean, that is abundantly clear, and that was made very clear in the document.”
After she finished reviewing the document, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) said the bribery scheme is “all related to Ukraine and Burisma.”
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) said the FBI record said that “they were feeling pressure — Burisma was getting pressure from the prosecutor in Ukraine, Shokin — and the deal was a substantial amount of money going to Hunter and a substantial amount of money going to Joe Biden, the link is to remove Shokin, because Burisma was trying to, at that point, invest in the U.S., and they were under investigation, criminal investigation.”
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) also said the FD-1023 revealed the alleged scheme was tied to Burisma.
“The reason why Hunter Biden was placed on the board of Burisma, and that he was paid, was because he’s stupid, according to the document, and he has a direct access point to the then Vice President, now President of the United States,” Donalds said, adding that “the reason that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden were paid was so that Joe Biden could use his office at the time as vice president to put pressure on the Ukrainian government to fire the prosecutor looking into Burisma.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) contended that “it was all a bribery to get Shokin fired and end the investigation into Burisma.”
Zlochevsky is widely seen as corrupt and had $23 million frozen by British authorities in 2014, the year Hunter and his business associate Devon Archer were hired by the company.
“The FBI has within its possession a series of documents relating to information on Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma, and his business and financial associations with Hunter Biden,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) wrote in October. “The documents in the FBI’s possession include specific details with respect to conversations by non-government individuals relevant to potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden.”
In his 2021 memoir, Hunter Biden defended Zlochevsky and called the Burisma work “inspiring” and “consequential” while also admitting that “the pay was good” and that “there’s no question my last name was a coveted credential.”
Former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies claim Joe Biden improperly used his position as vice president to successfully pressure Ukraine to fire Shokin to protect his son from an investigation into Burisma. Democrats deny this and argue the focus on Burisma was part of an effort to dirty up then-candidate and now-President Biden.
As vice president, Biden threatened in 2015 to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if Ukraine did not fire Shokin, who was criticized by many in the West for not doing enough to crack down on corruption. The U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, and other allies had the same objective.
Biden has said there is “no credibility” to the claims of corruption, but his critics have seized on video of a statement the former vice president made in January 2018, where he boasted that he ordered the Ukrainian government to fire Shokin or the White House would renege on a commitment to provide aid. “I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired,” Biden said.
Biden’s dramatic version of the story significantly compressed the timeline, which actually took place through a series of diplomatic moves and phone calls in 2015 and 2016.
Mace said Thursday that “there were allegations” of more than one lucrative payment, saying that “it’s more than $5 million — yes, multiple payments of $5 million.” She added that “multiple payments, is the allegation, to multiple Biden family members, including the current president.”
She added that “when you read the information in there, there’s a reason there were dozens and dozens of shell companies.”
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) also said the FD-1023 form indicated that “there were two separate transactions, one that went to Joe Biden for $5 million and one that went to Hunter Biden for $5 million.”
Greene contended that “the owner of Burisma … said that he paid five million to one Biden, and he paid five million to another Biden.” The congresswoman also said the Burisma executive “said at the time that there were no direct payments made to the big guy, but in the meeting later, after he had become more upset as things were unfolding, he told the informant that he has two pieces of evidence showing proof of payment to Hunter and specifically Joe Biden.”
Donalds and Greene said the FBI form indicated the alleged payments were concealed in such a way that it would take “ten years” to figure it out.
Raskin repeatedly claimed on Monday, following an FBI briefing, that Attorney General William Barr ended the investigation into the bribery claims in 2020. But Barr told multiple outlets that that is false and that the claims were sent to the U.S. Attorney in Delaware, David Weiss, to investigate further.
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Raskin also called it a “debunked FBI tip” earlier this week and claimed that “much of the information provided by the source was information” that former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani “had already provided the FBI.”
Mace said Thursday that “Giuliani’s name isn’t anywhere in the documentation” and that “it has nothing to do with Rudy Giuliani.” Greene also insisted, “This has nothing to do with Giuliani. This has nothing to do with the information that he brought forward in 2020. It’s totally separate.”
