Burisma chief said 'both' Joe and Hunter involved
WASHINGTON — A bombshell FBI informant file containing a $10 million bribery allegation against President Biden and his son was released Thursday by Sen. Chuck Grassley, showing that a Ukrainian oligarch claimed he was “coerced” into making the payoff.
Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of natural gas company Burisma Holdings, told the FBI informant in 2016 while meeting at a coffee shop in Vienna, Austria, that “it cost 5 [million] to pay one Biden, and 5 [million] to another Biden,” according to the redacted FD-1023 form.
“Zlochevsky made some comment that although Hunter Biden ‘was stupid, and his (Zlochevsky’s) dog was smarter,’ Zlochevsky needed to keep Hunter Biden (on Burisma’s board) ‘so everything will be okay,’” the June 2020 document says.
The source asked whether Hunter Biden or Joe Biden told Zlochevsky he should “retain” the younger Biden; Zlochevsky replied, ‘They both did,’” according to the file.
The paid federal informant — assessed by the FBI to be highly credible — described four conversations with Zlochevsky, beginning with a meeting near Kyiv in late 2015 or early 2016 and continuing through a 2019 phone call.
Zlochevsky allegedly claimed to have 17 recordings of conversations with the Bidens — two of which involved Joe — as well as “many text messages” and two documents that the informant “understood to be” financial records of “payment(s) to the Bidens.”
An FBI informant file containing a bribery allegation against President Biden was released on Thursday. ZUMAPRESS.com
The source added that Zlochevsky was convinced the recordings and other evidence showed he was “somehow coerced into paying the Bidens to ensure Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired.”
In their final discussion, Zlochevsky allegedly told the informant over the phone that he had been an “oracle” for warning against partnering with the Bidens due to political controversy in the US.
“CHS mentioned Zlochevsky might have difficulty explaining suspicious wire transfers that may evidence any (Illicit) payments to the Bidens,” the file says.
“Zlochevsky responded he did not send any funds directly to the ‘Big Guy’ (which CHS understood was a reference to Joe Biden). CHS asked Zlochevsky how many companies/bank accounts Zlochevsky controls; Zlochevsky responded it would take them (Investigators) 10 years to find the records (i.e. illicit payments to Joe Biden).”
Burisma Holdings owner Mykola Zlochevsky told the FBI informant he paid $5 million each to Joe and Hunter Biden. Photo by STR/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The “big guy” reference is significant because the same nickname also was used to describe a tentative 10% cut for Joe Biden in 2017 as part of a partnership with Chinese-government-linked CEFC China Energy. The moniker wasn’t publicly known until October 2020 — months after the informant file was created.
At the Vienna meeting in 2016, Zlochevsky allegedly described Hunter as a conduit to his father when asked about Shokin’s investigation of Burisma.
“Zlochevsky replied something to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry Hunter will take care of all of those issues through his dad.’ [The informant] did not ask any further questions about what that specifically meant,” the file reported.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, though President Biden has tried to laugh off the accusation, saying last month in response to a question from The Post about the allegation, “Where’s the money?”
Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of Burisma in 2014. AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File
House Republicans are investigating references on Hunter Biden’s laptop to Burisma opening a Maltese bank account in 2016.
The FBI has informed members of Congress that the tip was referred to the office of Delaware US Attorney David Weiss for further investigation, though it’s unclear what has been done since to determine its accuracy.
IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley testified to the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday that federal tax agents weren’t told of the large alleged bribe amounts during their five-year-old investigation of Hunter for tax fraud.
Zlochevsky claimed to have tapes of conversations with Joe and Hunter Biden. Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
“Information like this would have been really helpful to have,” Shapley said. “The team, to the best of my knowledge, never saw that [FD-1023] document.”
The informant file was created after the FBI found an earlier reference to the malfeasance in a 2017 file by the same informant, according to members of Congress involved in oversight investigations.
It’s unclear when exactly the alleged payments would have been made by Burisma, which first added Hunter Biden to its board in April 2014 as his dad assumed control of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy. Hunter was paid up to $1 million per year through 2019, apart from the alleged bribes.
Although he has repeatedly claimed he never discussed business with his son, then-Vice President Joe Biden met with his son’s partner Devon Archer in 2014 around the time both Hunter Biden and Archer joined the Burisma board, according to Obama White House visitor logs.
Grassley questioned in a statement why the FBI kept the information in the document “concealed” from the public. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Joe Biden also met with Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi at an April 16, 2015, dinner at DC’s Cafe Milano, as revealed in The Post’s first bombshell report in October 2020 on the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop.
Grassley (R-Iowa), who released a redacted version of the four-page document, asked in a statement, “What did the Justice Department and FBI do with the detailed information in the document? And why have they tried to conceal it from Congress and the American people for so long?”
The allegation has been the subject of intense political focus since it was first described publicly on May 3.
This is a developing story. Refresh the page for further updates.
Source: New York Post
