Senator releases FBI file alleging Bidens received Ukraine payoff

US Senator Chuck Grassley on Thursday made public a file from an FBI informant that quotes a Ukrainian oligarch who said he was "coerced" into paying President Joe Biden and his son Hunter a total of $10 million while the elder Biden was vice-president.

Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of natural gas company Burisma Holdings, told the FBI informant (identified as "CHS" for confidential human source) in 2016 while meeting at a coffee shop in Vienna that "it cost 5 [million] to pay one Biden, and 5 [million] to another Biden", according to the redacted FD-1023 form. The CHS noted at the time that it was unclear if the payments were made.

"While the FBI sought to obfuscate and redact, the American people can now read this document for themselves, without the filter of politicians or bureaucrats, thanks to brave and heroic whistleblowers," said Grassley, an Iowa Republican who acquired the document via legally protected disclosures by Justice Department whistleblowers.

The source's claims have not been investigated further. The FBI has told members of Congress that the bribery allegation was referred to the office of Delaware US Attorney David Weiss for further investigation, although it is unclear what has been done since to determine its accuracy.

The FBI on Thursday criticized the release of the form, which was prepared in June 2020.

"We have repeatedly explained to Congress, in correspondence and in briefings, how critical it is to keep this source information confidential," the FBI said in a statement.

Ian Sams, White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, said in a statement: "It's clear that congressional Republicans are dead-set on playing shameless, dishonest politics and refuse to let truth get in the way. It is well past time for news organizations to hold them to basic levels of factual accountability for their repeated and increasingly desperate efforts to mislead both the public and the press."

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, however, said that the form supports his committee's investigation of the Biden family's business dealings.

"In the FBI's record, the Burisma executive claims that he didn't pay the ‘big guy' directly but that he used several bank accounts to conceal the money. That sounds an awful lot like how the Bidens conduct business: using multiple bank accounts to hide the source and total amount of the money," Comer said in a statement.

The paid federal informant, said by the FBI to be highly credible, detailed four conversations with Zlochevsky, starting with a meeting near Kyiv in late 2015 or early 2016 and up through a 2019 phone call.

The purpose of the CHS' first meeting "was to discuss Burisma's interest in purchasing a US oil or gas business, for purposes of merging it with Burisma for purposes of conducting an IPO in the US. Burisma was willing to purchase a US-based entity for $20-$30 million," the form says.

The CHS had questioned whether it would make more sense to hire "some normal US oil and gas advisors" because the Bidens weren't experienced in the energy sector.

Zlochevsky said he appreciated the source's advice but that it was "too late" to change his decision.

Zlochevsky allegedly claimed to have 17 recordings of conversations with the Bidens — two of which allegedly involved Joe Biden — as well as numerous text messages and two documents that the informant "understood to be" financial records of "payment(s) to the Bidens".

The source said 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 a January 2018 talk at the Council on Foreign Relations, Joe Biden recounted a trip to Ukraine three years prior and how a $1 billion loan guarantee intended for the country would be withheld if Shokin weren't fired.

The US, along with the EU and the IMF, however, had accused Shokin of not investigating corruption in the country before Biden's comments. Shokin was removed as prosecutor in March 2016.

Zlochevsky said 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)," the FBI form says.

Zlochevsky, at the Vienna meeting in 2016, said Hunter Biden would function 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 said.

Gary Shapley, an IRS supervisory agent who testified to the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, said that federal tax agents weren't told of the alleged payments during their five-year investigation of Hunter Biden for tax fraud.

"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."

Hunter Biden joined the Burisma board in April 2014, as Joe Biden was put in charge of the Obama administration's Ukraine policy. Hunter Biden was paid up to $1 million per year by Burisma through 2019.