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GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa on Thursday released an internal FBI document containing unsubstantiated allegations that President Joe Biden was involved in an illegal foreign bribery scheme.
The FBI previously allowed members of the House Oversight Committee to privately view — but not obtain — the declassified FBI document, known as FD-1023.
Republicans, including Grassley and House Oversight Chairman James Comer, have pushed the FBI to publicly release the document, which the bureau has refused to do. Comer even threatened to fire FBI Director Christopher Wray until the two sides reached a last-minute deal. Grassley said he released the document himself because of “legally protected disclosures by Justice Department whistleblowers.”
The 1023 form recalls claims from an FBI informant, but it does not provide proof that the allegations are true. Republicans, however, obtained the unverified material as part of their broader investigation into the Bidens.
The FBI document shows the informant provided the information to federal investigators in June 2020, but described meetings and conversations dating back to 2015.
The FBI document said an informant described a 2016 meeting in which Mykola Zlochevsky, the CEO of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, claimed he had made two $5 million payments to “the Bidens,” though he did not specify who received the alleged bribes.
“It costs 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden,” Zlochevsky told the FBI informant in a 2016 meeting in Vienna, according to the document.
The informant, described by the FBI as highly credible “could not provide any additional opinion as to the truth” of the claims, according to the FBI document.
At the time of the informant’s meeting with Zlochevsky, Hunter Biden was on Burisma’s board, earning $50,000 per month. But there is no evidence that Joe Biden was involved in his son’s work for the Ukrainian energy company or received any payment.
House Democrats previously released a transcript of separate private comments Zlochevsky made to former Rudy Giuliani ally Lev Parnas contradicting the idea that he paid Joe Biden.
According to the transcript, which Parnas provided to Congress in January 2020, Zlochevsky stated that “no one from Burisma had any contact with VP Biden or people working for him” while Hunter Biden was on the board. Zlochevskey also said that Joe Biden and his staff had nothing to do with his company’s business dealings.
In statements to CNN, Comer accused the Justice Department of “trying to bury this record to protect the Bidens,” and Grassley thanked “brave and heroic whistleblowers” for allowing him to publicly disclose the material.
Shortly after lawmakers viewed the FBI document in a classified setting last month, the FBI wrote Comer about their concerns that some members, by taking notes and discussing what they read in public, were violating the agreement that authorized their viewing of the document, according to a letter obtained by CNN.
“The conduct of some Committee Members during the June 8 review was in apparent disregard of our agreement and has the potential to cause serious harm,” the FBI wrote to Comer on June 9.
Before viewing the document last month, all members viewed a statement from the FBI that read, “While unclassified, these materials have significant law enforcement value and sensitivity, and should not be disclosed without permission, as wider distribution could pose a risk of physical harm to FBI sources or others.”
Due to the release of the FD-1023 form on Thursday, an FBI spokesperson told CNN that “today’s release of the 1023 – at the very least – unnecessarily jeopardizes the safety of a confidential source.”
White House spokesman Ian Sams said in a statement to CNN, “It’s amazing that congressional Republicans, in their eagerness to go after President Biden regardless of the truth, continue to push claims that have been debunked for years and that they themselves warn to take ‘with a grain of salt’ because they can be ‘made up.’
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said: “The release of this document isolated from its explanatory context is another clearly desperate attempt by Committee Republicans to revive the aging and debunked Giuliani-framed conspiracy theories and to distract from their continued failure to produce any real evidence of wrongdoing by the FBI.”
The confidential human source described by the FBI as highly reliable, only met Zlochevseky in person once, and spoke to Zlochevseky twice by telephone, and therefore “could not provide any additional opinion as to the truth” of the given claims.
The informant also claimed that Zlochevsky had texts and 17 audiotapes, two of which included Joe Biden, showing that he had been forced to pay the Bidens, according to the documents. Many Republicans have questioned whether the audio recordings exist — and there is no evidence of the recordings so far.
The FBI document sheds new light on how Burisma executives are said to have hoped to use Hunter Biden’s position on their board to obtain benefits from his father while he was vice president.
Zlochevsky and another senior Burisma official told the FBI informant that they thought Hunter Biden was not intelligent, but should keep him on their board because he could “protect us, through his father, from all the problems,” according to the FBI document.
This story has been updated with additional details.