President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley published an FBI document containing an unverified allegation made by a Ukrainian CEO.
The Ukrainian executive boasted he’d bribed Joe and Hunter Biden, an FBI informant claimed.
FBI told Insider the release of the document “at minimum — unnecessarily risks the safety of a confidential source.”
The FBI on Thursday blasted two top Republican lawmakers for supporting the release of an internal investigative document that contains unverified allegations that President Joe Biden and his son Hunter accepted bribes from a Ukrainian gas company — claims the White House called “dishonest” and which even some Republicans have cast doubts on.
“The safeguards the FBI placed on the production of this information are necessary to protect the safety of confidential sources and the integrity of sensitive investigations,” the bureau said in a statement to Insider. “Today’s release of the 1023 [form] – at a minimum – unnecessarily risks the safety of a confidential source.”
Earlier Thursday, Sen. Chuck Grassley, who has helped lead the Senate’s probes of Hunter Biden, decided to publish a sparingly redacted copy of the FBI document, which details claims made by a confidential informant who said a Burisma executive boasted about how he used Hunter Biden to protect the company.
The informant also claimed that Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky claimed that he was “coerced” into discussing $10 million bribes to the Bidens, though the informant was unclear if the money was ever paid or how; Joe Biden was the US vice president at the time.
The informant also claimed, without evidence, that Zlochevsky made 17 recordings and kept documents that would substantiate the bribery allegations. Last month, Sen. Ron Johnson, who has teamed up with Grassley on the Biden probes, cautioned that such recordings may not exist.
“This could be coming from a very corrupt oligarch who could be making this stuff up,” Johnson said on the Vicki McKenna Show, per PunchBowl News. “You have to suspend your judgment until you know more.”
Grassley’s office disputed the bureau’s claim that the release could endanger the confidential informant.
” Democrats and the media sought to link the FD-1023 to the Bidens’ activity in Ukraine long before this document became public, citing information that only the FBI and DOJ could have known,” Grassley spokesperson Taylor Foy said in a statement to Insider. “The FBI can’t cite risks to sources while thwarting congressional oversight in one breath and leak selective information to the news media in another.”
The release of the FBI document come days after former President Donald Trump, the 2024 GOP frontrunner, got a letter informing him that he’s a target in the DOJ’s investigation into the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
The FBI initially turned over the document to Republicans in June in response to a subpoena. At the time, House Oversight Chairman James Comer had pressured the bureau to turn over information even though it involved a confidential source.
The FBI allowed only a few lawmakers and their aides access to the document. It is unclear how Grassley obtained the copy. In a statement, the Iowa Republican said it came to him “via legally protected disclosures by Justice Department whistleblowers.” Both Grassley and Comer argued Thursday that publicly releasing the document was a necessary step.
“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,” Grassley said in a statement.
Republicans have long alleged that when he was vice president, Joe Biden inappropriately meddled in a criminal investigation into Burisma Holdings — whose board Hunter Biden served on from 2014 to early 2019 — led by Viktor Shokin, who was then Ukraine’s prosecutor general.
When he visited the country in March 2016, Joe Biden pressed hard for Shokin to be fired for corruption.
Biden represented the US’s official position on the matter, one that was shared by many other Western governments and anticorruption activists in Ukraine. But Republicans have alleged, without evidence, that Biden pushed for Shokin’s ouster because he wanted to stymie the investigation into Burisma.
However, government officials and Ukrainian anticorruption advocates point out that Shokin had hampered the investigation into Burisma long before Biden even stepped into the picture, The Wall Street Journal reported.
In other words, Biden was doing the opposite of what Republicans have implied: he was trying to oust a prosecutor who was slow-walking the investigation into Burisma, rather than actively targeting the company.
Bloomberg also reported that the Burisma investigation was largely dormant when Biden called for Shokin to be fired.
The White House put out a statement after Republicans released the document, saying that the claims in it “have reportedly been scrutinized by the Trump Justice Department, a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney, and a full impeachment trial of the former President that centered on these very issues, and over and over again, they have been found to lack credibility.”
“It’s clear that congressional Republicans are dead-set on playing shameless, dishonest politics and refuse to let truth get in the way,” the statement added.