The unclassified form — which Republican members of Congress fought to obtain from the FBI — was released Thursday evening by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
It memorializes several conversations with the informant (called a “confidential human source,” or CHS, throughout the document), who is discussing conversations that the informant has had with the Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Ukrainian oil and natural gas company Burisma.
Burisma had hired Hunter Biden as a member of the company’s board during the Obama-Biden administration, despite his father handling Ukraine as part of his portfolio as vice president. Burisma was at the time facing an investigation for corruption.
Biden would later publicly brag about successfully pressuring the Ukrainian government to fire the prosecutor investigating Burisma, Viktor Shokin, by threatening to withhold money from Ukraine.
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The form contained allegations from the informant and those that the informant spoke with that Biden helped Burisma in exchange for millions of dollars.
The allegations include:
- According to the informant, during a meeting he had in Ukraine with Burisma executives in late 2016 or 2016, a top Burisma official named Vadim Pojarskii said Burisma had hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”
- Two months after the first Burisma meeting, the CHS and another associate had a meeting with Zlochevsky at an outside coffee shop. When the CHS told Zlochevsky that Shokin’s investigation would have an “substantial negative impact” on his company’s prospective IPO in the United States, Zlochevsky replied something to the effect of “Don’t worry Hunter will take care of all of those issues through his dad.”
- The meeting with Zlochevsky took place around the time Vice President Joe Biden “made a public statement about (former) Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin being corrupt, and that he should be fired/removed from office.”
- Zlochevsky told the CHS, “it took 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden.”
- He told the CHS that although Hunter Biden was “stupid” and that his dog was “smarter,” he needed to keep Hunter Biden on the board “so everything will be okay.”
- Zlochevsky told the CHS that “both” Hunter Biden and Joe Biden told him to hire Hunter Biden.
- When the CHS advised Zlochevsky to fire Hunter Biden and deal with Shokin’s investigation directly to keep the issue inside Ukraine and not turn it into an international matter, Zlochevsky responded something to the effect of, “Don’t worry, this thing will go away anyway.”
- Zlochevsky told the CHS that “it’s too late to change his decision,” which the CHS understood to mean that “Zlochevsky had already paid the Bidens, presumably to ‘deal with Shokin.’”
- Shortly after President Donald Trump was elected but had not taken office yet, the CHS had a conference call with Zlochevsky. Zlochevsky said he was not happy about Trump’s win, and said that he did not want to pay the Bidens but he was “pushed to pay” them. Zlochevsky also stated that Shokin had already been fired, and no investigation was currently going on, and that nobody would find out about his financial dealings with the Bidens.
- Zlochevsky said he had many text messages and “recordings” that showed that he was coerced to make payments to the Bidens.
- In a 2019 call between the CHS and Zlochevsky, Zlochevsky said regarding payments to the Bidens that he did not send any funds directly to the “Big Guy (which CHS understood was a reference to Joe Biden).” Zlochevsky said it would take investigators 10 years to find the records (i.e. illicit payments to Joe Biden).
- On June 29, 2020, CHS said Zlochevsky had said he had a total of “17 recordings” involving the Bidens, two that included Joe Biden, and 15 that include Hunter Biden. The CHS also said that Zlochevsky stated he had “two documents (which CHS understood to be wire transfer statements, bank records, etc.), that evidence some payment(s) to the Bidens were made, presumably in exchange for Shokin’s firing.