Iowa’s Chuck Grassley releases FBI memo with unverified claims alleging Biden bribery scheme

Iowa Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley on Thursday released an unclassified FBI record containing raw and unverified information describing an alleged — and discredited — criminal bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden and a Ukrainian energy executive when Biden was vice president.

The document — an FD-1023 form used by the FBI to log unverified accounts from confidential human sources — was previously shared with some members of Congress last month after Republicans threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress if he did not turn over the form.

Fd 1023 Obtained by Senator Grassley - Biden by Gazetteonline on Scribd

Members of the House Oversight Committee viewed a redacted form of the document June 8 after the committee’s chair, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., subpoenaed the FBI to provide the document. Grassley and Comer, though, pushed the FBI to release the full, unredacted document to the public.

Grassley released a fuller, less-redacted copy of the document provided under legally protected disclosures by Justice Department whistleblowers, according to his office.

“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. “ … The Justice Department and FBI have failed to come clean, but Chairman Comer and I intend to find out.”

FBI officials have said that releasing the document could jeopardize other FBI investigations and the trust of confidential sources.

“In the face of these significant concerns, the FBI negotiated a resolution with Chairman Comer to provide the information requested in a manner that protects the safety of confidential sources and integrity of investigations,” the FBI responded in a statement sent to The Gazette. “... Today’s release of the 1023 — at a minimum — unnecessarily risks the safety of a confidential source.”

The allegations contained in the document were investigated by the Department of Justice under former President Donald Trump's Attorney General William Barr as part of an investigation into allegations of bribery brought by Trump’s then-personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.

The Justice Department found no supporting evidence of the claim and closed the investigation in August 2020, according to a statement from Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee.

Barr denies closing the investigation, and told The Federalist last month the information was ultimately forwarded to the U.S. attorney in Delaware.

Republicans have questioned whether the federal prosecutor followed up on the allegations.

The FBI form states the source “is not able to provide” information “as to the veracity” of claims related to alleged bribery.

The allegation

The FBI document details conversations the confidential source had with Mykola Zlochevsky, president of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, and a top Burisma executive over the course of several years starting in late 2015 or early 2016.

It alleges Zlochevsky paid $5 million to both Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, the president’s son who was a Burisma board member, to avoid a corruption investigation by then-Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

At the time, Burisma was seeking to do business in the United States, and company executives were reportedly concerned the investigation would jeopardize their U.S. plans. The prosecutor, however, had already stopped investigating.

In early 2016, Biden did push Ukraine to fire the prosecutor charged with investigating Burisma. Obama-Biden administration officials testified in Trump's first impeachment inquiry that Biden pushed for the firing due to concerns the Ukrainian prosecutor went easy on corruption, and said that his firing, at the time, was the policy position of the U.S. and international community. European leaders also considered the prosecutor ineffective.

The White House, in a statement, said the entire premise for the allegations included in the document have been scrutinized and long disproved.

GOP doubts

Republican members of Congress themselves have also cast doubt on the legitimacy of the claims contained in the FBI form.

Wisconsin Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, who authored a Senate report on Hunter Biden along with Grassley, told conservative radio show host Vicki McKenna last month the allegations against Biden and information in the FBI form should he taken "with a grain of salt."

"This could be coming from a very corrupt oligarch who could be making this stuff up,“ Johnson said in response to purported audio recordings that show Zlochevsky was coerced into paying the Bidens in the alleged bribery scheme.

“Until you hear the audiotapes, until you know what the FBI did to investigate it, again, you have to suspend your judgment until you know more,” Johnson said.

Politico reported in 2020 that Zlochevsky said on the record that President Biden not only had never assisted him or Burisma, but had never even spoken with him.

The Associated Press has called the claims “widely discredited” and “false.”

“It is remarkable 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 have cautioned to take ‘with a grain of salt’ because they could be ‘made up,’ ” White House spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement to The Gazette.

Republicans, though, point to the allegations as evidence of a "two-tiered" justice system, one where former President Donald Trump faces a federal indictment over his handling of classified documents, and another where the FBI ignored allegations against Biden.

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com