Biden dismisses ‘malarkey’ FBI tip claiming he played a role in Burisma bribe scheme: ‘Where’s the money?’
WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans who read an FBI informant file accusing President Biden of a role in a $10 million bribery scheme said Thursday that it involved the Ukrainian company Burisma — but Biden tauntingly retorted, “Where’s the money?”
“It’s a bunch of malarkey,” Biden told a Post reporter when asked about the bribery claim hours after FBI Director Christopher Wray agreed to let rank-and-file House Oversight Committee members read a June 2020 document in a bid to avoid being held in contempt.
Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) revealed details after reading the file at the Capitol. Both said Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky allegedly told an FBI source that he paid $5 million apiece to Hunter and then-Vice President Joe Biden in an attempt to shake off a corruption investigation.
“There [were] two separate transactions, one that went to Joe Biden for $5 million, one that went to Hunter Biden for $5 million,” Luna told Fox News correspondent Chad Pergram. “There’s no doubt in my mind that Joe Biden is guilty of bribery.”
“It was all a brib[e] to get [former Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor] Shokin fired,” Greene said of the allegations against the Bidens. Shokin was fired in March 2016 and Joe Biden has publicly boasted that he leveraged $1 billion in US aid to get him thrown out of office.
Greene, whose account was confirmed by a third Republican member of Congress who read the document Thursday, said the file also described how in 2015 and 2016, Burisma “was looking to buy a US-based oil and gas company, and this came from being advised by [first son] Hunter Biden and his partners.”
“Around the time of this meeting was when Joe Biden as vice president had said that the prosecutor Shokin was corrupt. They hired Hunter on the board to make the problems go away,” she said. “Hunter advised that they could raise more money if they bought a US company.”
It’s unclear which company Burisma considered buying, but the Ukrainian firm bought into a joint venture with American company Cub Energy in 2016 by acquiring a Canadian company’s shares.
Hunter Biden earned up to $1 million per year from 2014 to 2019 to serve on the board of Burisma, despite having no relevant industry experience.
Then-VP Joe Biden met with a Burisma executive at a DC dinner in April 2015 — with the meal forming the basis of The Post’s explosive first report on Hunter’s abandoned laptop.
“This is common practice in Russia, in Ukraine. It’s common practice, it’s part of business there. That’s how their culture works, that they will pay bribery money in order to get business deals done,” Greene said.
In a remarkable coincidence, Ukrainian authorities busted local officials for allegedly also accepting $5 million to end a probe of Zlochevsky in 2020, years after the money was allegedly paid to the Bidens, though Kyiv officials said that bust was unrelated to the US political family.
Greene said that the informant file describes how Zlochevsky told the FBI source he was not pleased with the result of the 2016 election, won by Donald Trump against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“He said no, he was not happy,” Greene claimed, reading from her notes. “Remember he had invested a lot of money into the Bidens to make his problems go away. He did say that it would take 10 years for all of us to find out the payments made to the Bidens because of how many bank accounts there were.”
Later, Zlochevsky allegedly “told the informant that he has two pieces of evidence showing proof of payment to Hunter and specifically Joe Biden.”
Luna and Greene did not clarify what precisely the informant file accuses President Biden of doing.
Biden’s response during a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stoked a backlash from Republicans.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said, “President Biden has lied repeatedly about his family’s business dealings. The allegations contained within the Biden bribery record track closely with [our] investigation into the Biden family’s influence peddling schemes.”
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) tweeted at Biden, “we don’t find selling out your country funny. Prove us wrong by releasing your and your family’s unredacted bank records. The FBI can’t protect you forever.”
Earlier in the day Mace read the file and said it has “damning evidence” that the commander-in-chief “sold out his country in an ongoing bribery scheme.”
“The allegations in this document are worse than has been reported so far,” Mace said in a statement.
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who also read the document Thursday, tweeted, “Joe, the money is hidden in the DOZENS of LLCs you & your family created to HIDE THE MONEY. You can run, but you can’t hide from House Republicans.”
The Oversight Committee has not yet acquired President Biden’s bank records and although Biden often boasts of releasing his personal tax returns, he has not revealed in detail the sources of more than $13 million in income that was routed through “S corporations” in 2017 and 2018.
Hunter wrote in emails retrieved from his former laptop that he had to share up to “half” of his income with his father, though Joe Biden has denied ever discussing business interests with his relatives.
The Oversight Committee subpoenaed bank records this year for some of first son Hunter Biden’s business partners and Comer last month described nine Biden family members who allegedly received foreign income. But the panel hasn’t yet acquired the bank records of Biden or his family.
Other wealthy post-Soviet businesspeople worked with Hunter Biden, including Russian oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov, who shopped for US property investments with the then-second son and allegedly explicitly described an expected quid pro quo to a colleague — as his cellphone company MTS was under federal investigation by the Obama-Biden Justice Department.
The Biden family’s links to Burisma have drawn scrutiny for years.
Then-Vice President Joe Biden allegedly pushed US support for Ukraine’s natural gas industry during a trip to Kyiv just days after Hunter quietly joined Burisma in April 2014. Later that year, Congress approved $50 million to support Ukraine’s energy sector, including the natural gas industry.
Obama administration visitor logs indicate Joe Biden met with Hunter’s partner Devon Archer, also on Burisma’s board, in April 2014.
Although Biden boasted of using US aid to pressure Ukraine to fire Shokin, House Democrats presented evidence at Trump’s 2020 impeachment trial that US allies had also advocated for the prosecutor’s ouster due to his own corruption.
During and immediately after his vice presidency, Joe Biden also interacted with Hunter and first brother James Biden’s associates from China, Mexico, Kazakhstan and Russia, according to laptop records, photos and witness recollections.
Comer and Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) read the FBI informant file accusing Biden of bribery on Monday, with Raskin claiming afterward that a preliminary review of the claim by federal investigators in 2020 resulted in no further action — though Comer said the FBI told him it was subject to an “ongoing” investigation and former Attorney General Bill Barr came forward to rebut Raskin’s claim the probe was “terminated.”
Comer said the 2020 informant file was based on information from a decade-long paid FBI source that emerged after a review of claims originally provided to the bureau in 2017. He and Raskin will be allowed by the FBI to review that document as well after Wray offered concessions to avoid potentially being held in contempt of Congress.
