A confidential source provided information to the FBI in 2020 alleging that then-presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden were bribed to pressure Ukraine to remove a prosecutor investigating Burisma, the Ukrainian company that employed the younger Mr. Biden, according to a document made public on July 20.
The source said he traveled to Burisma’s office in Ukraine in 2015 or 2016 with a man named Oleksandr Ostapenko. During the meeting, Vadim Pojarskii, chief financial officer of Burisma, told the source that the company hired Mr. Hunter Biden “to protect [the company], through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”
Burisma contacted the source to seek assistance in buying a U.S. company to merge with in the hope that it could go public in the United States.
After an investigation of Burisma by Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was disclosed in 2016, the source told Mykola Zlochevsky, owner of Burisma, that the disclosure would have a negative effect on the prospective initial public offering. Mr. Zlochevsky replied that Mr. Hunter Biden “will take care of all of those issues through his dad,” according to the document.
Mr. Zlochevsky was also cited as saying that it cost $5 million to pay one Biden and $5 million to pay another Biden.
The source replied that payments to the Bidens would complicate matters and that the Bidens didn’t have experience with the oil and gas sector, according to the document. Mr. Zlochevsky said that despite his low opinion of Mr. Hunter Biden’s intelligence, Mr. Zlochevsky needed to keep him on the board “so everything will be okay.” He also said both Bidens had told him that Mr. Hunter Biden needed to remain on the board.
At about the same time, Mr. Joe Biden, U.S. vice president at the time, was pressuring Ukrainian officials to fire Mr. Shokin.
“‘We’re leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor’s not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Mr. Joe Biden said at a public event about the interaction, referring to a $1 billion loan guarantee he threatened to withhold. “Well, son of a [expletive]. He got fired.”
Mr. Shokin has said that the threat was cited when he was ousted. He said in a sworn statement that then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko asked him to resign because of “pressure from the U.S. presidential administration, in particular from Joe Biden.”
The FBI source told the bureau that he gleaned from the conversation that payments had already been made to the Bidens, presumably to deal with Mr. Shokin.
Released by Congress
The document was a summary of conversations between the FBI and the source. It was dated July 30, 2020. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) released it, with redactions, after receiving a copy from the FBI. The bureau initially refused to hand over the document but finally did so after the House moved to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt.
“Throughout the FBI’s engagements with Congress, we have been guided by our obligation to protect the physical safety of confidential human sources and the integrity of sensitive investigations. We have repeatedly explained to Congress, in correspondence and in briefings, how critical it is to keep this source information confidential,” an FBI spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.
Read More: FBI Source Provided Allegations That Joe Biden, Hunter Biden Received Bribes: Document
