Then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden allegedly “coerced” Burisma co-founder and CEO Mykola Zlochevsky into paying them millions of dollars each in exchange for pressuring the Ukrainian government to fire prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the company.
The accusations are contained in unclassified FBI documents that were released on Thursday by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). Grassley obtained the FBI-generated FD-1023 from “legally protected disclosures by Justice Department whistleblowers,” he said in a statement.
Zlochevsky allegedly told the FBI’s confidential human source (CHS) that during a meeting in August 2016 it cost him “5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another.”
Zlochevsky allegedly said that it was “too late to change his decision,” which CHS understood as meaning that Zlochevsky “already had paid the Bidens, presumably to ‘deal with Shokin’.”
An addendum to the report from June 2020 says that Zlochevsky told CHS that he had “17 recordings” involving his interactions, including two with Joe Biden. The other 15 were with Hunter Biden.
The recordings allegedly show evidence that Zlochevsky “was somehow coerced into paying the Bidens to ensure Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired.”
In a phone call shortly after the 2016 presidential election, Zlochevsky allegedly told CHS that he didn’t want to pay the Bidens but he was “pushed to pay” them.
CHS said that Zlochevsky used the Russian term “poluchili” to describe the alleged payments, the FBI form said. The term “literally translates to ‘got it’ or ‘received it’, but is also used in Russian-criminal-slang for being ‘forced or coerced to pay.'”
Zlochevsky allegedly told CHS that no one would find out about his financial dealings with the Bidens.
In 2019, Zlochevsky told CHS that he did not send funds directly to the “Big Guy”, who CHS understood to mean Joe Biden.
Zlochevsky told CHS that it would take investigators a decade to find the alleged illicit payments to Joe Biden.
CHS told the FBI that it was common for businessmen in post-Soviet countries to brag about making bribes, which are “extremely common” in Russia and Ukraine.
This report has been updated to include additional information.