The owner of a Ukrainian energy company told an FBI informant he paid President Joe Biden bribe money to get a prosecutor investigating his business fired, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said Thursday.
After viewing a document in a secure room in the U.S. Capitol, Greene explained to reporters that the allegations contained in the file describe potentially criminal behavior featuring a familiar controversy involving the president’s son, Hunter, and his employment on the board of Burisma Holdings.
Putting on a pair of glasses and looking at notes she jotted down, Greene said the “owner” of the energy company, who would be Mykola Zlochevsky, is the foreign national who allegedly told a paid FBI informant he sought to bribe the elder Biden at a time when he was vice president and spearheading U.S. policy in Ukraine.
I just read the FBI’s FD-1023 form implicating Joe Biden in a political bribery pay-to-play scheme.
Here’s what the American people deserve to know. pic.twitter.com/b3X8qh9MPf
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) June 8, 2023
This alleged scheme is a familiar one as it took center stage during the first impeachment case against former President Donald Trump: Biden sought to pressure Ukraine into firing top prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who had been conducting an anti-corruption investigation into Burisma, by threatening to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees.
The goal of Biden’s actions, as alleged by Trump and his allies, was to protect his son who reportedly was making millions of dollars between 2013 and 2018 while sitting on Burisma’s board for several years and participating in a joint venture with a Chinese tycoon.
Shokin did get forced out of office in 2016, but it was as the United States and its allies levied broad accusations that he was “turning a blind eye” to corrupt practices and for protecting the elite, as reported by The New York Times. That summer, Ukrainian officials announced there had been a $5 million bribe aimed at ending an investigation into the founder of Burisma Holdings, but anti-corruption prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky said “Biden Jr. and Biden Sr. do not appear in this particular proceeding,” according to Reuters.
Greene, who also goes by “MTG,” said she learned that Burisma hired Hunter Biden “to make the problems go away” and the owner said he was “stupid.” Ultimately, she said, the Burisma owner paid $5 million to one Biden and $5 million to another Biden in a bid to remove Shokin from office and end the investigation. The congresswoman said the informant’s information is not directly linked to Rudy Giuliani, who served as Trump’s personal lawyer, whose own ties to Ukraine have become a subject of inquiry.
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“It was all a bribery to get Shokin fired and end the investigation into Burisma,” Greene said, adding that the Burisma executive told the informant that he has “two pieces of evidence showing proof of payment to Hunter and specifically Joe Biden.”
Those “pieces of evidence” may be the two additional documents that House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said the FBI agreed to show him and ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) as part of an arrangement that stalled plans to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena.
In an announcement late Wednesday, Comer said a planned business meeting for Thursday, when the panel had been set to vote on contempt, was canceled after the bureau agreed to let all members of the committee view the FBI document containing the allegations.
Though the fight over his subpoena for a document with allegations of a $5 million bribery scheme between the elder Biden and a foreign national has been going on for more than a month, Comer did not divulge until this week the record pertained to Ukraine. Greene appears to be the first person to publicly confirm the allegations center on Burisma. The identity of the informant has not been disclosed.
While the FBI has warned against the dangers of revealing unverified information, the White House has been openly dismissive of the House Oversight Committee’s investigative effort, which has included the examination of suspicious activity reports (SARs) — used by financial institutions to flag possible criminal behavior — for the Biden family and their associates’ global business transactions across a network of suspected shell companies and bank accounts.
“This silly charade by Chairman Comer is yet another reminder that his so-called ‘investigations’ are political stunts not meant to get information but to spread thin innuendo and falsehoods to attack the President,” White House spokesperson Ian Sams said in a recent statement. Biden himself called it “a bunch of malarkey” when asked by a reporter to respond to allegations by Republicans.
“Where’s the money?”
— President Biden responds to congressional Republicans accusing him of bribery, calling it a “bunch of malarkey” pic.twitter.com/nS7cdKrtTY
— The Recount (@therecount) June 8, 2023
Fox News senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram also reported that a source familiar with the document reviewed by House Oversight Committee members told his news outlet: “To be clear, the document does not say Joe Biden received any payments.” A source also told Fox News that although the name of the Burisma executive was redacted in the document, it could be Zlochevsky.
Still, Hunter Biden’s financial affairs, among other issues, are under investigation by U.S. Attorney David Weiss in Delaware, where former Attorney General William Barr told The Federalist he relayed an inquiry into the bribery allegations. Comer said on Monday that information in the FBI document, which is an FD-1023 form, is “currently being used in an ongoing investigation.”
Greene said the informant is highly credible and the information this individual has brought forward warrants impeachment and prosecution.
“President Biden should be impeached. Secondly, he should be prosecuted. This is unbelievable. It’s a pay-to-play scheme. He took a bribe from a foreign national in a foreign country that paid millions of dollars,” Greene told the Daily Caller. “He needs to be prosecuted for this, and I would argue that he should serve jail time.”