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Iowa’s GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley on Thursday released an internal FBI document containing unverified allegations that President Joe Biden was involved in an illegal foreign bribery scheme.
FBI Previously allowed members The House Oversight Committee has privately seen — but not received — the unclassified FBI document known as FD-1023.
Republicans, including Grassley and House Oversight Chairman James Comer, have been pushing for the FBI to publicly release the document, which the bureau has refused to do. Comer threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt until the two sides reached a last-minute agreement.
Grassley said Thursday that he was able to release the document because of “legally protected disclosures by Justice Department whistleblowers,” though his move still drew strong public condemnation from the FBI.
Form 1023 recalls the claims of an FBI informant, but it does not provide proof that the allegations are true. Republicans, however, seized the unverified material as part of a broader investigation into Biden.
The FBI document notes that the informant provided information to federal investigators in June 2020, but describes meetings and conversations dating back to 2015.
The FBI document says an informant who described the meeting in 2016 said Mykola Slochevskiy, CEO of Ukrainian energy company Burysma, made two $5 million payments to “Bidens.”
“One Biden costs 5 (million), another Biden costs 5 (million),” Slochevsky told an FBI informant at a 2016 meeting in Vienna.
According to the FBI document, the informant, whom the FBI described as highly reliable, could offer no further comment on the veracity of the claims.
At the time of the informant’s meeting with Sloczewski, Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma, earning $50,000 a month. But there is no evidence that Joe Biden was involved in his son’s employment with the Ukrainian energy company or received any money.
FBI Responds to GOP Disclosure
“We have repeatedly explained to Congress, in correspondence and briefings, how important it is to keep this source information confidential. … Today’s release of 1023 — at the very least — unnecessarily jeopardizes the safety of a confidential source,” the FBI statement said.
House Democrats previously released a transcript of Sloczewski’s separate private comments to former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Barnas that contradicted the notion that he ever paid Joe Biden.
According to a transcript Barnas provided to Congress in January 2020, Slochevsky said that while Hunter Biden was on the board, “nobody from Burisma had any connection to VP Biden or any of the people working for him.” Sloczewski also said Joe Biden and his staff had no involvement in his company’s business dealings.
In statements to CNN, Comer accused the Justice Department of “seeking to bury this record to protect Biden,” and Grassley thanked “brave and heroic whistleblowers” for allowing the matter to go public.
CNN previously reported that the allegations surfaced in 1023 because Giuliani shared information with the Justice Department during the Trump administration. Then-Attorney General Bill Barr tapped former Pittsburgh U.S. Attorney Scott Brady to oversee the FBI’s investigation into various claims made by Giuliani.
Shortly after lawmakers viewed the FBI document in a classified document last month, some members are taking notes and publicly discussing what they’ve read, according to a letter obtained by CNN that violates an agreement that predates their viewing of the document, FBI Comer wrote.
“The conduct of some team members during the June 8 review was in flagrant disregard of our agreement and has the potential to cause serious harm,” the FBI wrote to Comer on June 9.
Before seeing the document last month, all members saw a statement from the FBI, which said, “While unclassified, these materials are of significant law enforcement value and sensitivity and should not be released without authorization because widespread distribution could cause physical harm to FBI sources or others.”
White House Press Secretary Ian Sams said in a statement to CNN, “It is remarkable that congressional Republicans, in their eagerness to go after President Biden regardless of the truth, continue to make claims that have been debunked for years.
Representative of Maryland. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said, “We are releasing this document in isolation. From the explanatory context Another apparently desperate attempt by a group of Republicans to revive old and debunked Giuliani-created conspiracy theories and distract from their continued failure to produce real evidence of the president’s wrongdoing. Risk to the security of FBI sources.”
The confidential human source, described by the FBI as highly credible, had only met Sloszewski once in person and spoke with Sloszewski twice on the phone, so he was “unable to express any further opinion” on the veracity of the claims made.
The informant told the FBI that Biden was allegedly bribed during conversations about how to handle the Ukrainian investigation into the Burisma scandal. For years, Republicans A false case has been filed Joe Biden abused his powers and fired the top Ukrainian prosecutor so the investigation would go away. Indeed, his actions are consistent with a bipartisan US policy that has sought to remove the attorney general because he did not do enough to curb corruption.
The informant said Sloczewski had texts and 17 audio tapes, two of which included Joe Biden, that showed he was forced to pay the Bidens, according to the documents. Many Republicans They have questioned the existence of those audio recordings – and to this day there is no evidence of records.
The FBI document sheds new light on how Burisma executives used Hunter Biden’s position on their board to get benefits from his father when he was vice president.
Slochevsky and another high-ranking Burisma official told an FBI informant that they thought Hunter Biden was unintelligent but wanted to keep him on their team because he “could protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of trouble,” the FBI document says.
This story has been updated with additional details.
