I have argued for more than four years that Joe Biden’s infamous on-camera brag in which he threatened Ukraine into firing the lead prosecutor investigating Burisma looked very much like an extortion and bribery scheme. Why? Because Hunter Biden was on the energy company’s payroll pocketing millions for doing nothing except exerting his father’s influence. Together, the duo appeared to have worked a lucrative scam by leveraging dad’s power as Vice President to enrich the Bidens.
On Thursday, the heretofore secret FBI document known as an FD-1023 form was publicly revealed by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. He obtained it from whistleblowers at the Department of Justice where it had been buried since June of 2020 by those seeking to protect Biden in his bid for the presidency. The document was unclassified, so there was never any legal reason to conceal it from Congress or the American public.
In it, a confidential human source (CHS) —long regarded by the FBI as trusted and “highly credible”— offered first-hand knowledge of a bribery scam that was designed to net the Bidens $10 million dollars. Beginning in 2015, the source met numerous times over several years with senior Burisma officials, including its CEO, Mykola Zlochevsky.
The source learned the following information: Burisma, a natural gas giant in Ukraine, wanted to expand its holdings abroad by purchasing a large energy company in the United States. However, it had a serious problem that needed eliminating. Burisma was under investigation by the top Ukrainian Prosecutor General, Viktor Shokin, who was uncovering rampant corruption at the company. If Shokin exposed their shady practices, it would scuttle any bid by Burisma to enter the U.S. energy market.
Enter Joe and Hunter Biden.
The then-Vice President’s son, who had no experience whatsoever in the energy industry and did not even speak the national language, was hired to sit on the company’s board of directors. He was given an absurdly inflated compensation package that ran into the millions of dollars. Zlochevsky told the CHS that Hunter Biden was retained “so that everything will be okay” and that the Shokin probe “will go away.”
And that is precisely what happened.
On a visit to Ukraine, Joe Biden threatened government leaders that, as Vice President in charge of U.S. foreign policy in Ukraine, he would withhold $1 billion in American financial aid unless prosecutor Shokin was canned. By his own admission during a pompous televised interview, Biden gave the Ukrainians a six-hour deadline before his plane departed. “Son of a bitch, he was fired,” boasted Joe.
Zlochevsky complained to the CHS that he’d been “coerced” by the Bidens and “pushed to pay” them $10 million. “It cost 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden,” he said. What the Biden’s didn’t know, according to the source, is that the Burisma CEO had surreptitiously recorded 17 “telephonic” conversations with the Bidens as they negotiated their bribery demands. Two of the tapes involve Joe, and 15 were with Hunter. There are also said to be text messages confirming the Biden demands.
None of the payments went directly to the “Big Guy,” explained Zlochevsky. Then he added, “It would take them (investigators) 10 years to find the records (of illegal payments to Joe Biden).” All of this is found in the FD-1023 form.
It has already been established that Hunter set up a complex web of shell companies and LLCs to handle the flow of overseas cash. But there is also an indication in the FBI document that cryptocurrency may have been used to convey the Burisma payola to the Bidens.
Whether Joe personally received any of the payments is, under the law, irrelevant. It’s a crime to use your public office to confer a benefit on a foreign entity or government in exchange for something of value to your family —money. It’s called bribery, conspiracy, and a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
The term “coercion” in the FD-1023 also supports extortion. But that’s not all. If the money was funneled through the aforementioned shell companies for the purpose of concealing its origin and purpose, that would constitute money laundering and tax fraud, not to mention racketeering.
On Thursday, the White House claimed that it has all been previously “debunked.” It has not.
Democrats chimed in by asserting that then-Attorney General Bill Barr closed the investigation in 2020 for lack of evidence. That is completely untrue, as confirmed by Barr himself in recent public statements. The AG sent the case to the U.S. Attorney for Pittsburgh who reportedly found additional incriminating evidence that the FBI either overlooked or deliberately ignored.
Regrettably, the case was then forwarded for action to the Delaware U.S. Attorney, which is where all Biden corruption cases go to die. That office appears to have done nothing. IRS whistleblowers testified this week that they were prevented from investigating the contents of the FBI document.
Meanwhile, the bureau worked to conceal the FD-1023 —yet another example of the FBI’s efforts to protect the Bidens. And they’re still at it.
But there’s always a paper trail. There are documents that Congress can locate such as wire transfers, bank records, text and email messages, and maybe the purported voice recordings involving Hunter and his father.
Were the Bidens selling out their country? It certainly looks like it. Remember, bribery and treason are impeachable offenses, in addition to felonies. So, this is a blockbuster scandal that could doom Biden’s presidency.
