A House lawmaker has revealed allegations in a previously undisclosed FBI memo that Biden family members were paid millions of dollars to help thwart a prosecutor investigating Ukrainian energy company Burisma when the firm gave a lucrative job to Hunter Biden.
According to a paid FBI informant considered “trusted” and “highly credible,” a foreign national told him he provided $5 million to the vice president’s son, Hunter Biden, and another $5 million to a second, unidentified Biden family member.
The foreign national’s alleged payments were to solicit Mr. Biden’s help in removing Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma.
“It was all bribery, to get Shokin fired and end the investigation into Burisma,” the informant told the FBI in the memo.
Nobody would find out about the Biden family payments for at least a decade, the foreigner told the informant, “because of how many bank accounts there were.”
President Biden said Thursday that allegations that he took bribes from foreigners are “malarkey.”
“Where’s the money? I’m joking. It’s a bunch of malarkey,” Mr. Biden said at the end of a press conference with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
The president defended the independence of the Justice Department as it targets former President Donald Trump in two separate investigations.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Republican and a member of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, revealed details of the FBI informant’s allegations. The FBI granted lawmakers access to the memo Thursday in a secure room in the basement of the Capitol. No recording equipment or note-taking was allowed, but Ms. Greene said she quickly memorized what she read from the memo to report details to news media.
The bribery scheme took place in 2015 and 2016, the informant said, when Burisma was “looking to buy a U.S.-based oil and gas company” and wanted to “make the problems go away” with Mr. Shokin.
Ms. Greene said the informant revealed that the foreigner said he had “two pieces of evidence showing proof of payment to Hunter and, specifically, Joe Biden.”
The revelations in the FBI document provide new details about allegations circulating for years that Mr. Biden worked to get Mr. Shokin fired on behalf of Hunter Biden, who at the time was paid a million-dollar annual salary to serve on Burisma’s board.
“They hired Hunter on the board to make the problems go away. That’s what they specifically said,” Ms. Greene said the informant reported in the memo. “Hunter advised that they could raise more money if they bought a U.S. company.”
A high-level source familiar with the FBI document confirmed to The Washington Times that the information Ms. Greene provided Thursday is accurate.
Ms. Greene said the information she read in the memo was “shocking.”
For months, the oversight panel has been investigating the Biden family’s foreign business deals and a web of businesses and bank accounts. Republican investigators suspect the bank accounts were opened to hide a pay-for-play scheme involving President Biden that dates back more than a decade.
Bank records reveal that Biden family members and business associates received millions of dollars in foreign payments from China, Romania and other countries.
Some of the early allegations regarding the Burisma bribes came from Rudolph W. Giuliani, a close ally of former President Donald Trump. Democrats say Mr. Shokin was fired without Mr. Biden’s involvement as a result of his failure to prosecute corruption cases.
Mr. Biden boasted about his effort to get Mr. Shokin removed during a Jan. 23, 2018, appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Mr. Biden said he threatened then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that the U.S. would withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if he did not fire Mr. Shokin.
“If the prosecutor is not fired, you are not getting the money,” Mr. Biden said he told Mr. Poroshenko.
The oversight panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, dismissed the allegations against Mr. Biden. He said the FBI memo contains lies provided by Mr. Giuliani that the FBI has rejected as groundless.
“The Department of Justice team of prosecutors and FBI agents under U.S. Attorney Scott Brady determined that there were no grounds to escalate their probe from an initial assessment of the allegations surfaced by Rudy Giuliani to a preliminary or full-blown investigation and that it was therefore closed down,” Mr. Raskin said.
Mr. Giuliani is not the source of the information, panel Chairman James Comer, Kentucky Republican, told The Washington Times.
Mr. Comer said the investigation has not closed down and pointed to media interviews with former Attorney General William Barr, who said Mr. Raskin was incorrect and that the bribery allegations were forwarded to the U.S. attorney in Delaware.
“The allegations contained within this record are not closed as the White House and Democrats would have the American people believe,” Mr. Comer said. “Former Attorney General Barr confirmed this information was sent to the U.S. attorney in Delaware for further investigation and the FBI has confirmed it is being used in an ongoing investigation. We also know the confidential human source who provided this information is highly credible and trusted, has worked with the FBI for over a decade and has been paid six figures.”
Mr. Biden has repeatedly denied any knowledge of or involvement in his family’s business deals.
A White House spokesperson said Republicans were wasting their time on an investigation without merit.
“Congressional Republicans, led by House oversight committee Chairman James Comer and his committee, have spent six months wasting taxpayer resources to stage politically motivated stunts disguised as ‘investigations,’” said Ian Sams, White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations.
The FBI decided to provide the memo after Mr. Comer threatened to hold a committee vote Thursday to hold FBI Director Christopher A. Wray in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn it over.
That vote has now been canceled.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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