The FBI’s No. 2 leader Tuesday defended the redactions of a confidential human source form that allegedly hid claims that a Ukrainian oligarch had 17 recordings with Joe and Hunter Biden.
FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and, although he studiously refused to divulge any specific information about the FD-1023 confidential human source form alleging a potential “criminal bribery scheme” between a Ukrainian businessman and then-Vice President Joe Biden, Abbate did defend the FBI’s redactions.
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“The document was redacted to protect the source,” Abbate told lawmakers.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) had revealed Monday on the Senate floor that a largely unredacted version of the FD-1023 he had reviewed revealed the “foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them — 17 such recordings.”
Amid the threat of being held in contempt of Congress by Rep. James Comer (R-KY) for failing to comply with a subpoena, FBI Director Christopher Wray allowed members of Comer’s House Oversight Committee to review the FD-1023 last Thursday, but that version had the claims related to the recordings blacked out.
Grassley said Monday, “These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot.”
Mykola Zlochevsky, the Ukrainian owner of Burisma, was the “foreign national” involved in the alleged “criminal bribery scheme” detailed in the FBI form, and Zlochevsky referred to Joe Biden as the “big guy” during a conversation several years before the June 2020 date of the bureau document, according to sources familiar with the FBI record who described its contents to the Washington Examiner.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) repeatedly pressed Abbate about the FBI’s redactions of the FD-1023 on Tuesday.
“Why did you decide to conceal the information in that revelation to the House Oversight Committee? Why did you redact all of that pertaining to the phone calls?” Blackburn asked, with Abbate largely filibustering by defending the integrity of the FBI in general terms while dodging the question.
“You chose not to reveal that the calls were there, and Sen. Grassley found it out anyway — is that accurate? You chose to redact it — yes or no?” Blackburn pressed.
“We often redact documents to protect sources and methods,” Abbate said.
“So you chose to redact the fact that there are 17 voice records, two of those with the now-president, you chose to redact that and not to give that to House Oversight,” Blackburn said. “Is that accurate?”
Abbate claimed that “I have no idea if there are voice recordings or not,” but “what I will tell you with respect to the document, the document was redacted to protect the source, as everyone knows — and this is a question of life and death, potentially.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) also pressed Abbate on Tuesday about the alleged bribery scheme, asking, “Is it true that the FBI has a report making those allegations.”
Abbate said, “I’m not going to comment on that, senator,” and, when asked why, added that “I’m just not going to comment on information we’ve received, investigations, or ongoing matters.”
“Do you owe an obligation to the American people to be candid about evidence of corruption by the president of the United States?” Cruz asked.
“This is an area that I’m not going to get into with you, senator,” Abbate said.
“Well, I understand you don’t want to, and that’s why people are mad at the FBI because you’re stonewalling and covering up serious allegations of evidence of corruption of the president,” Cruz contended, then asking, “Does the FBI have 17 voice recordings laying out a bribery scheme?”
Abbate again refused, saying, “I’m not going to comment on any investigative matters, senator.”
Cruz asked if the FBI investigated the allegations “in any way, shape, or form.”
Abbate again told Cruz that “I’m not going to comment on investigative matters.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware is handling the federal criminal investigation into Hunter Biden. It is allegedly up to U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump-appointed holdover, to decide whether to indict the president’s son. In February 2021, Joe Biden asked all Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys appointed by Trump for their resignations, with Weiss a rare exception.
“What is U.S. Attorney Weiss doing with respect to these alleged Joe and Hunter Biden recordings that are apparently relevant to the high-stakes bribery scheme?” Grassley asked Monday.
Sources previously told the Washington Examiner that the Burisma owner discussed an alleged bribe of $5 million to Joe Biden and of $5 million to Hunter Biden, according to the paid FBI informant who said he heard this from Zlochevsky. The sources said Zlochevsky said he believed it would be difficult to unravel the alleged bribery scheme for at least 10 years because of the number of bank accounts involved.
Zlochevsky’s alleged reference to Joe Biden as the “big guy” appears independent of the apparent reference to the now-president as the “big guy” by a Hunter Biden business associate during negotiations with Chinese intelligence-linked businessmen. The China-related reference occurred in a May 2017 email not made public until October 2020.
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Burisma became a hot-button issue when then-President Donald Trump referenced it in a July 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The call spurred a whistleblower complaint, which sparked Democratic-led impeachment proceedings in the House against Trump and an acquittal in the Senate.
Joe Biden said the bribery allegations were “a bunch of malarkey” when asked about them Thursday after he first quipped, “Where’s the money? I’m joking.”
