House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) criticized Sen. Chuck Grassley‘s (R-IA) decision to release an unverified FBI-generated FD-1023 in which a Ukrainian energy executive alleges to an FBI informant that he partook in a $5 million bribery scheme involving both Hunter Biden and then Vice President Joe Biden.
Raskin called the decision to release the document a “desperate attempt by Committee Republicans to revive the aging and debunked Giuliani-framed conspiracy theories.” He also claimed that releasing the document goes against the FBI’s wishes to keep it secret in order to ensure the safety of the FBI informant and the confidential human source.
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“Releasing this document in isolation from explanatory context is another transparently desperate attempt by Committee Republicans to revive the aging and debunked Giuliani-framed conspiracy theories and to distract from their continuing failure to produce any actual evidence of wrongdoing by the President,” he said.
In the document, a confidential human source alleges to an FBI informant that both Bidens were paid $5 million by the head of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma to pressure the Ukrainian government to fire Viktor Shokin, a prosecutor who was allegedly investigating Burisma.
It also alleges that there are recordings of the alleged bribery acts.
Mykola Zlochevsky, the head of Burisma, where Hunter Biden sat on the board, told an FBI informant in 2016 that “it costs (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden.”
“Zlochevsky made some comment that although Hunter Biden ‘was stupid, and his (Zlochevsky’s) dog was smarter,’ Zlochevsky needed to keep Hunter Biden (on the board) so everything will be okay.”
In his statement, Raskin claimed that these are the same allegations Rudy Giuliani attempted to uncover leading up to the 2020 Presidential Election.
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“Mr. Zlochevsky was at the center of a pressure campaign by Rudy Giuliani in 2019 and 2020 on behalf of then-President Trump, during which Mr. Zlochevsky was interviewed and directly denied these allegations,” Raskin said.
The Maryland Democrat is referring to a transcript that Lev Parnas, a former associate of Giuliani, provided to Congress in which Zlochevsky denied any allegations of wrongdoing on behalf of the Bidens and Burisma telling Parnas in response to a list of questions he had sent over, “No one from Burisma ever had any contacts with VP Biden or people working for him during Hunter Biden’s engagement.”
