President Joe Biden mockingly called the House GOP revelation that he accepted a $5 million bribe from a Ukrainian energy company “malarkey.”
During a rare press conference Thursday, a reporter questioned Joe Biden about an FBI informant who allegedly possesses two pieces of evidence that show Biden received a bribe to fire a prosecutor probing the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.
“Congresswoman Nancy Mace says there’s damning evidence … that you sold out the country. Do you have a response to congressional Republicans?” the reporter asked.
“Where is the money?” Biden quickly responded. “I’m joking” he claimed.
“It’s a bunch of malarkey,” he said about the serious accusations.
On Thursday, House Oversight Committee Republicans told reporters after reviewing the bureau’s informant file in a secure area that an FBI informant claims to possess two pieces of evidence that show Joe Biden received a $5 million bribe to use U.S. foreign policy to get a Ukrainian prosecutor fired. In exchange, the House Republicans said the informant has two pieces of evidence that show Joe and Hunter Biden received $5 million each in small sums through separate bank accounts.
In 2015, Burisma was under suspicion of money laundering and public corruption. Prosecutor Victor Shokin investigated the case before his termination due to pressure applied by then-Vice President Joe Biden, who threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid from Ukraine if the Ukrainian government did not fire the prosecutor investigating Burisma.
He later bragged about the firing during a 2018 appearance at the Council of Foreign Relations.
“I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in’ … I think it was about six hours,” Biden told the audience. “I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
