The Ukrainian executive involved in recent allegations about President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, allegedly kept 17 audio recordings of his conversations with them for “insurance,” according to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
Speaking on the Senate floor on June 12, Grassley cited an FBI informant’s report that he and members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee were permitted to view last week as the source of the new allegations.
According to Grassley, the document, an FBI form FD-1023, had a redacted reference to the recordings, which allegedly include 15 phone conversations between the Ukrainian gas executive and Hunter Biden and two phone calls between him and then-Vice President Joe Biden.
‘Political Infection’
Grassley was the first member of Congress to be made aware of the FD-1023 report’s existence from a whistleblower’s disclosures. He then shared the information with Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who is spearheading a probe of the Biden family’s business dealings.Initially, the FBI declined to produce the document at their request, prompting a congressional subpoena. After Comer threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress, Wray agreed to allow Grassley and the committee to view the document in a secure facility.
On the Senate floor, Grassley noted that the document he and Comer reviewed had fewer redactions than the version shown to the other committee members. But as the FD-1023 form is an unclassified document, he wondered why redactions were considered necessary.
“Director Wray placed redactions on a document that’s already unclassified. … More than that, the FBI made Congress review a redacted, unclassified document in a classified facility. That goes to show you the disrespect that the FBI has for Congress.”
The senator also questioned whether the case was being adequately investigated.
‘Deeply Troubling’
After reviewing the informant’s report, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said on June 8 that the allegations it contained were “nothing short of deeply troubling.”According to Greene, the report detailed how Burisma Holdings, on the advice of board member Hunter Biden, had considered buying a U.S.-based oil and gas company in 2015 while under investigation by Viktor Shokin, the then-prosecutor general of Ukraine.
But the paid FBI informant, an advisor to Burisma, urged the company to disregard that advice.
“The informant was trying to do the right thing,” Greene said. “The informant was trying to advise Burisma that they shouldn’t go this route, they should hire an attorney, work out their problems that they were being investigated for because they were having other legal problems, and that’s why they were being investigated by this investigator Shokin.”
The informant also alleged that the younger Biden was hired in 2014 to “make the problems go away” with Shokin.
The prosecutor was eventually fired in April 2016 amid allegations of corruption. His exit came about one month after then-Vice President Joe Biden threatened to cut off $1 billion in guaranteed loans to Ukraine unless Shokin was sacked.
According to Greene, the informant also alleged that the owner of Burisma paid $5 million to Hunter Biden and $5 million to “another Biden” for the sole purpose of securing Shokin’s ouster.
The executive also allegedly said it would take 10 years for the American public to find out about the payments to the Bidens “because of all the bank accounts.”
At a press conference in May, members of the House Oversight Committee disclosed that they had discovered $10 million in foreign payments to members of the Biden family through a network of shell companies.
The Burisma executive also told the informant that he had two pieces of evidence “showing proof of payment to Hunter and, specifically, Joe Biden,” Greene said.
Calling the report’s contents “shocking,” the congresswoman said the Oversight Committee would continue investigating the allegations.
Chairman Comer said the FBI has confirmed the existence of other FD-1023s related to the case.
