Thanks to Senator Grassley, we can take a look at the FBI’s suppressed — suppressed by the FBI! — FD-1023 in the matter of the Biden family business. John posted the document here. It makes for interesting reading. It is not merely a report of what Burisma insiders told a highly trusted FBI source, it is (or should be) a key investigative document that can be set against known facts and lead to additional information that confirms or refutes it.
What did the FBI do with it? That is the question that Senator Grassley asks. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the FBI buried it for some reason. What might the reason have been?
The FD-1023 refers to two $5 million payments to the Bidens. I can’t find anything in the known financial transactions that matches up with that so far. The FD-1023 itself explains that they won’t be easy to find (see quote below). What did the world’s foremost investigative agency do to find them? Senator Grassley would like to know.
I asked Biden corruption expert Peter Schweizer, author of Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win and other such deeply researched books, about the absence of the two $5M transactions in the documents obtained to date. Peter writes:
It’s not surprising we haven’t seen records of these payments. Recall that Burisma executives helped Hunter Biden set up a foreign bank account in Malta, as only recently reported. That bank does not appear on the list of bank records that have been released by the Oversight Committee.
I believe that Chairman Comer says they have financial records from only four of the 12 banks the Bidens are believed to have used. Also, I don’t believe they have subpoenaed Joe Biden’s bank records.
It is possible that the $5M to Hunter came in the form of the $1M per year that he received “serving” on the Burisma board. But it seems that the FD-1023 hints that the $5M payments were allegedly lump sum payments.
With that having been noted, let us draw on the work of the New York Post staff in ”’My dog is smarter than Hunter’ — key quotes from secret FBI file.” Those quotes plus one are inset in Victor Nava’s Post story “‘Ultimate white privilege guy’ Hunter Biden could be hit with 10 criminal referrals: Comer.” Here in bold are all the quotes the Post has pulled with the context supplied by the Post in italics:
In late 2015 or early 2016, the informant met with Vadym Pozharsky, chief financial officer of Burisma, who bragged about having Hunter Biden on the board.
“They hired Hunter Biden to ‘protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.’“
In 2016, the informant met with Mykola Zlochevsky, head of Burisma, shortly after Joe Biden had made a public statement about Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin being corrupt, and that he should be removed from office. Asked about Shokin’s investigation into Burisma:
“Zlochevsky replied something to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry Hunter will take care of all of those issues through his dad.’ [The informant] did not ask any further questions about what that specifically meant.”
The informant suggested Zlochevsky hire some attorney for $50,000 to ligate the case. Zlockevsky said:
“It costs 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden.”
The informant asked Zlochevsky why he didn’t hire some normal US oil and gas advisers:
“Zlochevsky made some comment that although ‘Hunter Biden was stupid, and his dog was smarter,’ Zlochevsky needed to keep Hunter Biden (on the board) ‘so everything will be okay.’”
The Bidens pressured him, Zlochevsky said.
“Zlochevsky stated he didn’t want to pay the Bidens and he was ‘pushed to pay’ them. . . . he [said] has many text messages and ‘recordings’ that show that he was coerced to make such payments.”
Asked whether Hunter Biden or Joe Biden told Zlochevsky he should retain Hunter Biden, Zlochevsky replied:
“They both did.”
Asked if he had any proof that he’d be “pressured” to pay the Bidens:
“Zlochevsky said he had a total of ‘17 recordings’ involving the Bidens; two of the recordings included Joe Biden, and the remaining 15 recordings only included Hunter Biden. [The informant] reiterated that, per Zlochevsky, these recordings evidence Zlochevsky was somehow coerced into paying the Bidens to ensure Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired.”
Asked about payments:
“Zlochevsky responded he did not send any funds directly to the ‘Big Guy’ (which [the informant] understood was a reference to Joe Biden). . . . Zlochevsky responded it would take them (investigators) 10 years to find the records (i.e. illicit payments to Joe Biden).”
The informant thought the story of the Burisma officials was credible.
“Given the pervasive necessity to bribe government officials in Ukraine and Russia, [the informant] did not perceive Pozharsky or Zlochevsky’s statements to be unusual, self-serving, or pretextual.”
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.