WASHINGTON — Newly unclassified FBI files set to be released Tuesday by Sen. Chuck Grassley will reveal more bribery allegations involving former first son Hunter Biden and former President Joe Biden that may have never been fully investigated.
The files recorded two interviews in 2019 and 2017 with confidential bureau informants who shared details about the Biden family being linked to a possible foreign bribery “scheme” with the owner of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, Mykola Zlochevsky, according to copies reviewed by The Post.
The informants alleged that Zlochevsky sought to bribe then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko with $100 million to stop an “Interpol investigation” into him in exchange for “shares and guaranteed profits from gas sales,” including from Burisma, which Joe and Hunter Biden had “money invested into” via a Latvian “shell company.”
They also alleged that Joe Biden met directly with Poroshenko “to protect the interests” of his son and, by extension, Zlochevsky, who was paying Hunter around $1 million per year between May 2014 and April 2019 to serve on Burisma’s board.
The former vice president’s effort to protect Burisma’s owner was also allegedly supported by members of the US Intelligence Community.
“[T]wo CIA officers took Zlochevsky into the office of Yuriy Lutsenko, who is the Prosecutor General of Ukraine,” reads the first file, also known as an FD-1023, drawn from an in-person interview with a confidential human source on Feb. 21, 2019. Lutsenko served in that role from May 2016 to August 2019.
“The CIA officers allegedly said Zlochevsky is protected by the US and urged Lutsenko to stop the investigation on Zlochevsky and let him back into Ukraine. A deal was made, so Zlochevsky could pay $3 million in damages to get back Into Ukraine.”
That 2019 file further claimed that a reverse merger between Burisma and Texas-based CUB Energy Inc. three years prior was part of a lucrative bid — involving Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and his business associates Devon Archer and Chris Heinz-Kerry — that also benefitted Zlochevksy.
The business ties were a small part of a larger “money laundering scheme” involving Poroshenko, Victor Medvechuk, an emissary for Russia in Ukraine, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“There are hundreds of gas and energy companies in Ukraine operating under various names, which allow Russian money to flow through Ukraine,” the 2019 file alleges. “Medvechuk and his cohorts control 97% of them.”
The other FD-1023 form taken from a June 5, 2017, interview via Skype with an informant states: “JOSEPH BIDEN would ‘take care’ of BURISMA HOLDING issues around the World and POROSHENKO would protect ZLOCHEVSKY.”
Directly beneath the paragraph is a note from the same source that Russia’s foreign intelligence service (SVR) was engaged in a “direct operation” to “penetrate the American Elite.”
In July 2023, Grassley had released another FBI informant file from June 2020 that alleged Joe and Hunter Biden each took a $5 million bribe from Zlochevsky to “protect” Burisma from a corruption probe brought by Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin.
Biden as vice president pressured Ukrainian officials to fire Shokin in December 2015 by threatening to withhold up to $1 billion in US loan guarantees. The prosecutor was ousted months later by a vote of the nation’s parliament.
The Iowa Republican said in a Tuesday hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel that “to date, the FBI has never answered Congress whether they investigated the text messages, the audio files, and financial records referenced in that 1023.”
Grassley obtained the files from FBI whistleblowers and released them Tuesday in collaboration with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who chairs the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
“In total, we now have three different FBI confidential human sources providing information about the Biden family and potential criminal conduct,” Grassley’s remarks go on.
“Let me say this for the partisan media: We aren’t saying the allegations are true, we want to know what the FBI did to fully investigate their veracity or lack thereof, and what they concluded. Let’s put this matter to rest, one way or the other.”
That 2020 FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, was unmasked in an indictment from special counsel David Weiss’ case during the tax felony prosecution of Hunter Biden. Smirnov pleaded guilty to lying about the $10 million bribe and was sentenced to six years in federal prison last December.
President Trump’s DOJ revealed in court filings in April that it was putting under “review the government’s theory of the case underlying Defendant’s [Smirnov’s] criminal conviction.”
Grassley and Johnson were the first to investigate alleged Biden family influence peddling back in 2020, producing a report on the up to $83,333 per month Hunter banked sitting on Burisma’s board — despite having no relevant energy experience — as well as other strands of foreign revenue.
The then-second son was supposed to be advising the Ukrainian natural gas company about issues related to corporate governance and transparency, the Senate GOP report noted, while he and Archer, who joined the board in 2014 too, received millions of dollars from Zlochevsky, its “corrupt” owner.
The 87-page Senate report highlighted how Joe Biden was made the “public face of the administration’s handling of Ukraine” as vice president around the same time that Hunter and Archer joined Burisma’s board
After his father left the Obama White House, Hunter’s salary from Burisma was cut in half.
The Senate report also referenced a $142,300 wire transfer from a private holding company in Singapore through a Latvian bank to Archer’s company Rosemont Seneca Bohai “for a car.”
Bank statements from a House Republican investigation uncovered in 2023 that the transfer was from Kazakhstani businessman Kenes Rakishev for a luxury car — reportedly a Fisker that Hunter later traded in for a Porsche.
The Post reached out to the reps for the Bidens for comment. The CIA and FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
