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WASHINGTON — Newly declassified FBI files released Tuesday by Sen. Chuck Grassley reveal more bribery allegations involving former President Joe Biden and ex-first son Hunter Biden that may have never been fully investigated.
The files memorialize two interviews, in 2017 and 2019, with FBI sources who shared details about the Biden family being linked to a possible foreign bribery “scheme” with Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, according to copies reviewed by The Post.
The informants alleged that Zlochevsky sought to offer then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko $100 million in “shares and guaranteed profits from gas sales” to stop an “Interpol investigation” into Burisma — in which Joe and Hunter Biden had “money invested” via a Latvian “shell company.”
The sources 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 future 46th 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 one document, 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.”
The 2019 file further claimed that a 2016 reverse merger between Burisma and Texas-based CUB Energy Inc. was part of a lucrative venture involving Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and his business associates Devon Archer and Chris Heinz-Kerry — with Zlochevksy also among the beneficiaries.
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, 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.”
A note from the same source states that Russia’s foreign intelligence service was engaged in a “direct operation” to “penetrate the American Elite.”
In July 2023, Grassley (R-Iowa) 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 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 stated.
“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.”
The 2020 FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, was unmasked by an indictment from special counsel David Weiss, who also secured convictions of Hunter Biden on tax and gun charges. Smirnov pleaded guilty to lying about the $10 million bribe and was sentenced to six years in federal prison this past 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 also joined the board in 2014, received millions of dollars from Zlochevsky.
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 office, 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 CIA declined to comment, while reps for the Bidens and FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
