The FBI demanded the House Oversight Committee keep the bureau’s unclassified FD-1023 form confidential before its release by Republicans on Thursday.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said he released the form upon acquiring it by legally protected disclosures from Justice Department whistleblowers.
The form contains FBI informant allegations of wrongdoing by then-Vice President Joe Biden. Specifically, it alleges that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden each received $5 million from Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Burisma Holdings, after Joe Biden threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine until then-President Petro Poroshenko fired a prosecutor investigating Burisma.
It also confirms Breitbart News’s reporting that the FBI’s informant conveyed that Hunter and Joe Biden allegedly “coerced” the Burisma executive into paying them $10 million in bribes, along with Grassley’s claim the FBI informant said Zlochevsky kept 17 audio recordings of his conversations with Hunter and Joe Biden as an “insurance policy.”
Ukrainian businessman and founder of the Burisma Holdings company, Mykola Zlochevsky during a media conference. (Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The FBI says the form was not corroborated by the bureau before its public release and “expressly” did “not consent to the materials’ public disclosure or further dissemination,” and that “the contents of the materials should not be discussed or shared in any form with anyone beyond Members and staff,” according to a disclaimer obtained by the Hill.
“Throughout the FBI’s engagements with Congress, we have been guided by our obligation to protect the physical safety of confidential human sources and the integrity of sensitive investigations,” the FBI said in a statement. “We have repeatedly explained to Congress, in correspondence and in briefings, how critical it is to keep this source information confidential,” the FBI said in a Thursday statement.
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“The safeguards the FBI placed on the production of this information are necessary to protect the safety of confidential sources and the integrity of sensitive investigations,” the statement continued. “Today’s release of the 1023 — at a minimum — unnecessarily risks the safety of a confidential source.”
Despite the FBI’s claims, lawmakers disclosed the form with redactions, such as who the FBI informant is and additional sensitive information.
The FBI previously allowed lawmakers to review the unclassified document in June after much arm-twisting by House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY). Though a select number of lawmakers reviewed the form, it remained hidden from the public, raising concerns that Joe Biden could be compromised.
Joe Biden claims he did not accept the $5 million bribe from Burisma. When a reporter questioned Joe Biden about the alleged $5 million payment, he jokingly responded, “Where’s the money?”
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Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.