Oversight Dems argue GOP overlooked information undercutting Biden allegation

A Ukrainian oligarch who ran the energy company that hired Hunter Biden to serve on its board told associates of Rudy Giuliani that Burisma never had any contacts with then-Vice President Biden while his son worked at the company.

The conversation with Mykola Zlochevsky, part of the package of information received by lawmakers during former President Trump’s first impeachment, was highlighted by the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee as evidence undercutting a GOP-led probe into an alleged bribery scheme.

“Mr. Zlochevsky’s statements are just one of the many that have debunked the corruption allegations against President Biden that were first leveled by Rudy Giuliani and have been reviewed by former President Trump’s own Justice Department,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) wrote in a letter to House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.).

The clash between the panel’s two parties rests on a series of unverified tips.

Under the Trump administration, the FBI and Justice Department were unable to corroborate a tip from a confidential source relaying a conversation heard secondhand that alleged Biden, while vice president, accepted a bribe. Comer has based much of his investigation on this tip, memorized in a FD-1023 form used by the FBI to document such interactions.

Raskin’s letter resurfaces a conversation with Zlochevsky — one arranged through a series of Giuliani associates in which the oligarch speaks of his decision to hire Hunter Biden.

“No one from Burisma ever had any contacts with VP Biden or people working for him during Hunter Biden’s engagement,” Zlochevsky says in the exchange, which appears to be with Vitaly Pruss, whom the letter describes as “another long-time associate of Mr. Giuliani who was a close friend of Mr. Zlochevsky.”

However, the conversation was turned over to Giuliani by Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian who was later convicted of making illegal campaign contributions to former President Trump. 

Zlochevsky also answered “no” when asked if then-Vice President Biden or his staff “assisted you or your company in any way with business deals or meetings with world leaders or any other assistance.”

Raskin argues the information shows that Zlochevsky “squarely rebutted” allegations that are at the core of the GOP probe.

“As part of the impeachment inquiry against then-President Trump, Congress learned that Mr. Zlochevsky, the Ukrainian oligarch and the owner of Burisma, whom Republican Committee Members appear to have identified as the source of the allegations memorialized in the Form FD-1023, squarely rebutted these allegations in 2019,” he wrote.

“Despite being interviewed as part of a campaign by Mr. Giuliani and his proxies in 2019 and 2020 to procure damaging information about the Biden family, Mr. Zlochevsky explicitly and unequivocally denied those allegations.”

Raskin, however, also pointed to comments from Trump-era Attorney General Bill Barr that there “are a lot of agendas in the Ukraine, there are a lot of cross-currents, and we can’t take anything we receive from the Ukraine at face value.”

Comer has called on the FBI to release the form that lawmakers reviewed in a secure location weeks ago.

“If Ranking Member Raskin thinks there is nothing to the FD-1023 form, then he should join us in calling on the FBI to make it public,” Comer said.

“This unclassified record stands on its own and memorializes a confidential human source’s conversations with a Burisma executive dating back to 2015. The Burisma executive claims then-Vice President Biden solicited and received a $5 million bribe in exchange for certain actions.” 

In the conversation, Zlochevsky also says that they never asked Hunter Biden to make any outreach to the State Department.

“We never approved or asked him to conduct those meetings on behalf of Burisma,” he says.

Still, he makes clear that Hunter Biden’s hiring, as well as that of his former business partner Devon Archer, was part of an effort to help strengthen ties between Burisma and the international community.

“We wanted to [b]uild Burisma as international company. It was very important to have strong board. So when we review resumes of biden and archer they both had great resumes. We also thought it would help in Ukraine to have strong international board figures with great relationships in the United States and Europe,” Zlochevsky says.

“We believe it was worth it. It had it own advantages and disadvantages. But it general we believe our company benefited greatly from this relationship.”