In recent weeks, and especially since former President Donald Trump was arraigned on federal charges of willfully mishandling classified documents, Republicans and right-wing media have been running wild with unsubstantiated claims about a foreign bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden.
The story really grew legs in the conservative media ecosphere this week when Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) hyped up the potential existence of “audio tapes” proving Biden accepted a $5 million bribe from a Ukrainian energy company while he was vice president. Citing an FD-1023, an FBI document memorializing a tip from a confidential source, Grassley noted that a source told the feds in 2020 that a Burisma executive claimed to be in possession of 17 recordings of Biden and his son Hunter discussing the criminal scheme.
“According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between him and then-Vice President Joe Biden,” Grassley said from the Senate floor on Monday. “These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot. The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden.”
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He added: “So, as I’ve repeatedly asked since going public with the existence of the 1023, what, if anything, has the Justice Department and FBI done to investigate?”
Yet, while top GOP lawmakers have breathlessly promoted these purported tapes as an absolute bombshell proving the corruption of the president and his family, they’ve simultaneously acknowledged that these recordings may not exist at all and could be “just a bluff.”
At the same time, despite his colleagues being forced to admit there may not be any recordings, Grassley has expressed hope that Trump is proud of him for pushing so hard for a Biden probe. “Well I hope he thinks I’m doing good work,” Grassley said on a conservative podcast on Wednesday. “I’d like to have him think that of my oversight work.”
However, Grassley also told Fox News earlier this month that “it’s not for me to make a judgment about whether these accusations are accurate or not,” adding that it’s his “job to make sure the FBI is doing their job.”
Meanwhile, during an appearance on the right-wing talk radio show Conservative Circus, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) was asked by the host whether or not the FBI ever “bothered to listen to the tapes,” prompting Johnson to point out that this was secondhand information given to the bureau.
“Well again, we don’t know really if the tapes exist, we just don’t know that, whether this was just a bluff on the part of whoever the executive was,” the Wisconsin lawmaker said on Wednesday.
This followed up a Tuesday interview on the Vicki McKenna Show in which Johnson simultaneously claimed, “We know the Biden family is corrupt” and that there may not be any tapes at all.
“Well, first of all, we don’t know it exists. I don’t know the FBI has that,” Johnson said after host Vicki McKenna asked, “When are we going to hear” the tapes? “All we know is what’s on that 1023. This is a confidential human source who told them that his source, we believe it’s [Mykola] Zlochevsky, the CEO of Burisma who is trying to rehabilitate himself, we believe he is the guy who is claimed to have made recordings. Again it’s a claim. It’s an allegation. We don’t know if they really exist or not.”
Some Republicans have suggested that Zlochevsky is the foreign national who spoke with the FBI source about the bribery claims and supposed audio tapes.
Notably, the FD-1023 at the center of these latest allegations appeared to be an attempt by ex-Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to rehash the wild Ukrainian goose chase that led to Trump’s first impeachment. Additionally, while Giuliani tried to get Zlochevsky to assist in his dirt-digging operation against the Bidens in 2019, the Burisma founder only affirmed to the former New York City mayor that he never had any conversations with Joe Biden.
“No one from Burisma ever had any contacts with VP Biden or people working for him during Hunter Biden’s engagement,” Zlochevsky reportedly said at the time, ultimately leaving Giuliani unsatisfied.
Other top Republicans have also followed Johnson’s lead in acknowledging that there could be no recordings while speaking to credulous right-wing media figures hoping this is the smoking gun leading to Biden’s impeachment.
“We don’t know for sure if these tapes exist,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) told radio host Chris Salcedo on Tuesday.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), who has been the driving force behind the Biden investigations, also admitted on Tuesday that “we don’t know if they are legit or not.”
Comer, of course, threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress if he didn’t make the FD-1023 available to the public. In the end, Comer withdrew his complaint after the FBI allowed members of Congress to securely view the document.
Ultimately, despite the over-the-top)" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://twitter.com/RepNancyMace/status/1668662912284782592__;!!LsXw!TtCnW9nSQ56cco2b_-N6xjk3rueNuotQubnFLyCTnsElDq-VsM_MbLpTn8XTiPHMoQyfhPZ3N2JO-N9H9ME5VQIbPDsnTr-3iLcL$">over-the-top claims)" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://twitter.com/RepMattGaetz/status/1666960586691735553__;!!LsXw!TtCnW9nSQ56cco2b_-N6xjk3rueNuotQubnFLyCTnsElDq-VsM_MbLpTn8XTiPHMoQyfhPZ3N2JO-N9H9ME5VQIbPDsnTmGg3ba8$">claims made by Republicans)" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://twitter.com/EliseStefanik/status/1666964402652823552__;!!LsXw!TtCnW9nSQ56cco2b_-N6xjk3rueNuotQubnFLyCTnsElDq-VsM_MbLpTn8XTiPHMoQyfhPZ3N2JO-N9H9ME5VQIbPDsnTpWiuZ0y$">Republicans about the FBI source’s 2020 tip, multiple)" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/05/james-comer-christopher-wray-contempt-congress/__;!!LsXw!UEaIq19k33jXJ1Ck_ghY_3si9n8cf1bKcO6-XL2FOdf5Yr_iF2A-3q5NvTdP_kTM6AKZCp5-tarj7pTPEwh6YAnQNqcKcHjjXw-5$">multiple mainstream)" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/rep-james-comer-tees-contempt-resolution-fbi-director-biden-probe-rcna88124__;!!LsXw!UEaIq19k33jXJ1Ck_ghY_3si9n8cf1bKcO6-XL2FOdf5Yr_iF2A-3q5NvTdP_kTM6AKZCp5-tarj7pTPEwh6YAnQNqcKcFEuJ3xm$">mainstream media)" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/02/politics/fbi-document-congress-biden/index.html__;!!LsXw!UEaIq19k33jXJ1Ck_ghY_3si9n8cf1bKcO6-XL2FOdf5Yr_iF2A-3q5NvTdP_kTM6AKZCp5-tarj7pTPEwh6YAnQNqcKcDrecdfG$">media outlets)" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/us/politics/house-republicans-fbi-wray-contempt.html__;!!LsXw!UEaIq19k33jXJ1Ck_ghY_3si9n8cf1bKcO6-XL2FOdf5Yr_iF2A-3q5NvTdP_kTM6AKZCp5-tarj7pTPEwh6YAnQNqcKcLNF_zUd$">outlets have reported that the allegations were initially investigated and Trump’s own DOJ was unable to substantiate the accusations.
“The Trump Justice Department investigated the allegation, which involved his son Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine, in 2020, but prosecutors could not substantiate the claims, according to two people familiar with the matter,” The New York Times reported)" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/us/politics/house-republicans-fbi-wray-contempt.html__;!!LsXw!UEaIq19k33jXJ1Ck_ghY_3si9n8cf1bKcO6-XL2FOdf5Yr_iF2A-3q5NvTdP_kTM6AKZCp5-tarj7pTPEwh6YAnQNqcKcLNF_zUd$">reported this month.
And as others have rightly noted, GOP lawmakers are engaging in the same behavior that they criticized Democrats and liberals of allegedly doing with the Steele dossier, which is credulously elevating sketchy claims made by foreign nationals through paid FBI informants.
