Has the Joe Biden bribery allegation been debunked?: After weeks of allegations by the House Oversight Committee that President Joe Biden accepted a $5 million bribe from a Ukrainian oligarch, more information is coming out.
The ranking Democrat on the committee has produced an interview with that oligarch, who denies that he has ever spoken to the president.
Joe Biden In the Clear?
In recent weeks, the Republicans in Congress, especially on the House Oversight Committee, have been alleging something explosive: President Biden, while vice president, accepted a $5 million bribe from a Ukrainian oligarch.
If that were true, it would likely represent a presidency-ending scandal for Biden. But the charges have always been incredibly thin. They are based on a years-old document, long in possession of the FBI, and they are backed by supposed tape recordings that even the most anti-Biden figures acknowledge may not actually exist. And while a $5 million bribe would likely produce a paper trail of some sort, no such trail has been uncovered.
And now, the leading Democrat on the Oversight Committee has produced a transcript of an interview with the person accused of the bribe- who says that he has never talked to Biden, much less bribed him with $5 million.
According to the HuffPost, the oligarch is Mykola Zlochevksy, a cofounder of Burisma, the Ukrainian energy concern for which Hunter Biden served on the board for several years, and also a former Ukrainian energy minister.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, has released a document from 2019, in which an accomplice of Rudy Giuliani, then working as a Trump attorney seeking to dig up dirt on now-President Biden and his family, interviewed Zlochevksy.
“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,” Rep. Raskin said in a statement. “Specifically, Mr. Zlochevsky denied (1) that anyone at Burisma had ‘any contacts’ with then former Vice President Biden or his representatives while Hunter Biden served on the Burisma board, and (2) that former Vice President Biden or his staff ‘in any way’ assisted Mr. Zlochevsky or Burisma.”
Those are the allegations, per Raskin, contained in Form FD-1023 in June 2020, that the Republicans on the committee have claimed are proof of a bribe to the president.
“No one from Burisma ever had any contacts with VP Biden or people working for him during Hunter Biden’s engagement,” Zlochevksy said in the interview. He also answered no when asked if Biden, while vice president, had done anything to assist Burisma.
This contradicts not only the idea that Biden accepted a bribe, but also demolishes years of conspiracy theories that Biden pushed for the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor in order to keep them from investigating Burisma.
Politico, per HuffPost, had reported in 2020 on the contents of that interview.
But now the Democrats on Oversight have released the interview itself.
When asked why Burisma hired Hunter Biden and his business partner, Devon Archer, the oligarch answered that “we wanted to [build] Burisma as international company. It was very important to have [a] 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.”
When asked if Burisma got their money’s worth from hiring the younger Biden, he answered “Yes. We believe it was worth it. It had [its] own advantages and disadvantages. But [in] general we believe our company benefited greatly from this relationship.”
Lev Parnas, the former Giuliani crony, reacted on Twitter to the release of the interview.
The transcript, per Parnas, “debunks the lies and conspiracy theories that Rudy Giuliani, @RepMTG @RepJamesComer and their corrupt cohorts in the @GOP have been pushing on the American people.”
Expertise and Experience: Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
From 19FortyFive
AOC Just Proved How Stupid She Is
