The more we learn about Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings, the more it appears his father, President Joe Biden, played a role in the scheming.
Last Thursday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released an unclassified FBI-generated FD-1023 form that we first learned about in June. The document reveals that a “highly credible” confidential human source (CHS) alleges the Bidens – both Hunter and Joe – “coerced” Ukrainian executives into paying them millions of dollars. But that’s not all according to new reporting from Miranda Devine and the New York Post.
On Monday’s show, Megyn was joined by Emily Jashinsky, culture editor for The Federalist, and Eliana Johnson, co-host of Ink Stained Wretches, to discuss the latest details about President Biden’s involvement in the corruption and the media blackout on the story.
What’s New in the Biden Corruption Scandal
Congress had been trying to get access to the FD-1023 form for some time, but the FBI was dragging its feet on producing it. After much prodding, FBI Director Christopher Wray finally delivered the document in early June. Sen. Grassley released it last week, so that the American people could “read this document for themselves without the filter of politicians or bureaucrats.”
What we knew from members of Congress with knowledge of the document was that it involved a trusted Ukrainian-American FBI source who had been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years for tips. As it turns out, that person detailed a series of conversations he or she had with a top executive of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings beginning in 2015. At the time, Burisma was paying Hunter some $83,000 a month to sit on its board of directors.
The FBI informant said Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky told him or her in 2016 that Hunter and Joe “coerced” him into paying them $10 million “to ensure Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired.” Shokin was the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma. Shokin was fired, after then-Vice President Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine.
What we know is that Joe bragged about the firing at a 2018 Council on Foreign Relations meeting. “I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars,’” he recalled. “I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”
Additionally, Devine received a tip that Hunter’s friend Devon Archer, who was scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, was going to reveal information about meetings he witnessed that were attended by Joe either in person or via speakerphone when Hunter would call to introduce him to foreign business partners or prospective investors. Some of these calls and meetings involved Zlochevsky and other Burisma executives.
Media Blackout
None of the allegations from the FD-1023 form or Archer have been verified. It should also be noted that Archer, who is facing jail for his role in a $60 million bond fraud, is obviously an imperfect witness. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty for the media to dig into and potentially get to the bottom of. “There’s a lot here to digest,” Megyn said. “But my overall point is this: the House Oversight Committee is zeroing in not just on Hunter but on Joe and the media has done a total and complete blackout of it.”
The media used to track down stories, much in the way Devine has in her reporting on the Biden family. But she is largely an island. “What’s interesting about this form is it is the testimony of one witness, and we hear in the press that ‘it’s uncorroborated, unverified, and so on,’” Johnson noted. “Well, if only we had some reporters who might be able to chase down leads and corroborate tips – that would be quite useful when it came to testimony like this, but that’s not what we see in the mainstream media.”
Instead, we’ve seen the slow-walking of each and every detail. “I think what you’re seeing with Hunter Biden and Joe Biden is this slow boil where there is a drip, drip, drip around Hunter Biden and Joe Biden,” Johnson said. “It’s like a frog boiling in a pot, where I do think that this is having an impact on the American people who are starting to understand… that these guys were up to no good.”
Once upon a time, the allegations involved in a case like this would have been newsworthy in and of themselves. “More and more things are building toward Hunter and Joe were in on some sort of a corruption scheme while Joe was vice president,” Megyn said. “We don’t know whether it’s true, but the fact that this isn’t the lead story in every newspaper in America right now with the appropriate cautions is actually downright disturbing to me as a member of the press.”
What This Could Mean for President Biden
Megyn said that she no longer views these purported bribery, influence-peddling, and corruption schemes the way she once did. Earlier this month, she interviewed Devine who raised questions about who is actually influencing whom in the Biden family. “[She] for the first time helped me see this is not Hunter Biden lining his own pockets and maybe getting 10 percent for the big guy – this was a Joe Biden operation… this is Joe Biden pulling the strings,” Megyn explained. “Joe Biden was trying to line his pockets according to these allegations and Hunter was going along for the ride. He was using Hunter, her reporting shows.”
Ultimately, she believes the drip, drip, drip of information is getting “uncomfortable” for the president. “We don’t know whether this form is true, and we don’t know whether what the confidential human source was reporting to us is true,” Megyn said. “What we are all asking for is an investigation… because, if it’s true, Joe Biden committed a crime and belongs in jail.” The stakes, she said, are high. “If what’s in that form is true,” Megyn concluded, “Joe Biden is a criminal.”
You can check out Megyn’s full conversation with Jashinsky and Johnson by tuning in to episode 593 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.