What exactly has the FBI done with the informant allegations of bribery involving then-VP Joe Biden? The Department of Justice has had the FD-1023 form detailing the allegations for almost three full years now, and it details accusations that Biden took millions of dollars in payments from Burisma after Biden allegedly “coerced” Mykola Zlochevsky to pay them. The source claims to have 17 recorded phone conversations involving these transactions — 15 with then-Burisma board member Hunter Biden and two with “the Big Guy” himself.

The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland brings us up to date on this potential scandal and where it stands at the moment:

On Monday, Sen. Chuck Grassley revealed a foreign national — identified by individuals with knowledge of the matter as Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky — allegedly possessed 17 recordings implicating the Bidens in a pay-to-play scandal. While 15 of the audio recordings consisted of phone calls between Zlochevsky and Hunter Biden, two were of calls the Ukrainian had with then-Vice President Joe Biden, according to the FD-1023.

The Federalist has now learned the FD-1023 reported the CHS saying the Bidens “coerced” Zlochevsky to pay the bribes. Sources familiar with the investigation also explained the context of Zlochevsky’s statements, and that context further bolsters the CHS’s reporting.

In the FD-1023 from June 30, 2020, the confidential human source summarized earlier meetings he had with Zlochevsky. According to the CHS, in the 2015-2016 timeframe, the CHS, who was providing advice to Zlochevsky, told the Burisma owner to stay away from the Bidens. Then, after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential contest, the CHS asked Zlochevsky if he was upset Trump won.

Zlochevsky allegedly told the CHS he was dismayed by Trump’s victory, fearing an investigation would reveal his payments to the Biden family, which included a $5 million payment to Hunter Biden and a $5 million payment to Joe Biden. According to the CHS, the Burisma executive bemoaned the situation, claiming the Bidens had “coerced” him into paying the bribes.

Read it all to catch up fully. If true, this would create an enormous national security risk as well as expose corruption at the highest levels of government. Don’t forget that questions were already raised in both contexts in 2020 regarding Hunter Biden’s somewhat inexplicable membership on Burisma’s board. Joe Biden himself claimed credit for forcing the resignation of Ukraine’s chief prosecutor in this same time period as the alleged payments took place. If Biden pere et fils was taking millions of dollars from Zlochevsky at the same time, that would be blatant corruption, not to mention an argument that foreign governments and interests had penetrated all the way to the White House.

If true, of course. Allegations like these have to be investigated, especially those with such serious implications, before one can reach conclusions about their veracity.

So where’s the investigation? It’s been almost exactly three years since the FBI received this information, and … they refuse to comment on what they’ve done with the information. They won’t even comment on whether they have the alleged tapes of conversations with the Bidens, let alone what was said. Instead, the FBI has stonewalled Congress on the matter despite the data being unclassified, and despite the fact that three years have gone by and no one can point to any investigative effort to look into these allegations.

Now let’s contrast that to another FBI case involving the potential for corruption and foreign influence. Does anyone recall how Operation Crossfire Hurricane actually started? Let’s refer back to the 2019 report from Inspector General Michael Horowitz on the FBI’s misdeeds in that case. They started a major-case “operation” on the basis of a bar conversation with a marginal Trump campaign figure:

As we describe in Chapter Three, the FBI opened Crossfire Hurricane on July 31, 2016, just days after its receipt of information from a Friendly Foreign Government (FFG) reporting that, in May 2016, during a meeting with the FFG, then Trump campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos “suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs. Clinton (and President Obama).” The FBI Electronic Communication (EC) opening the Crossfire Hurricane investigation stated that, based on the FFG information, “this investigation is being opened to determine whether individual(s) associated with the Trump campaign are witting of and/or coordinating activities with the Government of Russia.” We did not find information in FBI or Department ECs, emails, or other documents, or through witness testimony, indicating that any information other than the FFG information was relied upon to predicate the opening of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

The FBI didn’t wait three years to dig into this. They waited “just days” after hearing this to open a full-blown investigation into a major-party nominee for president, on the basis of a bar conversation. A few weeks later, they incorporated the now-debunked Steele dossier — a Hillary Clinton campaign diversion, and as has been revealed in the Durham report, known as such by both Barack Obama and Joe Biden at the time — to expand the probe and surveil Trump campaign figures, notably Carter Page. The dossier then got leaked after the election to media outlets, which turned the barely-confidential probe into a two-year constitutional crisis — over nothing at all.

Compare that response to the cricket-chirp response to the FD-1023 allegations, which as John wrote earlier this month came from a source that the FBI considered reliable on other occasions. The FBI from Comey on down had few issues speaking publicly about the existence of Operation Crossfire Hurricane. After three years, the FBI won’t comment on the Biden bribe allegations or its response, not even to say that they checked it out and found nothing. In fact, the FBI has dragged its heels to provide the FD-1023 to the House and Senate Judiciary committees, on the basis that it needs to be held confidential, even though it’s unclassified.

Perhaps the FBI found nothing, but then why would they be so reticent to provide it to Congress? The committees have legitimate constitutional oversight over the FBI and DoJ. It is constitutionally inappropriate to withhold such documents, except if there’s an ongoing investigation, and even then that should be disclosed to explain the reticence.

And if there is an ongoing investigation, the FBI and DoJ don’t appear to be approaching it with much enthusiasm, especially in comparison to how they treated Trump. Consider this: House Oversight had only been conducting their own investigation into allegations of foreign influence-peddling for four months before they uncovered an archipelago of 20 or more LLCs that appear to be laundering foreign payments for the Bidens. Some of that money came from Chinese sources closely connected to the Xi Jinping regime, too.

And the FBI damned well knows that too, as John Schindler reported last month:

During the critical 2017-18 time frame, it was hardly a secret that CEFC was closely allied with the Chinese Communist Party, its military, and its intelligence services. Even CNN in 2018 admitted that CEFC leadership, above all Ye Jianming, appeared to be unusually close with Chinese intelligence. Before that, CEFC was run out of the Czech Republic thanks to its shady business acquisitions, plus its efforts to buy off Czech politicians and influencers were so blatant that they got the attention of Prague’s counterintelligence service. CEFC’s activities in the Czech Republic represented a classic case of weaponizing a front company to lavish funds in the service of Beijing’s interests.

By the time Biden Inc. decided to take millions of dollars from CEFC for unspecified services, it was known to Western counterintelligence to be a front for Chinese espionage. Moreover, Patrick Ho was identified by the FBI as a Chinese spy right when Hunter Biden was becoming his friend and partner. CEFC started to come crashing down in late 2018 when Ho was convicted on multiple counts of bribery and money laundering, which the Justice Department only learned about because they were already spying on Ho per the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They were spying on Ho because they knew CEFC was a Chinese spy front.

That was two years before the FD-1023. With that kind of activity transpiring with the Bidens, one might have thought that they would take the allegations of corruption connected to Hunter’s board position at Burisma a wee bit … seriously. Especially given how quickly they reacted to a bar conversation involving a campaign adviser.

Perhaps the FBI has spent the last three years getting ready to take down the Bidens. From what we’re seeing, though, their leadership and the DoJ seem a lot more enthusiastic about investigating and surveilling Republicans, including candidates for the presidency, than following up on what appears to be real corruption and influence peddling.

Update: I used “declassified” to describe the FD-123, but “unclassified” is the correct term since it never was classified in the first place. Thanks to Gray Wolf for the correction.