Biden investigation: Grassley releases FBI document accusing Joe and Hunter Biden of bribery scheme.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on Thursday released the now-infamous FBI form that contains a witness’s account of President Joe Biden allegedly partaking in a bribery scheme when he was vice president.

Grassley published in full the lightly redacted FD-1023 form, which several congressional Republicans have already seen but that the public did not have access to until Thursday.

The Iowa Republican accused the FBI in an accompanying statement of seeking to “obfuscate and redact” the form before the bureau ultimately cooperated with congressional Republicans to show it to them.

“The American people can now read this document for themselves, without the filter of politicians or bureaucrats, thanks to brave and heroic whistleblowers,” Grassley, who acquired the document via legally protected disclosures by Justice Department whistleblowers, said.

Read a copy of the form below.

The FBI uses FD-1023 forms to record “raw, unverified” information from confidential human sources.

Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) announced the existence of the form in question in May and subpoenaed the FBI for a copy of it. The FBI at first resisted cooperating with the committee, expressing concern about the “sensitive” nature of the document.

Facing the prospect of Congress holding FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt, the FBI relented in June and allowed members to view a heavily redacted version of it that Grassley said had blacked out, among several items, the claim that a foreign national who had allegedly bribed the Bidens was in possession of 17 audio recordings of conversations with the Bidens.

FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate defended the redactions in a Senate hearing that month, saying they were in place to “protect the source.”

“We often redact documents to protect sources and methods,” Abbate said.

The form released Thursday and dated June 30, 2020, confirmed the existence of the claim about audio recordings. It stated that the FBI’s informant said Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, said he had “’17 recordings’ involving the Bidens; two of the recordings included Joe Biden, and the remaining 15 recordings included Hunter Biden.”

The FBI’s source “reiterated that, per Zlochevsky, these recordings evidence Zlochevsky was somehow coerced into paying the Bidens to ensure Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired” in 2016, the form stated.

The form also confirmed the existence of the FBI source’s broader allegation that Zlochevsky paid Joe and Hunter Biden each $5 million in exchange for then-Vice President Joe Biden using his authority to fire Shokin, who was investigating Burisma, with which the younger Biden held a lucrative board position.

The form revealed the alleged existence of text messages as well.

“Zlochevsky replied [to the FBI’s source] he has many text messages and ‘recordings’ that show that he was coerced to make such payments,” the form stated, suggesting the Bidens had “forced” him to pay them.

“Zlochevsky stated he has two ‘documents (which [informant] understood to be wire transfer statements, bank records, etc.), that evidence some payment(s) to the Bidens were made, presumably in exchange for Shokin’s firing,” the form added.

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The form also confirmed that Zlochevsky made reference to the “Big Guy,” whom the FBI’s source perceived to be Joe Biden. The nickname surfaced in a separate instance concerning Hunter Biden’s negotiations in 2017 with a Chinese businessman.

Comer in June called the FBI’s source referenced on the form “a trusted, highly credible informant who has been used by the FBI for years.”