Meet the Ukrainian Oligarch Who Allegedly Paid Joe Biden $5 Million
Mykola Zlochevsky, a former Ukrainian minister and founder of Burisma Holdings, allegedly paid President Joe Biden $5 million and possesses two audio records as insurance to secure the pay-for-play scheme, according to Republican lawmakers.
Zlochevsky’s whereabouts today are unknown. Some speculate he is in Monaco, where he reportedly fled in 2019, escaping Ukraine after being suspected of embezzlement. He reportedly bought Cypriot citizenship between 2017 and 2019, according to an investigation by Al Jazeera.
In 2002, Zlochevsky co-founded Burisma, which allegedly changed owners in 2011 to an offshore Cypriot investment fund. According to the Guardian, from 2010 to 2012, Zlochevsky was Ukraine’s Ecology and Natural Resources Minister and was Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council from April 2012 through February 2014. As the environment minister, some accuse Zlochevsky of handing out gas licenses to his cronies, the British daily newspaper reported.
In 2016, Zlochevsky was under suspicion of money laundering and public corruption related to Burisma. Prosecutor Victor Shokin investigated the case before his termination due to pressure applied by then-Vice President Joe Biden, who threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid from Ukraine if the Ukrainian government did not fire Shokin. Joe Biden bragged about the firing in 2018.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden walks near St. Michael’s Cathedral in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, April. 22, 2014. (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov)
In 2016, Hunter Biden and his associate, Devon Archer, held seats on Burisma’s board, where Hunter Biden earned 83,000 a month as a board member. The company appointed Hunter to the board in 2014.
Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) 2020 Senate report recounted the relationship between the Bidens, Burisma, and Zlochevsky:
In late 2013 and into 2014, mass protests erupted in Kyiv, Ukraine, demanding integration into western economies and an end to systemic corruption that had plagued the country. At least 82 people were killed during the protests, which culminated on Feb. 21 when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych abdicated by fleeing the country. Less than two months later, over the span of only 28 days, significant events involving the Bidens unfolded.
On April 16, 2014, Vice President Biden met with his son’s business partner, Devon Archer, at the White House. Five days later, Vice President Biden visited Ukraine, and he soon after was described in the press as the “public face of the administration’s handling of Ukraine.” The day after his visit, on April 22, Archer joined the board of Burisma. Six days later, on April 28, British officials seized $23 million from the London bank accounts of Burisma’s owner, Mykola Zlochevsky. Fourteen days later, on May 12, Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma, and over the course of the next several years, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer were paid millions of dollars from a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch for their participation on the board.
The 2014 protests in Kyiv came to be known as the Revolution of Dignity — a revolution against corruption in Ukraine. Following that revolution, Ukrainian political figures were desperate for U.S. support. Zlochevsky would have made sure relevant Ukrainian officials were well aware of Hunter’s appointment to Burisma’s board as leverage. Hunter Biden’s position on the board created an immediate potential conflict of interest that would prove to be problematic for both U.S. and Ukrainian officials and would affect the implementation of Ukraine policy.
Former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter golfing in the Hamptons with Devon Archer, who served on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings with Hunter. (Tucker Carlson Tonight)
On Monday, Grassley announced a foreign national allegedly paid President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden $5 million each and kept 17 audio recordings of his conversations of them as an “insurance policy.”
Grassley said the bombshell allegation originated from an FBI informant document, FD-1023. Last week, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), and Nancy Mace (R-SC) said the foreign national identified in the FD-1023 form is Zlochevsky.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
Vance: Trump’s Indictment All About Distracting from Biden’s Corruption
Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) said Tuesday on Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Company” that the federal charges against President Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case are an attempt to distract from President Joe Biden’s corruption.
Vance said, “We don’t know what’s in the tapes of course. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Joe Biden lied to the American people and Joe Biden said he never participated in the conversations. Clearly he did and there are apparently tapes of those conversations.”
Anchor Stuart Varney said, “Bigger picture, how do you see Trump versus Biden situation playing out? A crazy situation which our country has never seen before. How does it play out?”
Vance said, “We have to step back and recognize Donald Trump is being indicted today at the very same time with extremely damages piece of information about the fact that Joe Biden may have been bribed to enrich his son and his family, so at the same time the light was on Joe Biden and his family’s business dealings, we are indicted his chief political rival in the U.S.. This is banana republic stuff and gives further ideas that the entire sham Trump indictment is about distracting from corrupt business dealings of Hunter and Joe Biden. This is never seen in his country before you use the justice system not for justice but for politics and take down a political opponent and distract from your own corruption.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
GOP Lawmakers: FBI Informant File Confirms Joe Biden Is the ‘Big Guy’
Republican lawmakers confirmed President Joe Biden is the so-called “big guy,” an alias that whistleblower Tony Bobulinski originally revealed as Joe Biden from his dealings between the Bidens and a Chinese entity.
Last week, Republican members of the House Oversight Committee reviewed an FBI informant file. Their review concluded the FBI informant file indicated that Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, referred to Joe Biden as the “big guy.”
“In this document, this confidential human informant absolutely also specified he understood that [big guy] to be Joe Biden,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) told Fox News.
“The ‘big guy,’ that is quoted in the documents,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) told Benny Johnson about the informant file.
The Burisma owner’s alleged reference to Joe Biden as the “big guy” was reportedly in relation to an alleged $5 million payment Joe Biden received after threatening to withhold aid to Ukraine until a prosecutor probing the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings was fired, according to House Oversight Committee Republicans.
In 2015, Burisma was under suspicion of money laundering and public corruption. Prosecutor Victor Shokin investigated the case before his termination due to pressure applied by then-Vice President Joe Biden, who threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid from Ukraine if the Ukrainian government did not fire the prosecutor investigating Burisma.
Former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter golfing in the Hamptons with Devon Archer, who served on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings with Hunter. (Tucker Carlson Tonight)
He later bragged about the firing during a 2018 appearance at the Council of Foreign Relations. “I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours,” Biden told the audience. “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.
The alias of the “big guy” as Joe Biden is not a new claim. At least two additional people described Joe Biden as the “big guy” in the Biden’s family deals.
Hunter Biden’s business partner, James Gilliar, dubbed Joe Biden ‘the big guy’ in a 2017 email, and later called Joe Biden “the Big Guy” again in a text conversation the day the “Laptop from Hell” series began publishing in the New York Post in 2020.
WATCH — “Give Me a Break, Man”: Biden SNAPS at Reporter Asking About Family’s Business Relations in China:
The White HouseGilliar’s “big guy” monicker for Joe Biden was used in his May 13, 2017, email to Tony Bobulinski. The 2017 email revealed that a business deal between Bobulinski, the Biden family, and high-ranking members of the Chinese Communist Party would include 10 percent “held by H for the big guy ?”
“The reference to ‘the big guy’ in the much publicized May 13, 2017 e-mail is in fact a reference to Joe Biden,” Bobulinski confirmed.
The identity of the “big guy” reportedly formed part of the grand jury investigation by Trump-appointed U.S. prosecutor David Weiss. Hunter Biden is under investigation by Weiss for potential tax and gun violations.
The Biden family is also under investigation by the House Oversight Committee for nine violations. Since November, the probe revealed some results.
In March, the probe identified three Biden family members who collectively received $1.3 million, wired through a Biden associate from a Chinese energy company two months after President Joe Biden left the vice presidency.
In May, it found the Biden family business over the course of several years received at least $10 million from business schemes in Romania and China in return for what appears to be influence peddling. In total, nine Biden family members received payments from the family foreign business ventures, including two of Joe Biden’s grandchildren.
WATCH — Biden Spox DODGES Question on Hunter’s Illegitimate Child:
The White House / YouTubeFollow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
