EDITOR’S NOTE, February 16, 2024: On February 15, Justice Department Counsel David Weiss indicted FBI informant Alexander Smirnov on two felony counts of making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record for claims made to the bureau. The charges are in relation to June 2020 FD-1023 form alleging President Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden received a combined $10 million in a bribery scheme involving the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma.
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On Thursday, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC kept their viewers in the dark on a major storyline of the 2024 presidential election as Senator Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) office released a rumored form from an FBI confidential source alleging the Biden family coerced the Burisma CEO to shovel them millions if then-Vice President Biden could have Ukraine’s top prosecutor fired (which he did).
Not surprisingly, the networks were also silent when the existence of this form first became public back on June 5 with zero seconds on their flagship morning, evening, and Sunday morning political talk shows about recent allegations of Biden family bribery. And also of little revelation was the fact that this led off the Fox News Channel’s flagship newscast, Special Report, on Thursday.
“We begin first, though, with new details now on old bribery accusations against the Biden family. A source alleges a Ukrainian businessman paid the former vice president and his son Hunter millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for favors,” announced fill-in host Gillian Turner.
Correspondent Kevin Corke further explained:
According to allegations contained in an unclassified FBI document released today by Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, that then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter allegedly coerced the CEO of a Ukrainian energy company Burisma to pay them millions of dollars, about $5 million each in exchange for their help in getting fired a Ukrainian prosecutor who’d been investigating the company...Burisma’s CEO at the time told a confidential human source that he had “many text messages and ‘recordings’” that show he was coerced to make such payments to the Bidens.
Corke added the form was dated June 30, 2020, so just as the 2020 election was kicking into high gear.
As for where this goes from here, Corke concluded prior to highlighting a denial of wrongdoing from the Biden Whtie House and FBI denouncing the leak that “Senator Grassley and House Oversight Chair James Comer are pressing the Bureau for answers, including what, if any, follow up investigation has been done” once they learned of such allegations.
In an exhaustive analysis of the form, Washington Examiner investigative reporter Sarah Bedford noted how this form could reframe how the country views the first Trump impeachment (click “expand”):
Democrats in Congress led an impeachment effort in 2019 after a whistleblower submitted a complaint to the intelligence community inspector general about a phone call between Trump and newly-elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In that July 2019 phone call, Trump briefly mentioned his interest in finding out more about Joe Biden’s successful efforts to secure the removal of Ukraine’s top prosecutor at the time, Viktor Shokin.
(....)
That was enough to earn Trump an impeachment vote in the Democrat-controlled House in December of that year, based on the argument that the mention of the Biden family’s work in Ukraine rose to the level of election interference.
The newly-published FBI form lends new credibility to Trump’s request, however, and raises serious questions about Joe Biden’s interest in getting Shokin removed from office.
The liberal networks had other priorities. On Friday’s Good Morning America, the ABC show spent 14 minutes and 13 on segments either directly or related to Friday’s release of the Barbie movie.
On Friday’s CBS Mornings, the co-hosts dithered away two minutes and 10 seconds celebrating the apparent trend of throwing a party for friends and loved ones after someone finalizes a divorce.
And, on Thursday’s NBC Nightly News, they spent nearly two minutes (1:59) touting solar-powered cars as a possible way of the future for travel.
As NewsBusters showed in a post-2020 election poll, keeping voters in the dark about key Biden scandals not only has an impact, but constitutes election interference. This year, we’ve found the same to be true for more recent Biden family scandals with viewers of the liberal broadcast networks’ cable comrades (CNN and MSNBC) being woefully unaware.
The latest Biden bias by omission was brought to you by advertisers such as Colgate (on ABC), Honda (on CBS), and Liberty Mutual (on NBC). Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant FNC transcript from July 20, click “expand.”
FNC’s Special Report with Bret Baier
July 20, 2023
6:00 p.m. Eastern[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Payment Plan?; FBI Document Alleges Biden Bribery Scheme]
GILLIAN TURNER: We begin first, though, with new details now on old bribery accusations against the Biden family. A source alleges a Ukrainian businessman paid the former vice president and his son Hunter millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for favors. Correspondent Kevin Corke is here with the story. Hi, Kevin.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Fueling the Fire; Document From Justice Department Whistleblower]
KEVIN CORKE,: Good evening, Gillian. According to allegations contained in an unclassified FBI document released today by Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, that then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter allegedly coerced the CEO of a Ukrainian energy company Burisma to pay them millions of dollars, about $5 million each in exchange for their help in getting fired a Ukrainian prosecutor who’d been investigating the company. Now, the form question is an FBI generated FD-1023 which Grassley’s office says he acquired by legally protected disclosures by DOJ whistleblowers. In the form, Burisma’s CEO at the time told a confidential human source that he had “many text messages and ‘recordings’” that show he was coerced to make such payments to the Bidens. Interestingly, the document is dated June 30 of 2020. Of course, that was five months before the 2020 election.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Bragging Right; Biden Boasted About Prosecutor Firing in 2018 Speech]
And you’ll recall it was back in 2018 when Joe Biden acknowledged that when he was VP, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor by threatening to withhold a billion dollars of U.S. aid. Now, Senator Grassley and House Oversight Chair James Comer are pressing the Bureau for answers, including what, if any, follow up investigation has been done regarding the disclosures in which a confidential source appears to implicate President Biden in a bribery scheme. The White House tonight is accusing congressional Republicans of “pushing claims that have been debunked for years”. While in its statement, the FBI said. “today’s release of the 1023 – at a minimum — unnecessarily risks the safety of a confidential source.” Grassley, for his part, says he released that document so the American people could read it for themselves without, “the filter or political bureaucrats getting their hands on it”. Gillian.
TURNER: All right, Kevin Corke here in the D.C. newsroom for us. Thank you.
CORKE: Mmhmm.
