Bill Barr: Raskin is confused on role of Pittsburgh prosecutor in Biden case
Former Attorney General Bill Barr sounds off on ‘The Story.’
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, is doubling down on false claims that President Donald Trump's Justice Department had halted a corruption allegation into President Biden and ended the investigation due to a lack of evidence.
On Thursday, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released an unclassified FBI record describing an alleged criminal bribery scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a Ukrainian business executive so that the American people can "read this document for themselves without the filter of politicians or bureaucrats."
The document, an FD-1023 form, alleged that Biden and his son Hunter "coerced" Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky to pay them millions of dollars in exchange for their help in getting the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the company fired.
After its release, Raskin fired off a statement claiming the "secondhand claims recorded in the Form 1023" had "already been investigated and dismissed by the Trump DOJ."
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., has again falsely stated Trump's DOJ ended an investigation into President Biden. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
"Releasing this document in isolation from explanatory context is another transparently desperate attempt by Committee Republicans to revive the aging and debunked Giuliani-framed conspiracy theories and to distract from their continuing failure to produce any actual evidence of wrongdoing by the President — even at the cost of endangering the safety of FBI sources," Raskin wrote in the press release.
Raskin is again declaring that Trump's Justice Department spiked the Biden corruption investigation after former Attorney General Bill Barr had shot down those claims.
Raskin previously said that Barr "spent the summer" with his team of prosecutors looking into the claim and "determined there was no grounds to escalate from an initial assessment to a preliminary investigation" and "called an end" to the investigation due to lack of suspicion of "criminal activity."
Barr, however, responded by saying that was not the case. "It's not true," Barr told The Federalist in June. "It wasn't closed down. On the contrary, it was sent to Delaware for further investigation."
An FBI document alleged a criminal bribery scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a Ukrainian business executive. (AP)
That FD-1023 — a confidential human source reporting document — reflects the FBI's interview with a "highly credible" confidential source who detailed multiple meetings and conversations they had with a top executive of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings over the course of several years starting in 2015. Hunter Biden, at the time, sat on the board of Burisma.
Fox News Digital has reviewed the document, which includes new information, including the identity of the business executive — Burisma CEO Zlochevsky — and the allegations that he was "coerced" into paying now-President Biden and Hunter Biden millions of dollars to get a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating his firm fired.
Biden has acknowledged that when he was vice president, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire prosecutor Viktor Shokin. At the time, Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings, and at the time, Hunter had a highly lucrative role on the board, receiving thousands of dollars per month. The then-vice president threatened to withhold $1 billion of critical U.S. aid if Shokin was not fired.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr has denied then-President Trump's DOJ squashed the Biden investigation. (Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)
Biden allies maintain the then-vice president pushed for Shokin's firing due to concerns the Ukrainian prosecutor went easy on corruption and say that his firing, at the time, was the policy position of the U.S. and international community.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The unclassified document is dated June 30, 2020, and says the contact with the source was "telephonic."
Raskin's office did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment by the time of publication.
Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller contributed reporting.
More from Politics
Fox News Politics
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more Fox News politics content.
By entering your email and clicking the Subscribe button, you agree to the Fox News Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and agree to receive content and promotional communications from Fox News. You understand that you can opt-out at any time.