Emails from the Biden laptop shed light on Burisma’s opening of a Maltese bank account for Hunter Biden in the spring of 2016. This newly discovered development coincides with the allegations made by an FBI source, suggesting that Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Burisma Holdings, allegedly paid a $5 million bribe each to then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
In 2014, Ukraine initiated criminal cases against Zlochevsky and Burisma, the company where Hunter Biden held a board position and received substantial compensation. Zlochevsky, who faced investigations for money laundering and public corruption, allegedly employed the Vice President’s son to leverage his political influence in order to halt the investigations.
According to the FBI whistleblower document, the pay-for-play scheme is outlined, with Zlochevsky purportedly safeguarding 17 audio recordings of conversations with the Bidens as an “insurance policy.” Among these recordings are two alleged conversations with then-Vice President Biden himself.
In 2018, Joe Biden proudly claimed that he pressured Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko into firing Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was conducting an investigation into the Ukrainian energy company where his son was a board member. Biden accomplished this by leveraging the threat of withholding a $1 billion US loan guarantee during his trip to Kyiv in December 2015.
During a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Biden infamously declared, “I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.” He added, “Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”
Viktor Shokin has stated that at the time of his termination in March 2016, he had formulated “specific plans” to investigate Burisma, which “included interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden.”
In May 2016, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi informed Hunter Biden via a series of emails about the opening of a Maltese bank account. Pozharskyi requested the documentation required for the account opening, including a copy of Hunter’s passport, a bank reference letter, and a utility bill serving as proof of his residential address.
Hunter responded by stating, “We are working on this – I was traveling with my dad and had my passport abroad last week.”
In the subsequent weeks, Hunter Biden’s assistant, Joan Mayer, engaged in email correspondence with Vadym Pozharskyi, reportedly the third-ranking executive at Burisma. During these exchanges, Mayer provided copies of Hunter’s passport, a utility bill, and a bank reference letter, as requested.
On May 13, 2016, Mayer sought clarification on the requirements for a “certified declaration of source wealth.” She suggested providing a letter from Hunter’s corporation, Owasco, to confirm his annual salary, asking, “Is that what the bank is looking for?”
On the same day, a Burisma attorney sent an email to Hunter, sharing the address and swift code of Satabank, a Maltese bank that would be shuttered for violating money laundering laws in 2018.
A few days later, Hunter’s assistant sent “Hunter’s tax ID number and signature” to the Burisma executive, who responded with a confirmation: “All received!”