An executive of the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings paid then-Vice President Joe Biden $5 million as part of a bribery scheme, according to the FBI document that is part of the House Oversight Committee probe into the incident, Fox News reported Thursday.
Biden's son Hunter Biden was a member of the Burisma board.
The unclassified FBI FD-1023 document has been central to a whistleblower probe that Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have been trying to get turned over to the committee.
Fox reported that it did not see the document, but was briefed by sources who have.
The document is dated June 30, 2020 and is based on an FBI interview with what the agency describes as a "highly credible" confidential source. The source talked about meetings he or she had with a top executive of Burisma over several years starting in 2015, according to Fox.
The form does not indicate that the information is true, but the informant is one of the higher- paid informants and has worked with the agency since 2010.
According to the document, the Burisma executive asked the FBI source, who is a business professional, for advice on getting U.S. oil rights and becoming involved with an American oil company in 2015 and 2016.
The confidential source asked the executive why he or she did not just ask Hunter Biden's advice since he was on the Burisma board, and the Burisma executive reportedly answered that Hunter Biden was "dumb."
The Burisma official then reportedly told the FBI source that the company had to "pay the Bidens" because the company was being investigated by Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin and that it would be difficult to enter the American market while under that probe.
The FBI source then said he or she suggested the Burisma executive, believed by Fox's source to be extremely high level, "pay the Bidens $50,000 each." The Burisma executive replied that the figure was "not $50,000," but "$5 million."
"Five million dollars for one Biden, $5 million for the other Biden," the Burisma executive told the FBI source, according to a Fox source who has seen the document.
One source described the payments as a "retainer" for the Bidens to deal with several issues, including the Shokin probe. Another source called it a "pay-to-play" scheme, according to Fox.
The sources told Fox that the FBI source believes the payments to Joe and Hunter Biden were the result of his or her conversations with the Burisma official.
The Burisma executive reportedly told the FBI source that he "paid" the Bidens "through so many different bank accounts" that anyone investigating the case wouldn't be able to "unravel this for at least 10 years."
The document also references "the Big Guy," which is reportedly a reference to Joe Biden. The Burisma official told the source he "didn't pay the Big Guy directly."