Ron Johnson Clarifies ‘We Don’t Know’ If Biden Bribery Tapes ‘Really Exist’
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) made clear this week that the much-hyped 17 audio tapes mentioned in an FBI document outlining bribery allegations against Joe Biden may in fact not even exist.
Johnson was on a radio program Wednesday called The Conservative Circus and was asked, “And so now when are we going to hear the audio? Are we ever going to hear the audio? Probably not.”
“Right? First of all, we don’t know that it exists. I don’t know if the FBI has that,” Johnson replied.
“All we know is what’s on that the 1023. Again, this is a confidential human source who told him that his source, we believe it’s Mykola Zlochevksy, the CEO, Burisma, who’s trying to rehabilitate himself. We believe he’s the guy who’s claimed to have made recordings. Again, that’s a claim. It’s an allegation. We don’t know whether they really exist or not,” the Repulican senator explained.
Johnson offered a similar message on Newsmax Thursday after the anchor called the tapes “Such an important story that needs coverage.”
“If indeed the 17 audiotapes exist, it would be, in effect, really a smoking gun for the ‘big guy.’ So I want to ask you first, Senator, do you think they exist and if yes, how to obtain them?” Johnson was asked.
“We don’t know. And, you know, Senator Grassley has never said they exist,” Johnson replied, adding:
He just said that there’s an FBI report on a confidential human source and that confidential human source says that the person we were talking to said that he taped, he recorded 17 times, 15 times with Hunter, twice with Joe Biden. But we don’t know. But well, Senator Grassley and I are asking questions is what did the FBI do with that evidence?
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) took to the floor of the U.S. Senate earlier in the week and “made a stunning claim Monday that a Burisma executive who allegedly paid $5 million in a Biden bribery scheme maintained audio recordings of calls with the family as an ‘insurance policy,'” reported Fox News.
In the same report, former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker declared the tapes a potentially “cataclysmic event” for Biden. Fox has also reported that a source who has seen the 1023 form revealed the FBI document does not allege President Joe Biden was paid $5 million as a bribe.
Watch the full clips above.
