‘scared of their own shadows’

Federal investigators battled with each other over whether to follow up on bombshell bribery allegations involving then-presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter after allegations by a longstanding FBI informant were rediscovered in the spring of 2020.

Agents based in Pittsburgh had to “fight for a month” to convince the Ukrainian-American source’s handler to arrange a follow-up interview, a source familiar with the probe told DailyMail.com.

That sitdown in June 2020 resulted in an FD-1023 form detailing a purported $10 million bribe the president and his son took from the owner of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings. The four-page document was made public Thursday by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

The office of then-US Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania Scott Brady first got word of the alleged bribery after investigators stumbled on a 2017 FBI interview with the source, who “had a long relationship” with the bureau on “investigations unrelated to Burisma or the Bidens,” the insider said.

In the follow-up interview, the informant said Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky was “somehow coerced into paying the Bidens to ensure Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired,” according to the FD-1023 form, as Burisma sought a US-based oil acquisition thought to be worth between $20 million and $30 million.

Biden acknowledged during a 2018 panel hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations that he had pressured Ukrainian leaders to dismiss Shokin late in 2015, using a US loan guarantee as leverage.

“We got that report back and we were like, holy smokes, this is something,” the source told the outlet.

“There were multiple meetings alleged overseas. Some of the [informant’s] claims were corroborated against … travel records, and contemporary knowledge from the handler about him attending meetings with Zlochevsky and other people present,” the source added.

According to the form, the source learned through four conversations with Zlochevsky between 2015 and 2019 that Hunter and his father had “coerced” the Burisma owner into paying them off.

In one 2016 conversation at a café in Vienna, Austria, Zlochevksy told the informant that “it cost 5 [million] to pay one Biden, and 5 [million] to another Biden,” the FD-1023 form shows.

When the informant asked whether Joe or Hunter wanted Burisma to “retain” the younger Biden as part of the deal, Zlochevsky reportedly said, “They both did.”

Hunter Biden raked in as much as $1 million per year between 2014 and 2019 while serving on the board of Burisma — despite not having relevant experience in the energy industry.

The source also spoke with Vadym Pozharsky, chief financial officer of Burisma, who separately confirmed that the company “hired Hunter Biden to ‘protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”

Former Attorney General Bill Barr told The Post in June that Brady’s office had a “limited scope” over the allegations against the Biden family and handed over any information to Delaware US Attorney David Weiss’ team after “assessing the credibility of the evidence.”

But IRS investigators working under Weiss disclosed in recent months that they never were notified of the Biden bribery allegations contained in the FD-1023.

IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley and IRS agent Joseph Ziegler testified at a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday that Justice Department officials blocked inquiries into Biden as he sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and denied interview and search warrant requests as the investigation stretched on for five years.

According to the insider who spoke with DailyMail.com, Weiss’ office worried about conducting a full investigation due to political considerations.

“They were scared of their own shadows. They were so worried about what they were doing and the sensitivity of it,” the insider told the outlet. “This was an election year and there were a lot of eyes on it.”

In December 2020, weeks after his father won the presidential election, Hunter Biden revealed publicly that his “tax affairs” were under investigation.

The Justice Department tends to pause any actions that would reveal the existence of an investigation involving a political candidate in an election year that could affect the outcome, “unless there’s a strong public interest that justifies taking action,” a former federal law enforcement official told The Post.

Because of the complexities involved, the Biden case would also have been difficult to resolve before the 2020 election, the official added.

The first son and his associates made more than $17 million through various business deals and influence-peddling schemes abroad between 2014 and 2019, Ziegler told House Oversight Committee members, while avoiding $2.2 million in tax payments.

Hunter Biden entered into a plea agreement with the Justice Department on June 20 on two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay taxes after forgoing six-figure payments in 2017 and 2018.

He also entered into a pre-trial diversion agreement for a felony firearms charge after lying on a gun purchase form about his drug use while addicted to crack cocaine.

If approved by Delaware US District Judge Maryellen Noreika next week, Hunter will avoid jail time and serve two years on probation, after which his record is expected to be expunged.