A newly declassified intelligence report summarizing U.S. spy agency intercepts reveals that Ukrainian government officials discussed a scheme in late 2022 to divert hundreds of millions of American tax dollars — money earmarked for clean energy infrastructure in Ukraine — back to the United States to fund President Joe Biden's 2024 re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Perhaps most damning: there is no evidence the explosive allegation was ever investigated during the Biden administration.
The declassified report was recently reviewed by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has asked U.S. Agency for International Development officials to scour their records to determine whether the alleged plot was actually carried out and whether the matter warrants a criminal referral to the FBI.
"The Ukrainian Government and unspecified U.S. Government personnel, through USAID in Kyiv, reportedly developed a plan that would provide hundreds of millions of US taxpayer dollars to fund an infrastructure project for Ukraine that would be used as a cover to send approximately 90% of funds allocated to the DNC to fund Joe Biden's reelection campaign," the declassified summary states.
The report describes a scheme designed from the outset to evade detection. "They were confident the project would be funded initially, even though at some time in the future the project would be disapproved as unnecessary. At this time, the money would already be allocated and impossible to return or use for a different purpose," the summary adds. "The plan included details of how subcontractors would be funded through U.S. companies so that how the funds were spent and allocated would be difficult to track. Additionally, contracts would be executed that would be difficult to verify. In this manner, most of the U.S. funding would be diverted to Joe Biden's election campaign without the ability to track where exactly the funds came from."
The intercepts identified two American subcontractors as possible recipients of funds that would ultimately be routed to Democratic coffers.
Never Investigated — On Purpose?
The intercepts date to late 2022, meaning the Biden administration was in possession of intelligence suggesting a foreign government was conspiring to funnel American taxpayer money into Biden's own re-election campaign — and apparently did nothing about it.
Gabbard's team has found no substantive evidence the intercepted allegations were thoroughly investigated during the Biden years. Officials who have reviewed the files described a conspicuous "lack of curiosity" to investigate what would, if proven, constitute one of the most serious cases of foreign interference in an American election ever documented. Critically, the communications are not believed to be connected to Russian disinformation efforts, removing what would likely have been the Biden administration's first line of defense in dismissing the intelligence.
If the scheme was real and was never investigated, it means American taxpayers may have unknowingly financed Biden's 2024 presidential campaign through a pipeline running through Ukraine and USAID — all while the administration was publicly championing Ukrainian aid as a matter of democratic principle.
A Pattern of Corruption in Ukraine
The revelations land at a particularly sensitive moment. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been working cooperatively with President Trump's envoys to negotiate a peace settlement to the four-year war sparked by Russian aggression in 2022. While the Trump administration has praised Zelenskyy for making meaningful concessions in those talks, his government has continued to be dogged by corruption allegations that complicate the broader picture.
In late November, Andriy Yermak — the longtime Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine and one of Zelenskyy's closest allies — resigned after Ukrainian anti-corruption authorities conducted searches of his home as part of a criminal investigation. Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau and its Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office announced the searches as part of what they called "Operation Midas," exposing a "high-level criminal organization operating in the energy sector." Zelenskyy publicly acknowledged the need for an internal reset, saying, "I want no one to have any questions for Ukraine."
Sources close to Zelenskyy have also floated the possibility of his government assisting the Trump DOJ's investigation into earlier corruption involving the Biden family, including potentially arranging the cooperation of Ukrainian witnesses who could help resolve unanswered questions surrounding Hunter Biden's lucrative position on the board of Burisma Holdings — the Ukrainian energy company owned by oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky.
The Burisma Thread
The Burisma connection is essential context for understanding the broader pattern alleged in the new intelligence. Hunter Biden joined the Burisma board in May 2014 — days after his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, became the Obama administration's point man on Ukraine policy, and just days after business partner Devon Archer joined the board. Over the following years, Hunter Biden and Archer received millions of dollars from Zlochevsky.
A 2020 joint report by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) laid out the troubling timeline in granular detail, including the fact that British officials seized $23 million from Zlochevsky's London bank accounts just six days before Hunter Biden joined Burisma's board. The senators documented how Joe Biden, while serving as vice president, successfully pressured Ukraine to fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin — who had been investigating Burisma — raising the obvious question of whether Biden was using his official position to protect his son's financial interests.
An FBI confidential human source reported that Zlochevsky himself stated he had hired Hunter Biden to "protect us through his dad, from all kinds of problems," and that he had paid $5 million each to Hunter and Joe Biden in what he described using Russian crime slang for being "forced or coerced to pay." The Biden DOJ prosecuted the source — Alexander Smirnov — for allegedly making false statements, and Smirnov pleaded guilty to multiple felonies. The Trump DOJ has since told a federal court that it intends to review the government's theory underlying that prosecution.
Hunter Biden, for his part, admitted in a 2019 interview that he probably would not have been asked to join the Burisma board "if my last name wasn't Biden" — a remarkable concession that did nothing to slow the millions flowing to him and his associates from a Ukrainian oligarch with serious legal exposure.
Joe Biden had promised repeatedly that he would never pardon his son. In December 2024 — with weeks remaining in his presidency — he issued one of the most sweeping presidential pardons in American history, covering any "offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024." The pardon covered exactly the period during which the Burisma payments were made.
The Full Picture
Taken together, the newly declassified intelligence — alleging a scheme to route American taxpayer money through USAID and Ukrainian government channels into Biden's 2024 campaign — fits into a pattern of behavior involving the Biden family, Ukraine, and the use of American foreign policy as a vehicle for personal and political enrichment that has been documented, alleged, and consistently shielded from serious investigation for more than a decade.
DNI Gabbard is now asking the questions the Biden administration apparently never got around to asking. The American people deserve the answers.
DNI Tulsi Gabbard is working with USAID officials to determine whether the alleged scheme was carried out and whether a criminal referral to the FBI is warranted. The investigation is ongoing.