Newly released government records show federal officials revoked a Ukrainian witness’s visa before he could assist Senate investigators examining Biden family business dealings, despite intelligence indicating he had rejected Russian recruitment efforts.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Newly declassified federal records reveal that the FBI and State Department coordinated efforts in September 2020 to prevent a Ukrainian witness from traveling to the United States as Republican senators investigated alleged Biden family corruption, raising new questions about whether federal agencies obstructed congressional oversight during the presidential election.
The documents, released Thursday, Oct. 22, by the White House Government Transparency Task Force, show that federal officials revoked the visa of Andrii Telizhenko, a former Ukrainian diplomat who had provided information about Hunter Biden’s business relationships in Ukraine.
According to a Just the News investigation, the records indicate that officials acted against Telizhenko despite earlier intelligence suggesting he was not cooperating with Russian intelligence and had rejected attempts to recruit him.
On Sept. 8, 2020, an FBI Foreign Influence Task Force official began preparing a request to revoke Telizhenko’s visa after learning that he intended to travel to the United States.
“We were just informed of Andrii Telizhenko’s intention to travel to the US. We are putting together an LHM [Letter Head Memorandum] now to request revoking his Visa,” an FBI official wrote.
However, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv had already revoked the visa before the FBI completed its request.
“Actually, we stopped working on it since he was already revoked,” an agent wrote the following day.
The previously undisclosed communications show that federal authorities knew Telizhenko intended to assist Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., in their investigation of Biden family business dealings.
The Treasury Department subsequently sanctioned Telizhenko in January 2021, accusing him of participating in a Russian-linked foreign influence operation.
Yet an August 2020 FBI memorandum reportedly documented that Russia had banned Telizhenko, accused him of espionage and unsuccessfully attempted to recruit him.
A CIA assessment also reportedly characterized his possible involvement in Russian influence activities as potentially unwitting.
The competing assessments raise questions about the evidence federal officials used when restricting Telizhenko’s travel and later sanctioning him. They do not, by themselves, establish that the actions were undertaken specifically to protect Joe Biden.
The underlying Senate investigation examined Hunter Biden’s position on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings and whether that relationship influenced American foreign policy.
State Department officials had privately expressed concerns that Hunter Biden’s association with Burisma undermined Washington’s anticorruption efforts in Ukraine.
In a November 2016 email, senior diplomat George Kent warned that Hunter Biden’s board membership had weakened the American government’s message because Ukrainian officials observed a contradiction between U.S. anticorruption demands and the Biden family’s business involvement.
Other declassified State Department communications show that officials had considered continuing loan guarantees and retaining Ukraine’s chief prosecutor before then-Vice President Biden supported withholding $1 billion in guarantees to pressure Ukraine to remove the prosecutor.
Although Biden’s intervention in the prosecutor’s dismissal is documented, allegations that he acted to protect his son’s business interests have not been established. The Obama administration and international partners had publicly criticized the prosecutor’s handling of corruption investigations.
The Telizhenko disclosures follow years of disputes over the handling of information concerning Hunter Biden’s overseas activities.
In October 2020, 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter suggesting that reporting about Hunter Biden’s laptop displayed characteristics associated with Russian information operations.
Former acting CIA Director Michael Morell subsequently testified that he organized the letter after communications involving Antony Blinken, then an adviser to Biden’s presidential campaign.
The House Judiciary Committee reported in 2023 that Morell acknowledged wanting to provide Biden with a debate “talking point.”
The letter did not conclusively determine that the laptop was Russian disinformation. Federal investigators had already obtained the device in December 2019, and material from it was subsequently used in the investigation of Hunter Biden.
Federal search warrant records also documented financial transactions examined during the investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax affairs.
The handling of that investigation became the subject of congressional whistleblower testimony from IRS investigators Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler.
The investigators told Congress that federal prosecutors restricted certain investigative questions, delayed search warrants and limited efforts to pursue evidence potentially involving Joe Biden.
“We weren’t allowed to ask about ‘Big Guy,’” Shapley testified, referring to a designation appearing in communications involving Hunter Biden’s former business associates.
The investigators also alleged that prosecutors permitted the statute of limitations to expire on potential tax charges involving Hunter Biden’s Burisma income from 2014 and 2015.
Their disclosures intensified scrutiny of a proposed 2023 plea agreement that subsequently collapsed.
Hunter Biden was later convicted of federal firearm offenses and pleaded guilty to tax charges in 2024. Before leaving office, President Biden pardoned his son despite repeated assurances that he would not do so.
Shapley and Ziegler also alleged retaliation following their protected disclosures to Congress, including the removal of Shapley’s investigative team from the case.
In an earlier interview, Shapley said Hunter Biden received preferential treatment compared with other taxpayers he had investigated.
“I believe in what we’re doing, when we’re treating people fairly. And, you know, it just didn’t happen in this particular case,” he said.
The new Telizhenko records also follow an August 2026 disclosure concerning a previously classified FBI operation known as Round River.
According to declassified records examined by Just the News, the Foreign Influence Task Force launched the operation in December 2019 to evaluate information concerning alleged Biden family corruption and possible Russian influence operations.
A 2025 intelligence summary, reported by The Washington Times, stated that investigators gathered “any/all derogatory information previously reported by confidential human sources (CHSs) on Joseph Biden corruption” and related Ukraine issues “to red flag the reporting as Russian disinformation.”
The summary also stated that “the Round River team did not corroborate any of the allegations of the ‘Ukraine narrative.’”
FBI Director Kash Patel has said the task force was terminated and its activities are under investigation, including whether officials improperly used foreign influence assessments to undermine legitimate inquiries.
The declassified documents have renewed debate about federal investigations involving politically sensitive information. That debate follows years of disputes over Russian election interference and allegations concerning the 2016 presidential campaign, including findings from a Reuters/Ipsos survey and a 2019 YouGov poll measuring public attitudes toward claims involving Trump and Russia.
The newly released correspondence provides additional documentation of federal actions affecting a potential congressional witness during the 2020 election. Whether those actions were justified by legitimate counterintelligence concerns or reflected improper interference remains a disputed question.
The White House disclosures place renewed attention on the FBI’s foreign influence operations, the State Department’s decisions concerning Telizhenko and the extent to which federal agencies scrutinized or restricted information relevant to investigations of the Biden family.
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