GOP Declares Victory After Impeachment Source Indicted For Lying About Biden Bribes

Pour one out for Rep. Jamie Comer, whose goals of GITTIN’ THEM BIDEN BOYS slipped a little bit additional away yesterday when certainly one of his main sources bought indicted for mendacity to the FBI about tens of millions of {dollars} in bribes to Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

And not for the first time!

For years, Republicans have claimed that then-Vice President Biden’s public strain on Ukraine to fireside its wildly corrupt public prosecutor Viktor Shokin was a plot to assist his son’s enterprise pursuits. This was debunked again in 2019 when Rudy Giuliani first vomited it out. Nonetheless, Sen. Chuck Grassley and Comer, who’s one way or the other the chair of the Home Oversight Committee, have made it the main focus of their never-ending impeachment efforts, hyping Alexander Smirnov because the linchpin of their claims.

“For the higher a part of a 12 months, I’ve been pushing the Justice Division and FBI to offer particulars on its dealing with of very vital allegations from a trusted FBI informant implicating then-Vice President Biden in a legal bribery scheme,” Grassley fumed in July when he published inner FBI paperwork documenting Smirnov’s allegations. “What did the Justice Division and FBI do with the detailed info within the doc? And why have they tried to hide it from Congress and the American folks for thus lengthy?”

Seems, the FBI was investigating the declare. And oopsie doodle, it turned out to be bullshit.

Smirnov was a longtime FBI supply who informed his handler in March of 2017 a couple of current assembly with officers from the Ukrainian vitality firm Burisma. Smirnov made an offhand remark in about Hunter Biden being on Burisma’s board, memorialized on the time as “a short, non-relevant dialogue about former [Public Official 1]’s son, [Businessperson 1], who’s presently on the Board of Administrators for Burisma Holdings.” Nothing extra was mentioned concerning the matter till June of 2020, when Smirnov’s handler reached again out to him “on the request of the FBI’s Pittsburgh Discipline Workplace (hereafter “FBI Pittsburgh”).

Over at Empty Wheel, Marcie Wheeler disambiguates the language of the indictment, which blandly describes Scott Brady, the US Legal professional in Pittsburgh, as having been tasked with “receipt, processing, and preliminary evaluation of recent info offered by the general public which may be related to issues regarding Ukraine.” In actuality, Invoice Barr tapped Brady to analyze Biden within the lead as much as the 2020 election and used him as a clearinghouse for the false claims about Hunter Biden masterminding a billion-dollar fraud scheme that Rudy Giuliani was making an attempt to make occur as he shambled throughout Ukraine.

Smirnov, who had repeatedly informed his handler that he hated Biden, out of the blue remembered that in 2015 and/or 2016, he’d had “two purported conferences and two purported cellphone calls with numerous Burisma executives the place Businessperson 1 and Public Official 1 had been mentioned.”

This time, reasonably than a passing reference to Businessperson 1 being on Burisma’s Board, the Defendant claimed that Burisma executives at two conferences in 2015 and/or 2016, throughout the Obama-Biden Administration, informed him that they had been paying Businessperson 1 to “shield us, by means of his dad, from every kind of issues,” and later that that they had particularly paid $5 million every to Public Official 1, when he was in workplace, and Businessperson 1 in order that “[Businessperson 1] will care for all these points by means of his dad,” referring to a legal investigation being performed by the then-Ukrainian Prosecutor Basic into Burisma and to “cope with” the then-Ukrainian Prosecutor Basic. In describing the cellphone calls, the Defendant claimed that Burisma Official 1 mentioned he was “pushed to pay” Public Official 1 and Businessperson 1, had textual content messages and recordings that present he was coerced to make such funds, and it could take investigators ten years to seek out the data of illicit funds to Public Official 1. The Defendant made these statements to the Handler in June 2020, when Public Official 1 was a candidate for President of america and the presumptive nominee of one of many two main political events.

The issue with this was that’s was all apparent horseshit. Smirnov claimed to have been in Vienna in 2015 to fulfill with Burisma officers, however his passport proved in any other case. He claimed {that a} specific affiliate was with him in a 2016 assembly with Burisma, however that affiliate by no means left the US between 2011 and 2017. And Smirnov claimed to have met with a particular Burisma official in 2016 when in actual fact their introduction was memorialized in a 2017 electronic mail.

A lot for Republicans’ nice white hope of one way or the other vindicating Trump’s request that the Ukrainian president “do us a favor, although” and examine Joe Biden for taking a bribe to intrude in Ukraine’s home politics.

Is Chuck Grassley the slightest bit ashamed at having fomented lies a couple of man he labored with within the Senate for many years?

LOL, nope! Right here’s his statement from yesterday:

In the present day’s indictment confirms a number of factors Senator Grassley has made repeatedly. The informant behind the FD-1023 was, certainly, a long-serving, trusted FBI supply utilized by the company for legal investigations because the Obama administration. In reality, he was so trusted that the FBI offered him authorization to interact in criminal activity for investigative functions.’

However, when offered with info from a supply the company so trusted, the FBI – as uncovered by Senator Grassley – sat on the doc for years, with out performing due diligence. It’s clear that solely after Senator Grassley made the FD-1023 public did the FBI examine the allegations within the doc.

Since October 2022, Senator Grassley has had a single goal: to make sure the DOJ and FBI investigated the FD-1023. In the present day’s indictment makes clear that, with out Senator Grassley’s oversight and publicity of the FD-1023, the company would have continued neglecting its duties and failing to offer the transparency the American folks deserve. Congress shouldn’t need to threaten contempt to acquire an unclassified doc.

After withholding info from Congress and the American folks, and hiding behind the guise of defending ‘sources and strategies,’ the Division of Justice has now uncovered their very own supply. Accordingly, this indictment isn’t sufficient – the general public has a proper to see all of the underlying proof supporting the Biden Justice Division’s case. The Biden administration should present its work.

Ah, properly, at the very least they nonetheless have that weirdo Tony Bobulinski to fall again on.

United States v. Smirnov [Docket via Court Listener]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore the place she produces the Regulation and Chaos substack and podcast.