Biden impeachment losing steam after key informant exposed for fabricating evidence – National & International News – WED 21Feb2024

Biden impeachment losing steam after key informant exposed for fabricating evidence

For several months, the House has been trying to get an impeachment inquiry into President Biden off the ground. After some false starts, a formal inquiry got underway last year. One of the key pieces of evidence in the case was testimony from FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who had been deemed “highly credible” by several sources on Capitol Hill. Smirnov allegedly told his FBI handler in 2020 that then-VP Joe Biden and his son Hunter had personally received payments of $5 million each from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. 

However, Smirnov was indicted last week and accused making the whole thing up. According to the indictment, Smirnov’s Biden bribe story “was a fabrication, an amalgam of otherwise unremarkable business meetings and contacts that had actually occurred but at a later date than he claimed and for the purpose of pitching Burisma on [Smirnov’s] services and products, not for discussing bribes to [Joe Biden] when he was in office”.

In a further twist, Smirnov now claims that he was fed the story by Russian intelligence. Whether or not there is any truth to this is anyone’s guess as there appears to be only Smirnov’s word to attest to it. Nevertheless, Democrats have seized on the claim as being further evidence of Russian meddling in US politics. 

Brother Jim testifies

Today, President Biden’s brother Jim Biden, a political consultant, testified in a closed-door meeting in connection with the inquiry. While Jim’s testimony will not be public, he did release an opening statement, denying that his brother ever participated in any quid pro quo regarding Jim’s business interests. Jim claimed in his public statement that he had “always kept my professional life separate from our close personal relationship,” referring to his relationship with Joe Biden. Jim also stated he had “never asked my brother to take any official action on behalf of me, my business associates or anyone else” and accused anyone implying otherwise of being “either mistaken, ill-informed or flat-out lying”.

A recent article from POLITICO delved into Jim Biden’s involvement with a healthcare company called Americore, which went belly-up at the end of 2019. The company has since been mired in civil actions, bankruptcy proceedings and accusations of a $142 million Medicare fraud scheme. The article details how Jim traded on his brother’s name and position during his involvement in the company. However, there’s no evidence Joe Biden ever benefitted from this in any way, nor any suggestion he ever did anything to further Americore’s interests. 

The same is true of Hunter Biden’s dealings with Burisma. Smirnov’s now discredited information was the only link House Republicans had to suggest a quid pro quo that led straight to President Biden.

Regardless, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) and House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-TX) seem determined to carry on with the inquiry. Apparently looking for more straws to clutch at, Comer and Jordan intend to question Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Hur about whether he gleaned anything in his investigation related to the Biden family’s foreign business dealings. Hur spent a year investigating Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, and raised a political tempest when he questioned Biden’s memory and mental faculties in his report.