Who Needs Evidence? GOP’s Case for Biden Impeachment Blows Up
Star Witness Pushing Propaganda from Russia
A court document filed on February 20 by Special Counsel David Weiss (the same guy charging Hunter Biden) reveals that former FBI informant Alexi Smirnoff wasn’t just a perjurer, he engaged with Russian officials to spread falsehoods about the President and his son Hunter.
The Department of Justice produced the document arguing against pretrial release for Smirnoff.
It starts out:
No condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the appearance of the defendant Alexander Smirnov as required.
Then it lays out four “indisputable facts” as evidence for continued detention:
First, he claims to have contacts with multiple foreign intelligence agencies and had plans to leave the United States two days after he was arrested last week for a months-long, multi-country foreign trip. During this trip, the defendant claimed to be meeting with foreign intelligence contacts...
Second, he has access to over $6 million in liquid funds—more than enough money for him to live comfortably overseas for the rest of his life.
Third, Smirnov did not disclose to Pretrial Services his access to these funds. He told Pretrial Services he only had $1,500 in cash-on-hand and $5,000 in a personal checking account.
Fourth, as an Israeli citizen, Smirnov can obtain a new passport at any time by visiting an Israeli consulate
This is the man who GOP legislators insisted was a “rock solid” source for information leading up their efforts to impeach the President.
Two days after his arrest in Las Vegas,
“Smirnov admitted that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story about Businessperson 1 [Hunter Biden].”
"Smirnov’s contacts with Russian officials who are affiliated with Russian intelligence services are not benign. Smirnov’s efforts to spread misinformation about a candidate of one of the two major parties in the United States (Biden) continues."
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The FBI document leaked to Senator Grassley, and the basis for much of the investigation, was a FD-1023, an unverified account of an informant with his FBI handler.
Here’s where it gets interesting: Scott Brady, the US Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania supposedly vetted a FD-1023 from informant Smirnoff in 2020 and found it to be credible. Or maybe not, but Atty General Bill Barr sat on that information.
Three years later that same information was actually vetted and it became clear that the informant fabricated a claim that Joe and Hunter Biden had each received $5 million in bribes from the Ukrainian company, Burisma.
One might think that the Republican Congress members would want to reevaluate their case against the Bidens after this guy was arrested for perjury, even without the Russia allegations, but you would be wrong.
Via Huffington Post:
On Tuesday, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) included the paragraph about the informant in an interview request letter to former State Department official Amos Hochstein. An hour later, according to a Democratic House aide, the chairman sent another version of the same letter, but without the paragraph about the informant. HuffPost reviewed both versions of the document.
And today (Wednesday) the President’s brother testified in a closed-door transcribed interview as part of Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into the president. Hunter Biden is set to appear for his own transcribed interview Feb. 28.
For almost a year, the GOP has insisted that Biden and his son are guilty of corruption. Republicans have not produced a shred of concrete evidence of their claims. In fact, their other “eyewitness” Guy Luft, has been charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Chinese entities and brokering illegal arms deals with Iran and Libya.
All of the other witnesses that Republicans have called, claiming that their testimony will blow the case wide open, have instead debunked every single accusation against the Biden family.
So what was it? Were GOP leaders just useful idiots for Russian election interference, or did they know, like Bill Barr and his cronies apparently did, that Smirnov’s claims were false, but amplified them anyway to dirty up Biden?
Was the whole Hunter Biden “scandal” a Russian psy-op — straight from Putin? Did Russia successfully use Senator Grassley, Representative Comer, Fox News and others to damage the President of the United States and make fake info about him an article of faith on the right?
I can hear the upcoming denials even before they appear in the media: that this is another RusssiaGate, i.e., the accusations about Russia influencing the 2016 election.
The actual facts in the GOP investigation into the Bidens ultimately don’t really matter, it’s the smoke they generate that counts. For months now the right wing media has been beating the so-called Biden bribery story like a rug on a clothesline..
Sadly, for the chunk of the population existing in the Trumpian bubble, all they’ve heard is “Biden=corrupt.”
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Wednesday News to Peruse
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We all live in a red state by LOLGOP at The Cause
The oppression that exists in red states through the coiled plagues of gerrymandering, voter suppression, right-wing propaganda, negative partisanship and self-sorting may feel distant to you now, as it does to me in Michigan where we're undergoing a renaissance of democracy. But I can tell you things swing fast. A decade ago, our state government poisoned a mostly Black city to save a piddling amount of money and was suing to keep gay couples from adopting kids.
So I have some bad news for anyone in a blue state who feels a little schadenfreude or urge to tell people to just “get up and go!” when a horrible law or hate crime comes up in a red state. As long as we have a Supreme Court dominated by six Republicans, we all live in a red state.
America is a red state and will be until we rid ourselves of a MAGA majority on a Supreme Court.
We need to accept that to feel the stakes of the challenges we face. And part of this responsibility comes from empathizing with those in red states who suffer most from our lack of solidarity.
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GOP privately expects government shutdown By Juliegrace Bufke at Axios
Behind closed doors, House Republicans have shifted from optimistically cautious to expecting a government shutdown, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) will have to choose in coming weeks between a fight with Democrats that threatens a shutdown, or a deal with Democrats that threatens his job.
"People are predicting a shutdown even if it's just for a few days," a GOP lawmaker recently told Axios.
They're either "close to reaching a deal or it's about to blow up," one subcommittee chair recently told a fellow House Republican
