Are Republicans easy marks or willing participants in Russian anti-Biden operations? That’s a troubling question raised by the Feb. 14 grand jury indictment of a former FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, on charges of concocting a tale about President Biden’s supposed involvement in his family members’ business dealings.
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Allegations by Smirnov — who appears to have ties to Russian intelligence, according to the federal indictment — have formed the backbone of the House Republicans’ laughable attempt to build an impeachment case against the president. They championed him as their star witness. Now the Republicans’ fact-deficient storyline has been shredded.
The Post reported that Smirnov, who has not entered a plea yet, is accused of “making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record” by trying to implicate Biden in corruption related to his son Hunter Biden’s involvement with the Ukraine energy company Burisma. “The charges,” the article said, “amount to a stark rebuke of conservatives, particularly Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, who touted Smirnov’s claims as he and other Republican lawmakers tried to build a corruption case against the president and his family.”
Even more damning, The Post subsequently reported that “Smirnov’s indictment and detention memo suggest the allegations were not only false, but possibly a Russian-inspired smear.”
In the aftermath of the indictment, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) declared, “Smirnov was the foundation of the whole thing. He was the one who came forward to say that Burisma had given Joe Biden $5 million, and that was just concocted in thin air. It was that foundation that the whole house of cards has been built on, and the entire thing has collapsed.”
Raskin added that “we don’t even have to rely on Smirnov’s own words because there have been somewhere near a dozen witnesses who have completely repudiated and refuted these essential allegations.”
Now Republicans are pretending that Smirnov wasn’t so important after all. They’re vowing to plow ahead on this cock-and-bull mission that never got off the ground. Not only did multiple witnesses testify that Biden had no involvement with his son’s business dealings, but previous allegations that Biden acted on his son’s behalf had also already been thoroughly repudiated.
The current House debacle overlaps with a Russian disinformation project described by the national security specialists Ryan Goodman and Asha Rangappa on the website Just Security in 2020. That scheme enticed Republican Sens. Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa) to buy into the now-discredited scenario that as vice president Biden sought on behalf of his son to stop an investigation of Burisma. (It also added in another phony Ukraine election interference claim.)
And let’s not forget that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III found “sweeping and systematic” Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election on Donald Trump’s behalf.
The current revelations concerning Smirnov should not merely spell the end of the comically inept impeachment proceedings; they should provoke questions about Republicans’ recklessness in peddling claims they apparently knew were unreliable.
At the very least, it is clear that House Republicans had reason to be skeptical of Smirnov’s allegations instead of embracing them. FBI briefers “warned lawmakers that the document, known as a 1023, containing Smirnov’s allegations against the Bidens also included raw, uncorroborated intelligence that should not be made public,” CNN reported on Wednesday. Even if the Republicans did not know Smirnov might have ties to Russian intelligence, they certainly knew the basis for making wild allegations about Biden was extremely shaky.
Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), appearing on CNN, revealed, “We were warned at the time that we received the document outlining this witness’s testimony. We were warned that the credibility of this statement was not known.”
Asked directly if Republicans Comer and Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) knowingly proceeded with possibly baseless allegations, Buck replied, “That’s what it appears. I certainly didn’t have any evidence outside the statement itself that it was credible.” He added that as “a prosecutor for 25 years ... I never went to the public until I could prove the reliability of a statement.”
It’s bad enough if Republicans were simply reckless in attempting to smear the president; it would be quite stunning if they knew this was another Russian influence scheme. “DOJ must investigate whether and when Grassley, Comer or Jordan knew that Smirnov was spreading Russian disinformation,” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) warned. At a Thursday news conference, Goldman said of the impeachment effort, “There’s no question this is dead. To the extent that they continue to push forward with it, they are now doing it with a knowing asset of Russian intelligence.” He underscored, “It is one thing to lead an investigation where you fail to find evidence to support unfounded conclusions. It is altogether something else when you are acting as an agent of Vladimir Putin.”
Republicans have built their entire oversight operation on rooting out the “weaponization of government” as a tool for accusing Democrats of misdeeds. Talk about projection. As former FBI agent Rangappa told me, “It seems like Comer’s impeachment inquiry is the real ‘weaponization committee’ — weaponized by Russia, that is.”
Republicans’ affinity over multiple elections for Russian-backed plots should warrant wall-to-wall coverage. (Let us not forget Russian efforts detailed in the Mueller report to enlist the Trump campaign and sabotage Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.) Responsible news outlets should press House Republicans to justify their refusal to vote for aid for Ukraine and habit of spreading Russian conspiracy theories.
In short, Trump (enabled by House Republicans) wants Ukraine aid blocked and invites Vladimir Putin to invade NATO countries with military budgets Trump deems insufficient. He already has served as an indispensable helpmate in Putin’s assault on democracy and the international order. No wonder Russia appears yet again ready to pull out all the stops to boost Trump.
Sign up for the Prompt 2024 newsletter for opinions on the biggest questions in politics
Allegations by Smirnov — who appears to have ties to Russian intelligence, according to the federal indictment — have formed the backbone of the House Republicans’ laughable attempt to build an impeachment case against the president. They championed him as their star witness. Now the Republicans’ fact-deficient storyline has been shredded.
The Post reported that Smirnov, who has not entered a plea yet, is accused of “making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record” by trying to implicate Biden in corruption related to his son Hunter Biden’s involvement with the Ukraine energy company Burisma. “The charges,” the article said, “amount to a stark rebuke of conservatives, particularly Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, who touted Smirnov’s claims as he and other Republican lawmakers tried to build a corruption case against the president and his family.”
Even more damning, The Post subsequently reported that “Smirnov’s indictment and detention memo suggest the allegations were not only false, but possibly a Russian-inspired smear.”
In the aftermath of the indictment, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) declared, “Smirnov was the foundation of the whole thing. He was the one who came forward to say that Burisma had given Joe Biden $5 million, and that was just concocted in thin air. It was that foundation that the whole house of cards has been built on, and the entire thing has collapsed.”
Raskin added that “we don’t even have to rely on Smirnov’s own words because there have been somewhere near a dozen witnesses who have completely repudiated and refuted these essential allegations.”
Now Republicans are pretending that Smirnov wasn’t so important after all. They’re vowing to plow ahead on this cock-and-bull mission that never got off the ground. Not only did multiple witnesses testify that Biden had no involvement with his son’s business dealings, but previous allegations that Biden acted on his son’s behalf had also already been thoroughly repudiated.
The current House debacle overlaps with a Russian disinformation project described by the national security specialists Ryan Goodman and Asha Rangappa on the website Just Security in 2020. That scheme enticed Republican Sens. Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa) to buy into the now-discredited scenario that as vice president Biden sought on behalf of his son to stop an investigation of Burisma. (It also added in another phony Ukraine election interference claim.)
And let’s not forget that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III found “sweeping and systematic” Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election on Donald Trump’s behalf.
The current revelations concerning Smirnov should not merely spell the end of the comically inept impeachment proceedings; they should provoke questions about Republicans’ recklessness in peddling claims they apparently knew were unreliable.
At the very least, it is clear that House Republicans had reason to be skeptical of Smirnov’s allegations instead of embracing them. FBI briefers “warned lawmakers that the document, known as a 1023, containing Smirnov’s allegations against the Bidens also included raw, uncorroborated intelligence that should not be made public,” CNN reported on Wednesday. Even if the Republicans did not know Smirnov might have ties to Russian intelligence, they certainly knew the basis for making wild allegations about Biden was extremely shaky.
Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), appearing on CNN, revealed, “We were warned at the time that we received the document outlining this witness’s testimony. We were warned that the credibility of this statement was not known.”
Asked directly if Republicans Comer and Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) knowingly proceeded with possibly baseless allegations, Buck replied, “That’s what it appears. I certainly didn’t have any evidence outside the statement itself that it was credible.” He added that as “a prosecutor for 25 years ... I never went to the public until I could prove the reliability of a statement.”
It’s bad enough if Republicans were simply reckless in attempting to smear the president; it would be quite stunning if they knew this was another Russian influence scheme. “DOJ must investigate whether and when Grassley, Comer or Jordan knew that Smirnov was spreading Russian disinformation,” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) warned. At a Thursday news conference, Goldman said of the impeachment effort, “There’s no question this is dead. To the extent that they continue to push forward with it, they are now doing it with a knowing asset of Russian intelligence.” He underscored, “It is one thing to lead an investigation where you fail to find evidence to support unfounded conclusions. It is altogether something else when you are acting as an agent of Vladimir Putin.”
Republicans have built their entire oversight operation on rooting out the “weaponization of government” as a tool for accusing Democrats of misdeeds. Talk about projection. As former FBI agent Rangappa told me, “It seems like Comer’s impeachment inquiry is the real ‘weaponization committee’ — weaponized by Russia, that is.”
Republicans’ affinity over multiple elections for Russian-backed plots should warrant wall-to-wall coverage. (Let us not forget Russian efforts detailed in the Mueller report to enlist the Trump campaign and sabotage Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.) Responsible news outlets should press House Republicans to justify their refusal to vote for aid for Ukraine and habit of spreading Russian conspiracy theories.
In short, Trump (enabled by House Republicans) wants Ukraine aid blocked and invites Vladimir Putin to invade NATO countries with military budgets Trump deems insufficient. He already has served as an indispensable helpmate in Putin’s assault on democracy and the international order. No wonder Russia appears yet again ready to pull out all the stops to boost Trump.
