Jim Jordan Spirals When Asked About Losing His Star Biden Witness
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan is desperately trying to spin the damning news on ex–FBI informant Alexander Smirnov.
newrepublic.com
February 21, 2024/12:23 p.m. ET
Jim Jordan Spirals When Asked About Losing His Star Biden Witness
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan is desperately trying to spin the damning news on ex–FBI informant Alexander Smirnov.
AL DRAGO/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES
Representative Jim Jordan seems to be struggling with the realization that Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden appears to be founded on a bed of lies peddled by the Russian government.
On Wednesday, the Ohio Republican got caught up in his own words, insisting that the inquiry still had merit, despite the Justice Department indictment against its primary witness, Alexander Smirnov.
“You said the 1023 is the most corroborating piece of information you have,” CNN’s Manu Raju prompted the Freedom Caucus politician on Wednesday, referring to the FBI’s FD-1023 form that documents Smirnov’s claims, which he is now accused of completely making up. In December, Jordan claimed the 1023 form constituted the “key” impeachable offense.
“It corroborates but it doesn’t change the fundamental facts,” Jordan responded, trying to flip the script and maintain that Biden was still involved in his son’s business dealings during his vice presidency.
But, of course, those facts are untrue. On Tuesday, the Justice Department revealed that Smirnov admitted to prosecutors that “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved” in developing the Hunter Biden narrative.
According to a new court filing, Smirnov told investigators he was in contact with “four different [top] Russian officials,” two of whom were the “heads of the entities they represent.”
Ultimately, Smirnov’s testimony—and the GOP’s ongoing turmoil to save the impeachment probe against the president—serves as just another staining example of how effectively the Russian government is capable of infiltrating and undermining U.S. elections.
“It targeted the presumptive nominee of one of the two major political parties in the United States. The effects of Smirnov’s false statements and fabricated information continue to be felt to this day,” prosecutors wrote.
On Thursday, special counsel David Weiss announced the indictment of Smirnov on one count of making a false statement and one count of creating a false record, related to what he told the FBI in 2020 about alleged corruption by the Biden family and its connection to Ukrainian-owned Burisma Holdings.
Republicans had spent months building up the hype around Smirnov as a witness, isolating his allegation that Biden had pocketed millions of dollars from the Ukrainian company as the centerpiece of their probe.
On Tuesday, attorneys for the president’s son, Hunter Biden, argued that the “Smirnov allegations infected this case,” and that the special counsel threw out Biden’s plea deal while following Smirnov “down his rabbit hole of lies.”
Meanwhile, legal experts are predicting an unpretty ending for Jordan and other GOP representatives hawking the conspiracy.
“Jim Jordan, Chuck Grassley, and James Comer were either duped by Smirnov and the Kremlin—or they were in on it,” Tristan Snell, a lawyer and former assistant attorney general for New York state, argued on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Either way, DOJ must subpoena every single communication Jordan, Grassley, and Comer had with or about Smirnov and anything related.”
“Either way—because either they are material witnesses—or they’re co-conspirators,” Snell added. “They have ZERO grounds to quash the subpoenas.”
typical TLR