The Biden impeachment’s latest big blow - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

The Biden impeachment’s latest big blow - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

Democrats have quickly accused Republicans of falling prey to a Russian disinformation campaign to discredit President Joe Biden. | Win McNamee/Getty Images

IMPEACHMENT’S RUSSIA CONNECTION — In the summer of 2020, ALEXANDER SMIRNOV, a longtime FBI informant with a network of Russian contacts, made an explosive allegation. Smirnov told his American handler that from 2015 to 2019 he had a series of meetings and phone calls with executives from the Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma Holdings and that they told him: that Burisma added HUNTER BIDEN to its board to "protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems”; that Hunter and JOE BIDEN “forced” Burisma to pay them each $5 million in bribes “to ensure Ukraine Prosecutor General VIKTOR SHOKIN was fired”; and that there were 17 recordings (two with Joe, 15 with Hunter), text messages, and two financial documents with evidence of the entire scheme. Word of the Smirnov dossier, memorialized internally at the FBI as a four-page report, leaked out and it became the white whale of House and Senate Republicans looking to impeach Joe Biden. Sen. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-Iowa) and Rep. JAMES COMER (R-Ky.) finally got their hands on it last summer. It was never fact-checked. None of the exotic Slavic characters it implicated came to testify. None of Smirnov’s LE CARRÉ-like meetings in European locales (Kiev, Vienna, London) were confirmed. No recordings of Joe — “the big guy” in Smirnov’s suspiciously familiar words — ever surfaced. No financial records ever showed any Burisma payments to father or son. But Smirnov’s curious tale of Biden family corruption was reported as fact on the right. “Biden $10M bribe file released: Burisma chief said he was ‘coerced’ to pay Joe, ‘stupid’ Hunter in bombshell allegations.” read a NY Post headline. By one count, SEAN HANNITY aired 85 segments about it. KEVIN McCARTHY cited the Smirnov dossier as a reason he was moving forward with impeachment. Last week, we learned that it was all made up. “The Defendant’s story to the FBI was a fabrication,” prosecutors alleged in an indictment of Smirnov. He had “transformed his routine and unextraordinary business contacts with Burisma in 2017 and later into bribery allegations against” Biden. But yesterday we learned something more unsettling: Smirnov’s story may have been planted by a Russian intelligence source. In a court filing, federal prosecutors detailed Smirnov’s extensive contacts with Russian officials over the course of many years and alleged that he made a shocking admission during his arrest last week. “During his custodial interview on February 14, Smirnov admitted that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story about” Hunter Biden. They did not specify what the story was or clarify whether Smirnov claimed that the Biden family bribery lie was fed to him by one of his many Russian contacts. But the cryptic line was suggestive enough to enrage Democrats, who quickly accused Republicans of falling prey to a Russian disinformation campaign to discredit Biden — the same thing Republicans have accused Democrats of ever since the Steele dossier became public in 2017. The House impeachment effort had already been losing steam. Comer, the Kentucky Republican leading the effort, said recently that a vote might not happen at all, given the House GOP’s tiny majority. And many Republicans suddenly seem more interested in talking about Joe Biden’s age rather than his son Hunter. In Biden’s orbit, the potential Russian connection to the case is being greeted with outrage. “Obviously there’s a case that’ll have to play out here,” said a person close to Biden. “But based on the indictment and filing, it lays bare how unscrupulous the entire GOP and their enablers in right wing media have become. …Republicans in Congress ought to be facing the crushing burden of a massive scandal of their own making right now: An impeachment based on what might be a Russian intelligence operation. If nothing else, a criminal lie, based on the indictment.” Related read: “Hunter Biden mounts legal offensive against tax prosecution,” by Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney