Republicans’ main effort to impeach President Joe Biden was thwarted after Special Counsel David Weiss accused a former FBI informant of lying about the president’s and his son Hunter Biden’s participation in financial transactions with the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings.

The 43-year-old Alexander Smirnov is accused of fabricating records and lying to the FBI. After arriving in the US from abroad, he was taken into custody on Thursday at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. He is scheduled to appear in federal court this Thursday afternoon.

According to the indictment, Smirnov lied to the FBI about a series of otherwise unremarkable business interactions and contacts that had actually happened, albeit later than he claimed, and were intended to introduce the Defendant’s services and products to Burisma rather than to discuss paying bribes to [Joe Biden] while he was in office.

For almost a year, congressional Republicans have supported Smirnov’s now-disproved claims, but they haven’t mentioned him by name. Over the FBI’s objections, they battled to obtain memos describing what Smirnov told investigators and made the files publicly available. Smirnov was frequently hailed by House Republicans as “credible,” and they prominently featured his unsubstantiated allegations in their impeachment investigation of the president.

Then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said that a reliable FBI source had revealed allegations of a bribe to the Biden family when he announced the impeachment investigation. Some of the same letters that congressional Republicans made public as part of their prosecution against Smirnov are currently being used by the FBI.

Republicans have been building their suspicions about Hunter and his family on lies propagated by people with political motivations, not facts, as we have been warning for months, according to Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, in a statement to Media.

The helium has escaped their balloon, and we were correct. He continued, “This is just another example of Chairmen Comer and Jordan spreading lies based on phony, improbable accusations and witnesses.”

The claims made by Smirnov in the FD-1023, a document the FBI uses to preserve information obtained from secret sources, that Republican lawmakers have cited, are not the focus of House Oversight Chair James Comer’s investigation into the president, he stated in a statement to CNN on Thursday.

To be clear, the FBI’s FD-1023 is not a prerequisite for the impeachment investigation. The Kentucky Republican claimed that it was founded on a substantial body of evidence that showed Joe Biden was aware of and involved in his family’s business transactions, including bank records and witness testimony.

He said that Smirnov’s reliability had previously been upheld by the FBI. The FBI told the committee that the confidential human source was reliable and trustworthy, had been employed by the agency for more than ten years, and had been paid six figures when the committee questioned them about their level of confidence in them.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa who made the 1023 form public last year after the FBI refused to do so, stated that his objective has been to get the Justice Department to look into the Bidens’ alleged bribery.

“This indictment is insufficient,” a Grassley representative declared in a statement. “Every piece of supporting evidence presented by the Biden Justice Department should be made available to the public.” The Biden administration needs to demonstrate its output.

Court documents state that Smirnov informed an FBI agent that he had discussed the company’s plans to acquire a US company with the Burisma owner.

Smirnov Reported to the FBI

According to the indictment, Smirnov reported to the FBI that a person known as “Businessperson 1” was a member of the Burisma board and the son of a person known as “Public Official 1.” Although the charge does not name these people, reports identify Joe Biden as “Public Official 1” and Hunter Biden as “Businessperson 1.”

Smirnov allegedly provided the FBI with notes on two meetings he had with Burisma executives in 2015 and 2016, during which the latter admitted to having hired Biden to secure us, through his dad, from any kind of issues.

This was during Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. Additionally, Smirnov allegedly revealed that executives gave $5 million to Joe and Hunter Biden each when Joe Biden was vice president, with the understanding that Hunter would take care of all those concerns through his dad, she said, referring to the criminal investigation into Burisma that the Ukrainian prosecutor general was conducting at the time.

As stated in the indictment, In truth and fact, the Defendant had contact with executives from Burisma in 2017, following the termination of the Obama-Biden Administration and the dismissal of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General in February 2016. In other words, at that point, neither Joe Biden nor the Prosecutor General had the authority to influence U.S. policy.

It goes on, To put it briefly, after expressing prejudice against [Joe Biden] and his candidacy, the Defendant turned his ordinary and unexceptional business dealings with Burisma in 2017 into bribery accusations against [Joe Biden], the presumed nominee of one of the two major political parties for President.

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