If the bank records prove anything then indict him. Otherwise and this bullshit charade.
Because that’s all you have?
— Gary Koepnick (@garykoepnick) March 2, 2024
If you can bring yourself to listen to 30 seconds of Jim Comer… dude is frantic that all the spinning plates are come crashing down, some of them possibly on his own head. We had full faith in Informant Smirnov, because he told us exactly what we wanted to hear!
How clean is the dirt on Hunter Biden? A key Republican source is charged with lying to the FBI https://t.co/gaX0zCipGj
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 2, 2024
Smirnov seems to be what Georgette Heyer would have styled ‘a plausible rogue’ — plausible only to those looking to believe. From the Associated Press, “How clean is the dirt on Hunter Biden? A key Republican source is charged with lying to the FBI”:
Alexander Smirnov was cast by Republicans as one of the FBI’s most trusted informants, offering a “highly credible” account of brazen public corruption by Joe Biden that formed a pillar of the House impeachment investigation of the Democratic president.
Then, last month, the script changed dramatically.
Smirnov, 43, finds himself charged with lying to the FBI, accused of fabricating a tale of bribery and espionage involving then-Vice President Biden and the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, and he has told officials he has Russian intelligence contacts…
Interviews and a review of public records by The Associated Press suggest this was not likely Smirnov’s first turn in what the government says is a cycle as a fabulist.
They offer a portrait of a businessman who operated a string of murky shell companies, ran with others who have been accused of fraud, and boasted of his own ties to the FBI. The episode highlights not only the perils of the Republicans’ reliance on unverified information in their quest to confront Biden but also the risks inherent in the FBI’s use of sometimes-unreliable informants who may have ulterior motives.
“How come in all of the universe nobody in America figured out for years that this guy is a fraud and a liar? How did this (expletive) make its way to Congress?” said Yossi Attia, a Los Angeles businessman who has interacted with Smirnov and once ran a penny stock company in which Smirnov held a substantial stake.…