When the then President of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, ordered the opening of an investigation into a possible political trial (impeachment) of the President of the United States, Joe Biden, he emphasized that a “trusted FBI informant” “” alleged bribery of the family Biden.” Last week it became known that this informant was 43-year-old Alexander Smirnov and that his statements were a lie. The public prosecutor accuses him of making false statements and falsifying evidence for political reasons. Despite the solid evidence against the president, Republicans are not giving up. They will continue to bully the president and his son Hunter Biden as long as they believe it suits their interests.
The FD-1023 is a form used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to collect information from a confidential human source. A particular FD-1023, a four-page form, has been talked about incessantly at the United States Capitol for months. In it, a source now identified as Smirnov told the FBI that Joe Biden and his son Hunter received $5 million in commissions from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma in 2015 or 2016, which were paid by the company's co-founder, Mykola Zlochevsky , have been paid.
The interview with this source took place as part of an ongoing investigation into complaints filed in 2020 by Rudy Giuliani, then-President Donald Trump's lawyer. The Republican wanted to undermine the prestige of his possible rival in this year's presidential election. Nothing supported the credibility of these complaints, and when Giuliani himself found direct testimony contradicting them, he called for them to be “buried.”
Paradoxically, Republicans' obsession with Hunter Biden's business dealings in Ukraine and how his father could have profited from them led to Trump's first impeachment over his pressure on the then-unknown Volodymyr Zelensky's administration to investigate and incriminate the Bidens. and with the threat of withdrawing help from the country otherwise.
The FBI itself had tried to make it clear that collecting information from a source in one form does not validate it or prove its credibility. Yet Biden's rivals kept insisting on this FD-1023 document. In it, Smirnov also said he had made text messages and up to 17 recordings that made the Republicans' mouths water.
The obsession with impeachment
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Many members of Congress from Trump's party are obsessed with impeaching Biden. They don't forgive the fact that the previous president was impeached twice. Since they won the majority in the House of Representatives more than a year ago, they have been endlessly searching for evidence to accuse Biden of corruption. They saw the president's weakness in his son Hunter Biden.
Apparently they couldn't blame the father for the son's addictions, tax and legal problems (he's being charged in two separate cases), so it was a matter of proving that Joe Biden benefited from Hunter's foreign dealings, as she's trying to do had been dealing with for years, but now with the power of the majority of the House of Commons. This is despite the fact that no significant evidence has been found against the president and the crimes under investigation date back to before he took office.
Smirnov's false statement charge undermines the corruption allegations against Biden and further weakens Republicans' arguments. “Special Prosecutor David Weiss [que fue nombrado por el expresidente Donald Trump] “has shown that the key evidence at the heart of the House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry is based on a lie,” Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin said in a statement. “Special Counsel Weiss’s investigation is just the latest to expose the Ukraine-Burisma conspiracy theory at the heart of this fraudulent impeachment investigation,” he added.
Biden himself said this Friday at the White House that the investigation “should be terminated.” “It was a shameful undertaking from the start,” he added.
But Republicans now say the famous shape wasn't that important. “We have over 30 million reasons to continue this investigation, and none of those reasons are based on the corrupt FBI or an informant. “Bank records don’t lie,” tweeted Republican Congressman James Comer. The bank records he was referring to appear to be another false or at least misleading piece of evidence.
After inquiries and subpoenas, Republicans found a $200,000 check from James Biden, Joe Biden's brother, to the president and made a big deal about it, without making it clear that it was for the return of a prize. We hide and hide that only two months earlier there was a transfer from the President to his brother in the same amount. These were also transactions from 2018, when Biden was neither vice president nor president, made transparently, without the slightest intention to conceal them and without any signs of irregularity.
Republicans also found three corporate payments of $1,380 each, also in 2018, from a company owned by Hunter Biden to his father and sought to portray this as a way to funnel money from China to the president. In reality, it was three payments for the purchase of a Ford Raptor van. Joe Biden requested the loan in his name as a favor for his son.
So almost every new big Republican revelation evaporates as soon as it comes to light and is scrutinized. The White House has denied the allegations, and the most the investigation has revealed is that the current president once said “hello” on the phone and attended a dinner with Hunter's employees or clients when he was Barack Obama's vice president.
The evidence seems less important than the political implications. The investigation against Biden is a way to counter the criminal allegations against Trump. Republicans have already shown signs that they will try to keep up the pressure on Biden, expand their investigation into the handling of classified documents (despite the legal exoneration) and look for arguments for impeachment. It remains to be seen whether they will take this step, but the final decision will depend less on the evidence than on whether Republicans see a majority in favor of it (moderates may distance themselves) and what they believe will be the consequences of doing so be an election year.
The investigation continues and one of the main dishes will arrive next week. After several scuffles, disagreements and some theatrics, Hunter Biden will be called to testify behind closed doors in Congress on February 28th.
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