[ad_1]
Advertisement
OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
A top House GOP investigator argued on Wednesday that the case against a longtime FBI informant who is accused of creating a multi-million-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden is not revolutionary.
The indictment of Alexander Smirnov and his allegations of having contacts with Russian intelligence officials, according to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), do not “change the four fundamental facts” linking Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian gas company that hired Hunter Biden for several years as a board member, and Joe Biden’s pressure on Ukrainian authorities to remove Viktor Shokin, the nation’s top prosecutor, during the elder Biden’s vice presidential term.
During an exchange with CNN’s Manu Raju, Jordan argued that “fact number one” is that Hunter Biden was “put on the board of Burisma and gets paid a million dollars a year.”
The second fact, according to Jordan, was that “he’s not qualified to be on the board. He said so himself in an interview,” a reference to Hunter Biden saying he was hired because of his family name.
Jordan said the third fact concerned executives at Burisma, asking Hunter Biden, “Can you weigh in with D.C. and help us deal with the pressure we are facing from the prosecutor?”
Jordan referred to Devon Archer’s testimony, who also served on the company board.
Advertisement
“Fact number four: Joe Biden then goes to Ukraine” days after a call was made and “conditions the release of… American tax money on the firing of the prosecutor who was applying the pressure” to Burisma, Jordan added.
Raju probed further, pressing Jordan on his earlier claim that the “most corroborating” evidence for GOP investigators in their impeachment investigation was an FBI-generated FD-1023 form containing Smirnov’s allegations that Burisma executives paid $5 million in bribes to the Bidens.
“It corroborates but it doesn’t change those fundamental facts,” Jordan said.
In a separate conversation with reporters outside of President Joe Biden’s brother James Biden’s deposition for the impeachment investigation, the Ohio Republican raised similar concerns. Next week, Hunter Biden is scheduled to appear before congressional investigators.
The impeachment investigation “essentially ended… with the explosive revelation that Mr. Smirnov’s allegations about Ukrainian Burisma payments to Joe Biden were concocted along with Russian intelligence agents,” according to top Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) on Tuesday.
He further urged Republicans in the House to “fold up the tent to this circus show.” This is really the end of it.
Under Chairman James Comer (R-KY), the House Oversight Committee is leading the impeachment investigation.
The committee stated that the Department of Justice and the FBI “have a lot of explaining to do about their reliance on the informant whose allegations were included” in the FD-1023 form.
Three questions were posed in a post to X:
“Why did they use this informant, who officials claimed was highly credible, since 2010?”
“Why did they pay the informant six figures?”
“Why did the DOJ sit on serious allegations from the informant whom the FBI deemed highly credible for years before investigating the claims?”
The panel added, “The American people deserve answers.”
Late last year, the U.S. House voted to formally authorize its investigation into President Joe Biden’s potential impeachment.
By a party-line vote of 221-212, the Republican-controlled chamber approved the investigation, which is looking into whether Biden improperly benefited from his 53-year-old son Hunter Biden’s international business dealings. Hunter Biden had earlier declined an invitation to testify behind closed doors.
“These are — these are serious times and this is a very serious matter. And I’ve said many times over the last few years, because impeachment has been an issue that we’ve all become all too familiar with, that next to the Declaration of War, you can make an argument that impeachment may be the heaviest power that Congress holds. That — that constitutional responsibility lies with the House,” Johnson began at a press conference.
“We — we have a duty to pursue the facts where they lead. John Adams famously said ‘Facts are stubborn things.’ And you heard the recitation of that here this morning. These facts are alarming. They’re alarming to the American people, they are alarming to us. And so while we take no pleasure in the — in the proceedings here, we have a responsibility to do it. We’re very proud of the work of these three chairmen that you’ve seen here, Chairman Comer, and Jordan and Smith,” Johnson added.
He continued: “They’ve done an exceptional job on uncovering the obvious corruption. And you’ve heard it here summarized this morning, very succinctly, President Biden and the Biden family. We — we owe it to the American people to continue this process, but to do it methodically, and transparently. Many of you know I was on — I’m a lawyer, I’m constitutional law attorney, I served on President Trump’s impeachment defense team twice. And we lament it openly, and we decried how the Democrats politicize that process, they were brazenly political, and how they — they brought those meritless impeachment charges against the — the president.”
“This what you’re seeing here is exactly the opposite. We are the rule of law team, the Republican Party stands for the rule of law. And the people in charge of this are doing this thoroughly, carefully and methodically. They’re investigating and gathering all the facts,” he said.
Advertisement
