CNN’s Manu Raju confronted House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Wednesday as he defended the House impeachment probe of Joe Biden even though their star witness has been charged with lying to the FBI and has admitted to getting information from Russian intelligence officials.
Former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov was arrested last week and charged with lying to the FBI after he falsely told the bureau in June 2020 that executives associated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden $5 million each in 2015 or 2016. Smirnov later admitted in an interview with prosecutors after his arrest that officials associated with Russian intelligence “were involved in passing a story” to him about Hunter Biden.
Smirnov’s claim is at the center of House Republicans impeachment probe.
Asked by Raju how Smirnov could be a corroborating witness after recent developments, Jordan insisted his arrest for lying does not change the facts of the case against Biden.
“It doesn’t change the four fundamental facts. Hunter Biden was put on the board of Burisma and gets paid a million dollars a year. Fact number two, he’s not qualified to be on the board. He said so himself in an interview with, I don’t know, you or some network,” Jordan told Raju.
Jordan went on to push other debunked conspiracy theories including the claim that the Ukrainian prosecutor Joe Biden had pushed to oust, Viktor Shokin, was “prosecuting” Burisma while Hunter was serving on the board.
What Jordan failed to mention was that Shokin was corrupt and the US and its allies had made a coordinated effort to oust him. Also, at the time of his firing he was not investigating Burisma.
“You said the 1023 report is the most corroborating piece of information you had,” Raju said to Jordan, referring to the form the FBI uses to record information from confidential sources.
“It corroborates,” Jordan said, “but it doesn’t change those fundamental facts.”
“Well, it’s not true,” Raju responded.
No witness called to testify in House Republicans impeachment inquiry so far have corroborated their claim that Joe Biden benefited from or was influenced by Hunter’s foreign business dealings.
In fact, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer, told lawmakers in a closed door testimony that he is “not aware of any” wrongdoing by Joe Biden. And any phone calls to Biden by his son in the presence of business associates was to give the false impression of access.
