Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, is calling on the chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY.) to end the impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden after the witness at the center of their bribery claims was indicted for lying to the FBI about the Bidens.
“In a detailed indictment, Special Counsel David Weiss—who was appointed by former President Donald Trump—has demonstrated how key evidence at the heart of House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry is based on a lie,” Raskin said in a statement. “Special Counsel Weiss’s investigation is just the most recent to debunk the Ukraine-Burisma conspiracy theory at the heart of this fraudulent impeachment inquiry.
“It is an undeniable fact that Republicans’ allegations against President Biden have always been a tissue of lies built on conspiracy theories, and I formally call on Speaker Johnson, Chairman Comer, and House Republicans to stop promoting this nonsense and end their doomed impeachment inquiry,” he added.
Raskin’s statement comes after news of Alexander Smirnov’s arrest broke earlier on Thursday. Smirnov was charged with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record.
Smirnov accused Biden of accepting $5 million in bribes to push for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor in order to protect his son who was sitting on the board of Ukrainian gas company, Burisma.
His accusations led to House Republicans launching an impeachment inquiry of the president late last year.
But, the Department of Justice revealed Thursday that Smirnov lied about the Bidens Ukraine dealings.
The DOJ called his claims “fabrications,” adding, in truth, he only “had contact with executives from Burisma in 2017,” when Joe Biden had left office as vice president and “had no ability” to influence U.S. policy.
“In short, the Defendant transformed his routine and unextraordinary business contacts with Burisma in 2017 and later into bribery allegations against [Joe Biden], the presumptive nominee of one of the two major political parties for President, after expressing bias against [Joe Biden] and his candidacy,” the indictment says.
Despite this, Comer is defending the probe and said it will continue.
“To be clear, the impeachment inquiry is not reliant on the FBI’s FD-1023,” he said in a statement referring to the form the FBI uses to record information from confidential sources. “It is based on a large record of evidence, including bank records and witness testimony, revealing that Joe Biden knew of and participated in his family’s business dealings.”
He also called the FBI’s conduct “very concerning” and claimed the bureau had previously defended Smirnov’s credibility.
“When asked by the committee about their confidence in the confidential human source, the FBI told the committee the confidential human source was credible and trusted, had worked with the FBI for over a decade, and had been paid six figures,” Comer added.
