House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is brushing aside the indictment of the FBI informant at the center of the GOP’s allegations against President Biden, arguing the source’s arrest “doesn’t change the fundamental facts” of the Republican case against the president.
The Justice Department indicted Alexander Smirnov last week on allegations he made up information involving the Bidens, including his claim that the then-vice president and his son, Hunter Biden, each accepted a $5 million bribe, an assertion central to the GOP’s impeachment inquiry against the president. Last year, Jordan said “the impeachable offense is — I think, the key thing is in Burisma.”
But Wednesday, nearly a week after Smirnov’s arrest, Jordan downplayed the significance Smirnov’s claims play in the conference’s impeachment inquiry into Biden.
“Well, I mean, it is what it is,” Jordan told reporters when asked about the indictment. “It doesn’t change the fundamental facts.”
The Judiciary Committee chair went on to list a number of long-running GOP claims involving Hunter Biden and his involvement with Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
“Those facts, they don’t change regardless of what this confidential human source is saying,” Jordan said, referring to Smirnov.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) has delivered a similar message, arguing that the impeachment inquiry does not hinge on Smirnov’s claims, which were memorialized in an FD-1023 form.
“To be clear, the impeachment inquiry is not reliant on the FBI’s FD-1023,” Comer said in a statement last week.
Democrats, however, have pounced on Smirnov’s indictment in their campaign to cast doubt on the GOP’s impeachment inquiry. Last week, Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the top Democrat on the Oversight and Accountability Committee, called on Republican leaders to end their probe in light of Smirnov’s arrest.
On Wednesday, Raskin said the revelations involving Smirnov “destroy the entire case.”
“Smirnov was the foundation of the whole thing. He was the one who came forward to say that Burisma had given Joe Biden $5 million, and that was just concocted out of thin air.”
“And so it was that foundation that the whole house of cards has been built on, and the entire thing has collapsed,” he added.
The controversy surrounding Smirnov depended on Tuesday after the Justice Department revealed in a filing that Smirnov said he received his information about Hunter Biden from Russian intelligence.
“During his custodial interview on February 14, Smirnov admitted that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story about Businessperson 1,” the filing reads. Businessperson 1 is Hunter Biden.
Raskin on Wednesday called that a “shattering revelation.”
The comments from Jordan and Raskin came the same day James Biden, the president’s younger brother, appeared before the House Oversight Committee as part of the GOP’s impeachment inquiry into the president.
Republicans have alleged that the president was involved in his family’s business dealings, prompting claims of corruption and influence peddling. On Wednesday, however, the younger Biden testified that his brother “never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest” in his business ventures.
Mike Lillis contributed. Updated at 2:04 p.m.