LOS ANGELES.–Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), 61, former House lead impeachment manager for the Jan. 6 insurrection, said the Republican impeachment investigation crashed-and-burned with revelations about FBI informant Alexander Smirnov admitting he made false claims on an FBI 1023 form, saying President Joe Biden, 81, and his 53-year-old son Hunter took $5 million bribes from a Ukrainia energy company. Smirnov is now under Justice Department indictment for making false claims to the FBI about Biden and his son. “Fold up the tent to this circus show. It’s really over at this point,” Raskin said, hoping he can dupe enough people into believing Biden is in the clear when it comes to receiving illegal profits from his son and 74-year-old brother James foreign business transactions. Whatever Smirnov said the FBI, it was only one part of Biden’s possible crimes from overseas business deals.
When Joe ran for President in 2020, he swore, as he does today, on a stack of bibles he knew absolutely nothing of Hunter’s foreign business deals. Yet Hunter already confessed on ABC’s “The View” in 2020 that without his father he would not have got the million dollar job on the board of Kiev-based Bursima Holdings, a natural gas company. So when it comes to Hunter’s work in Ukraine, what does Raskin say about that? Whatever Smirnov’s statements on an FBI 1023 form, it doesn’t rule anything out about a wide range of Hunter and James overseas transactions trading of the Biden name. Raskin wants to use Smirnov’s confession a rationale to dismiss all allegations against Biden. Raskin tries to conflate Smirnov’s 2023 form statements with many other allegations about Joe reaping profits from his son Hunter and brother Jim’s overseas business deals.
Raskin and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) are two of Democrats biggest anti-Trump political hacks in Congress. Schiff insisted for years that Trump was a Russian agent, even after Special Counsel Robert Mueller cleared Trump of any wrongdoing. Schiff continued to insist that he had proof that Trump colluded with the Kremlin to win the 2016 presidential election. Schiff never produced proof of anything. “I wanted to just start by restating the obvious, which is that the impeachment investigation essentially ended yesterday in substance, if not in form, with the explosive revelation that Mr. Smirnov’s allegations about Ukrainian Burisma payments to Joe Biden were concocted along with Russian intelligence agents,” Raskin said. When it comes to Smirnov’s discredited allegations, it says nothing about the wide range of Hunter and James overseas business deals.
How convenient for Raskin to take one piece of information and generalize it to the entire House impeachment inquiry led by 51-year-old Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and 60-year-old Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Oh.). Raskin and the White House would like to stop the impeachment inquiry dead in its tracks. But today, Comer and Jordan are interviewing behind closed doors 77-year-old James Biden, partner with Hunter on numerous overseas business deals, netting the Biden family millions after Joe finished his eight-year term as Vice President Jan. 20, 2017. Hunter and his friend Devon Archers made millions off Burisma Holdings for years after Joe left as Vice President. Joe denied emphatically that he knew anything about Hunter overseas business deals but obviously helped Hunter and Archer land their jobs on Burisma’s board.
Raskin knows that the bulk of the impeachment inquiry is not based on the FBI 1023 form Smirnov admitted he received Russian disinformation. How convenient of Smirnov to blame it Russian intelligence, absolving him of any wrongdoing, but, more importantly, raising the false narrative that Russian disinformation was at the root of Hunter’s laptop scandal, where he admitted to illegal overseas business transactions. Biden’s 2020 campaign and the U.S. press attributed the contents of Hunter’s computer to Russian disinformation. Turns out, whatever Russian disinformation circulated in 2020, it was not part of Hunter’s laptop. Smirnov could very well be lying about Russian disinformation, to save himself from filing a false FBI report. Russian disinformation has been the go-to excuse given by Democrats to discredit the 2016 and 2024 Trump presidential campaigns.
No one in the White House or Congress have explained why the U.S. is funding a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, other that saying 71-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to take over Europe. Biden’s obsession with Ukraine cannot be explained in any coherent manner. Most national security experts think that Ukraine has no significance to the United States, yet Biden was willing to end decades of diplomacy, détente and arms control with Russia to fund a proxy war against the Kremlin. “It appears like the whole thing is not only obviously false and fraudulent, but a product of Russian disinformation and propaganda,” Raskin said, looking to get Biden off the hook. “And that been the motor force behind this investigation for more than a year,” Raskin said, knowing that Comer and Jordan are looking at Joe’s ties to Hunter and James overseas business deals.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
