House Republicans Probe FBI’s Sudden About-Face On Confidential Source
House Republicans are demanding the FBI turn over records related to the federal government’s indictment of a once-trusted confidential human source (CHS), according to a joint congressional letter shared exclusively with The Federalist.
On Friday, House Oversight Chairman James Comer and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan sent the letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray to request documents related to Special Counsel David Weiss’s indictment of CHS Alexander Smirnov. Smirnov was charged two weeks ago for allegedly making false statements about President Joe Biden’s involvement in a criminal bribery scheme with a Ukrainian oligarch. Republican lawmakers, however, are left with questions about the FBI’s sudden about-face on the source they once highly regarded.
“Prior to the indictment, the FBI allowed Mr. Smirnov to serve as a CHS for over 14 years and earn a six-figure income, while maintaining ‘extensive and extremely recent’ foreign intelligence contacts,” lawmakers wrote. “Only after Mr. Smirnov reported that President Joe Biden accepted a bribe from a Ukrainian energy company in exchange for using his official position to oust the Ukrainian Prosecutor General did the FBI apparently take a hard look at this CHS.”
The 43-year-old Smirnov pled not guilty to charges of fabricating the multimillion-dollar bribery scheme, which was outlined in an FD-1023 before Biden took office and is now at the heart of House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry. The Bidens, Smirnov said, were paid $10 million to “protect” executives at the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma from the country’s prosecutors.
“If Smirnov lied to his handler in June 2020 about his conversations with Burisma executives, the indictment is well deserved,” wrote The Federalist’s Senior Legal Correspondent Margot Cleveland when the indictment was handed down. As Cleveland explained this week, however, “In contrast to the Russia-collusion hoax, which rested solely on the Steele dossier to paint Trump as a Putin patsy, evidence of Biden family corruption is comprehensive, diverse, and comes from their own mouths, texts, emails, and loyalists.” She continued:
The Hunter Biden laptop, which Weiss has confirmed is authentic, implicates Hunter, Joe, and Jim Biden in multiple influence-peddling schemes. Bank records confirm the millions in transfers from Chinese communists, Romanians, Ukrainians, and others, including the wife of the former Moscow mayor — who amazingly avoided being included on the Biden administration’s just-released, Russian sanction list.
Cleveland also cited numerous Biden associates who gave congressional testimony about the family’s foreign influence-peddling schemes, and bank records show monthly payments from Hunter Biden to Joe. Lawmakers also deposed Hunter Biden behind closed doors on Wednesday. This followed findings from House investigators that the Bidens had established more than 20 shell companies, most of which were set up while Joe Biden was vice president.
“At each step in the investigation, the FBI represented to the Committees that the CHS was highly credible and that disclosure of information about the CHS could jeopardize national security,” Comer and Jordan wrote in their letter to the FBI director. The lawmakers outlined how the FBI fought tooth and nail to keep their congressional committees in the dark about the official FD-1023 form.
“At no time did the FBI correct its representations to the Committees about the credibility of the CHS or the apparently baseless assertions that release of his information would endanger Americans,” they wrote. “The FBI’s noncooperation prevented the Committees from ever knowing Mr. Smirnov’s identity, speaking with him directly or indirectly, or independently assessing the credibility of the information he provided.”
Lawmakers gave Wray a deadline of March 15 to respond.
A Los Angeles judge ruled earlier this week that Smirnov must remain in detention until trial.
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