House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan finally revealed the truth about ex–FBI informant Alexander Smirnov.

After trying and failing to salvage Republicans’ crumbling impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, Ohio Representative Jim Jordan at last, finally, conceded on Friday that Alexander Smirnov’s story might not be totally accurate.

“I don’t know, maybe the guy did lie,” Jordan said at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday.

The House Judiciary chair spent the better part of the week attempting to twist and tweak Smirnov’s testimony, insisting, as he had for months, that Smirnov’s allegations—that Biden had reaped millions off of a business deal between his son and the Ukrainian company Burisma—still held weight, and could prove the most viable pathway to successfully charge the sitting president. That is, even after Smirnov was indicted for lying to the FBI about those claims—and then reportedly admitted to prosecutors that the story had been drawn up with the help of top Russian intelligence officials and the whole thing was a bed of lies.

  • dhork@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    “But there sure is quite a contrast for—Christopher Steele can give false information about President Trump, and he continues to get paid. This guy, this Mr. Smirnov, can give false information—what they’ve said is false information—and he gets arrested,” Jordan added, referring to former British spy Christopher Steele and his private report of raw intelligence on Trump’s suspected ties to the Russian government, better known as the Steele Dossier.

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that Steele guy ever filed any paperwork with the FBI saying his claims were true.

    • athos77@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      Steele produced an intelligence dossier. It listed facts, extrapolations and rumors and it clearly labeled which items were which. Iirc, the pee tape was listed as a persistent rumor out of Russia that he couldn’t corroborate, but that he also couldn’t definitely label as false.

    • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      He did pass them his files

      … But never testified that all the allegations were provable, of course. Some of them never were.

      But that’s just a tiny bit different from claiming to having been privy to certain payments and later having to admit you made it all up