Republicans are seeking to preserve the credibility of their inquiries into the Biden family after a court filing revealed that a former FBI informant behind a discredited claim that President Biden and his son Hunter received bribes is allegedly linked to Russian intelligence. Democrats, including House Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (MD) say the revelation should be the beginning of the end of the impeachment inquiry into the president, The Hill reports. Former informant Alexander Smirnov was charged with making false statements to his FBI handler. It was only on Tuesday that the allegation of Russian links emerged. Raskin said, 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.”
A legal filing from prosecutors on Tuesday included the details of alleged Russian links as part of an argument that Smirnov, a citizen of Israel, should not be allowed out of detention pending his trial because the government considers him a flight risk. Smirnov became a central figure in the Biden investigations primarily because of one explosive allegation. He said that he had been told by an executive of Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company where Hunter Biden served on the board, that the executive had felt obligated to pay the Bidens massive bribes, amounting to $5 million each. The new legal filing starkly notes that these events “were fabrications.” Republicans are not giving up the fight. On Wednesday, GOP members insisted that their allegations of malfeasance were not “reliant” on the Smirnov's claims. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) argued that the Smirnov revelations “doesn’t change the fundamental facts.”