Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden will continue unabated despite Democrats pressuring them to call off their efforts in the wake of former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov’s arrest, according to lawmakers and sources familiar with the inquiry.
The chairmen leading the inquiry, Reps. James Comer (R-KY), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Jason Smith (R-MO), are pressing forward with interviewing witnesses, gathering documents, and eventually releasing what they anticipate will be a detailed report of their findings.
It remains unknown whether their work will lead to a vote to impeach the president, but the chairmen are spurning Democrats’ condemnations of the inquiry and moving forward in any case.
Lawmakers sat with one of their most high-profile witnesses, the president’s younger brother James Biden, in an interview that stretched more than eight hours on Wednesday.
Midway through the interview, Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) emerged from it and told reporters he felt the impeachment inquiry was fizzing out.
The interview was a “subdued affair,” Raskin said.
“It feels to me as if everyone knows the impeachment investigation is over,” the Maryland Democrat claimed, citing the indictment of Smirnov, whom the Department of Justice arrested last week over allegations Smirnov told the FBI lies about Joe and Hunter Biden.
But Republicans disagree completely with Raskin’s assessment.
“There are over 30 million reasons to continue our impeachment inquiry of President Biden. Bank records don’t lie and reveal $30 million in payments to the Bidens from Russia, China, Romania, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Democrat donors,” Comer said Thursday in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
Comer and Jordan in particular were heavily criticized by their Democratic colleagues and in the media this week for elevating claims about the Bidens that Smirnov made in 2020 — the same claims that the DOJ now alleges were lies. Smirnov, who was identified only as an unnamed confidential FBI source up until last week when he was arrested, had made damning accusations memorialized in an FBI form, called an FD-1023, that Joe and Hunter Biden had once accepted multimillion-dollar bribes in Ukraine.
Though the explosive allegations were unproven, once Comer and Jordan learned of them, they cited them in media appearances as “crucial” to and at “the heart” of the impeachment inquiry.
Despite that rhetoric, their investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings did in fact begin months before the FD-1023 form ever became a factor. Comer noted in a public statement when Smirnov was arrested that the impeachment inquiry was not reliant on the allegations that were made in the form, and he noted the FBI had previously indicated to lawmakers that Smirnov was a longtime source who was “highly credible.” Jordan, in response to Smirnov’s arrest, released a transcript of an interview he conducted with former U.S. Attorney Scott Brady. Brady, as the Washington Examiner reported last October, had vetted the form and said he found it credible enough that he recommended now-special counsel David Weiss continue investigating it.
Weiss is the one now prosecuting Smirnov for the claims in the form. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
Outside of their interview with James Biden, Republicans have several witnesses tied to impeachment that they still plan to interview.
Perhaps the GOP’s most relevant witness, Joe Biden’s son Hunter, is set to appear for a closed-door deposition on Feb. 28. Special counsel Robert Hur will testify in a public hearing on March 12 about his finding that Joe Biden mishandled classified material from his time as vice president and senator. Republicans also plan to interview some lower-profile witnesses, including a lobbyist named Sally Painter, who worked alongside Hunter Biden in Ukraine, and Jason Galanis, who is currently serving time in federal prison for business fraud.
And while he has obtained thousands of financial records thus far, Comer also quietly issued subpoenas for certain credit card records last week, according to one of the sources familiar with the impeachment inquiry.
Republicans are also engaged in what has become a drawn-out fight with the White House about obtaining drafts of a speech Joe Biden delivered to the Ukrainian Rada in 2015, when he made a controversial remark about firing a prosecutor. Republicans continue to claim Joe Biden’s sentiments in the speech may have benefited Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine.
That string of events in 2015 are “fundamental facts” that are unchanged by Smirnov’s indictment, Jordan told reporters Wednesday.
In terms of Hur’s findings, the GOP is in the process of pursuing a transcript from the DOJ of an interview Hur conducted with Joe Biden last fall. They are also seeking to review Ukraine-related documents that Hur said were potentially classified and that Joe Biden inappropriately retained.
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An Oversight Committee spokesman for Democrats said earlier this month that the impeachment inquiry was a waste of taxpayer money and that specific congressional leaders known as the “Gang of Eight” had already reviewed all of the documents Hur uncovered, though Comer, Jordan, and Smith were not part of that group.
“According to witness testimony, Joe Biden knew about and participated in his family’s business schemes, and he has repeatedly lied to the American people about these facts,” Comer said Thursday. “The American people demand the truth and accountability for any wrongdoing. We will continue to follow the facts to propose legislation to reform federal ethics laws and to determine whether articles of impeachment are warranted.”