Reading Special Counsel David Weiss’s latest filing in the case against Alexander Smirnov — James Comer’s star witness in his totally real and not universally mocked impeachment investigation against the Bidens — we immediately thought about all the mean headlines we’ve written over the years, about whether Comer is just sniffing fumes off the tops of Rudy Giuliani’s Russian spy farts, and concluded that if anything, we’ve been too gentle.
If everything in Weiss’s latest filing is true — it seems pretty thorough! — then it is exactly what every sentient person thought, these imaginary Biden “scandals” were cooked up in Russian intelligence labs and fed to absolute fucking morons, by which we mean Putin’s loyal Republicans, who have been all too willing to hoover them up.
The filing in question requests pretrial detention for Smirnov, whose lies to the FBI about Ukrainian Biden bribes made up the FD-1023 form Comer and Jim Jordan and Chuck Grassley have considered their smoking gun, and for which he was indicted and arrested last week. This is the long debunked malarkey tale that figured heavily in Donald Trump’s first impeachment, when it was brought back to America by Rudy Giuliani, which alleged that the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had hired Hunter Biden for those sweet, sweet Joe Biden goodies, had bribed them each $5 million, and that Joe Biden had gotten the Ukrainian prosecutor general fired to protect Burisma.
The biggest part in the new filing people are seizing on is that oh yeah, Smirnov confirmed he got his fake lie stories about the Bidens from Russian intelligence.
It says, “During his custodial interview on February 14, Smirnov admitted that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story about Businessperson 1,” AKA Hunter Biden. Is that bad?
Indeed, the filing is full of specific cases of contacts Smirnov, an Israeli citizen who lives in Las Vegas, has had with Russian officials, including some that are “extremely recent.” Some he told his FBI handler about. One of them, referred to in the indictment as Russian Official 1, is alleged to be “the son of a former high-ranking Russian government official,” a person who “purportedly controls two groups of individuals tasked with carrying out assassination efforts in a third-party country.”
The filing refers to contacts with Russian Official 2, a “high-ranking member of a specific Russian foreign intelligence service.” They met in December 2023 about trying to resolve the Russia-Ukraine war. According to Smirnov, Russia wants to get Ukraine to help meddle in the 2024 American election, so all of this sounds familiar.
And more!
“Smirnov’s contacts with Russian officials who are affiliated with Russian intelligence services are not benign,” the filing explains. And in September 2023, he was really starting to bring the FBI things that sure sound like the beginnings of a new Russian influence operation on this year’s election. A story about how Russian intelligence had recorded Businessperson 1 (Hunter) at the Premier Palace hotel in Kyiv, which they allegedly had totally wired, and it could be used as kompromat.
Smirnov said four different Russians had told him about this.
Y’all, Hunter Biden has never actually been to Ukraine, and the filing explains that investigators were well aware of this.
The filing:
According to Smirnov, the Russians want Ukraine to assist in influencing the U.S. election, and Smirnov thinks the tapes of Businessperson 1 at the Premier Palace Hotel is all they have. Smirnov told investigators he wants them to ask Businessperson 1 how many times he visited and what he did while at the Premier Palace Hotel. Thus, Smirnov’s efforts to spread misinformation about a candidate of one of the two major parties in the United States continues. […]
What this shows is that the misinformation he is spreading is not confined to 2020. He is actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November.
What, were they going to eventually claim there was a pee tape? Because these people are a lot of things, but they are not all that creative.
Another thing: this filing sure does carefully write down every single Russian interaction the feds know Smirnov has had, with identifying characteristics of specific Russians. They’re just burning this informant to death, and they also seem like they’re making sure that if he’s not in their tender loving care, he’ll get murdered like a common Navalny or a common journalist or a common Putin critic or a common Russian who thought an independent thought.
These, and many other things — just constant pathological lies, about everything — are reasons Weiss says Smirnov is a great big flight risk for his case. He was, however, released on his own recognizance yesterday, with a whole bunch of conditions. So that’s great.
Marcy Wheeler suggests that part of why Smirnov may have felt comfortable telling all kinds of new lies to the FBI in 2023 is he was very under the impression that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden were at that point the target of the investigation. (Remember that David Weiss is the same originally Trump-appointed special prosecutor who’s been on the Hunter Biden case, and all the fucked up twists and turns that’s taken, including the plea deal that fell apart last year.)
Politico Playbook shares this reaction from a source near Biden:
“Obviously there’s a case that’ll have to play out here,” said a person close to Biden. “But based on the indictment and filing, it lays bare how unscrupulous the entire GOP and their enablers in right wing media have become. …Republicans in Congress ought to be facing the crushing burden of a massive scandal of their own making right now: An impeachment based on what might be a Russian intelligence operation. If nothing else, a criminal lie, based on the indictment.”
There’s much more we can talk about here, but it would make this post 7,000 words long. How it affects the Hunter Biden case, and how we’re really starting to get the outlines of a fully working frame job intended to bring down the Bidens, one which certain Trump officials were at the very least aware of. So we’ll get to those in other posts.
But to start down that rabbithole, head to Marcy Wheeler’s Twitter. Because dears, this could get VERY INTERESTING.
Fox News idiots were already having hilarious reactions to the fact that the Republicans’ star witness is a fraud. Sean Hannity admitted the other day, “I guess I was stupid,” because he was stupid enough to believe that FD-1023 form James Comer and Republicans were country-fried-creaming themselves over was real and valid. (There is also a whole thing with Sean Hannity demanding to know if a picture of obvious sawdust from Hunter Biden’s phone really looks like sawdust, or is it cocaine? It is sawdust.)
Jesse Watters of course is still trying to make his little feetsies fit the shoes Tucker left behind, so he told his pigfuck viewers that with this indictment, Joe Biden “took out a hit on this informant, Smirnov. They have now disabled him, and now the public is going to believe, well, this guy is a liar.” Last night he continued to fuck that chicken, after letting the air out of its tires. That’s also how rage muppet Maria Bartiromo, whose brain appears to never be more than five minutes recovered from being smacked by an anvil, has handled it on her Fox Business program, where they talk about business.
Some Fox News idiots — the extremely stupidest ones, like Brian Kilmeade — are screaming TONY BOBULINSKIIIIII!!111!!! as if people who are not absolute lunatics will ever have any fucking clue what they are talking about when they scream that. (Worked so well last time that you can’t even remember who he’s supposed to be.)
Now, as everything they believe continues to evaporate before their eyes, how will they handle the revelation that this Smirnov dude was being literally puppeted by Russian intelligence while James Comer clapped his hands and squealed?
Um, dunno. Have they yelled TONY BOBULINSKIIII!1!1!!! yet?
They should try that one again, it’s great.
[filing / Playbook / video via Acyn]
Evan Hurst on Twitter right here.
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