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Tag: Alexander Smirnov

  • GOP Rep. Gaetz Clashes With CNN’s Phillip Over Hunter Biden: ‘Do You Think They Were Paying Him To Figure Out Where To Go Buy Crack?’

    GOP Rep. Gaetz Clashes With CNN’s Phillip Over Hunter Biden: ‘Do You Think They Were Paying Him To Figure Out Where To Go Buy Crack?’

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    House Republicans are attempting to impeach Joe Biden.

    Why? They believe there is enough evidence to suggest the president and his son Hunter Biden were accepting bribes or at least engaged in pay-to-play schemes with various countries, and in particular Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

    An impeachment inquiry source, Alexander Smirnov, was recently charged with making false statements to the FBI on the matter. Republicans had previously called Smirnov “highly credible” and said that his claims were “direct evidence of naked corruption and bribery.”

    This caused CNN host Abby Phillip to grill Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz over Smirnov and his credibility.

    And things got interesting.

    RELATED: Donald Trump Teases Tim Scott As Running Mate

    ‘If you want to bribe a 75-year-old man, you pay their kids’

    It was an exchange where Phillips appeared to think she had gotten Gaetz, but the congressman had some good – and undeniable – retorts.

    Mediate reports, “After grilling Gaetz about the arrest of impeachment inquiry source Alexander Smirnov, who was charged with making false statements to the FBI after claiming that the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid President Biden and his son Hunter Biden $5 million each, Phillip then played a compilation of Gaetz’s colleagues calling Smirnov ‘highly credible’ and his claims ‘direct evidence of naked corruption and bribery.’”

    “Asked whether the remarks from his colleagues had been ‘irresponsible,’ Gaetz replied, ‘A few of those characterizations might have been a little, a little over sauced, but I do think that the bribery can also go to a family member,” Mediaite noted.

    The story continued:

    He argued, “If you want to bribe a 75-year-old man, you pay their kids…”

    The CNN host then asked, “Given that, according to Jim Jordan, this was the most corroborating piece of evidence that they had, should they drop this impeachment?”

    Gaetz replied:

    I disagree with Jordan that this is what’s most corroborating. I think what’s most corroborating are the payments to Hunter Biden and Frank Biden and James Biden. I was deposing James Biden and the way that they took money from the Chinese government would make your skin crawl. Now, that’s admittedly James Biden, not Joe Biden, but I do believe when these foreign governments are loading up the entire Biden family apparatus with cash, they’re not doing so to extract some sort of skill or service from these ne’er-do-well Bidens, they doing it to influence Joe Biden.

    But it wasn’t this smackdown that got the attention of the ever-watching internet.

    RELATED: CBS Seizes Materials Of Fired Journalist Who Was Investigating Hunter Biden

    Why Was Burisma Paying Hunter Biden Such a Large Amount of Money?

    “Everything that you’ve described is an inference,” said Phillip. “You actually haven’t given any proof of what you’re alleging.”

    Gaetz replied, “But Abby, why do you think Burisma was paying Hunter Biden? Do you think they were paying him to figure out where to go buy crack in LA? I mean, they were paying him because he had access to Joe.”

    It was a testy discussion but Gaetz point was still hard to get around – why exactly would Burisma be paying Hunter Biden such a large amount of money.

    It was certainly not to buy crack.

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  • FBI confidential source charged with lying about Joe and Hunter Biden’s ties to Burisma

    FBI confidential source charged with lying about Joe and Hunter Biden’s ties to Burisma

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    Special counsel David Weiss has charged an FBI confidential source who provided derogatory information about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden to the bureau with felony false statement and obstruction charges.

    Weiss charged Alexander Smirnov, 43, with one count of making a false statement and one count of creating a false and fictitious record related to statements he made to the FBI on a document known as an FBI Form 1023.

    Charging documents show Smirnov was a confidential source for the FBI and provided “false derogatory information about [President Biden] and [Hunter Biden] … in 2020, after [Biden] became a presidential candidate.”

    Smirnov allegedly reported to an FBI agent in March 2017 that he had a phone call with the owner of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, and noted Hunter Biden was at the time a member of Burisma’s board.

    Three years later, Smirnov allegedly made false statements in recounting two meetings in 2015 or 2016 in which executives associated with Burisma told him they had hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.” He further said the executives paid $5 million each to Hunter Biden and President Biden while Biden was in office as vice president, so that Hunter “will take care of all those issues through his dad,” referring to the then-criminal investigation being conducted by the then-Ukrainian prosecutor general into Burisma.

    Those events were fabrications, Weiss alleged in his new indictment. Instead, Smirnov had only contacted the Burisma executives in 2017 after the end of Biden’s time as vice president and after the Ukrainian prosecutor general had already been fired, according to the indictment.

    “The indictment alleges that the [Smirnov] transformed his routine and unextraordinary business contacts with Burisma in 2017 and later into bribery allegations against [President Biden] after expressing bias against [Biden] and his presidential candidacy,” Weiss’ office said in their statement announcing the charges.

    Smirnov was again interviewed by FBI agents in September 2023, the indictment says, and he repeated earlier false claims and also changed his story to promote “a new false narrative after he said he met with Russian officials.”

    Smirnov was arrested at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas on Wednesday after arriving to the U.S. from overseas, the Department of Justice said. He was schedule to make his initial appearance Thursday.

    If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison.

    This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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