A critical element in the impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden seems to have collapsed, as the Justice Department revealed that an FBI informant provided false information, retracting his claim that a Ukrainian oligarch admitted to bribing Biden.

Special Counsel David Weiss, the US attorney handling the legal proceedings against Hunter Biden for offenses related to gun purchase and tax delinquency, has declared that FBI informant Alexander Smirnov is facing charges. Smirnov is accused of making false statements and fabricating records in connection with the alleged bribery accusation.

Dive deeper

Last summer, Republicans exposed Smirnov's assertions as part of their inquiry into corruption within the Biden family. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) warned the FBI Director of potential contempt of Congress if he declined to provide a document containing Smirnov's bribery allegation.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) ultimately acquired and released the file. According to the document, an FBI agent stated that a confidential source had relayed information in June 2020, alleging that Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, which previously employed the President's son, had paid $5 million in bribes to Hunter and Joe Biden.

The purported bribe aligned with accusations made by then-President Donald Trump in 2019. Trump claimed that, during his tenure as Vice President in the Obama administration, Joe Biden had advocated for the removal of a Ukrainian prosecutor to shield his son.

Republicans have asserted for months that the bribery accusation originated from a reliable source. However, the Justice Department now claims that the allegation was fabricated.
 
“As alleged in the indictment, the events that Smirnov first reported to the FBI Agent in June 2020 were fabrications,” the Justice Department said in a press release issued upon Smirnov's arrest in Los Angeles.

According to the indictment, Smirnov had communicated with various Burisma executives. However, he allegedly manipulated his regular and unremarkable business interactions, turning them into false bribery accusations against Biden, whose presidential candidacy he opposed.

Investigators corroborated Smirnov's narrative by examining travel records for two business associates he asserted had attended meetings with Burisma officials, including Zlochevsky. The indictment reveals that one of the associates had never spoken to Zlochevsky, and the travel records for the second associate did not align with Smirnov's description.
 
When FBI agents revisited Smirnov in September of last year, he purportedly "reiterated certain false assertions, altered details in other claims, and propagated a fresh fabricated storyline after asserting a meeting with Russian officials."

Smirnov suggested that Russians might possess recordings of Hunter Biden, identified as "Businessperson 1" in the indictment, at a Ukrainian hotel. He insinuated that the audio could be exploited as leverage to bring an end to the ongoing conflict.

“Businessperson 1 has never traveled to Ukraine,” the indictment said. “The few Burisma Board meetings that Businessperson 1 did attend were all outside of Ukraine.”

Republicans have consistently referenced the alleged bribe while questioning witnesses in their impeachment investigation. On Monday, they interviewed an executive from a Democratic consulting firm that had connections with Burisma.

Following the indictment on Thursday, Comer, a key figure in the impeachment initiative, highlighted that the FBI had previously assured lawmakers of its confidence in the informant, having remunerated him a six-figure sum over the years. He expressed deep concern about the FBI's actions and affirmed that the impeachment inquiry would persist.

“To be clear, the impeachment inquiry is not reliant on the FBI’s FD-1023,” Comer said, in reference to the documents filed by handlers of confidential sources, commonly known as the FBI's designation.
 
“It is based on a large record of evidence, including bank records and witness testimony, revealing that Joe Biden knew of and participated in his family’s business dealings,” he said.

Democrats, from the beginning, have expressed skepticism about the bribery allegation. Following a closed briefing last year, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) stated that Justice Department officials informed lawmakers that they did not consider the allegation worthy of a comprehensive investigation. Comer asserted during that time that officials suggested the bribe claim had "not been disproven," and the President himself was reportedly under investigation for bribery.

On Thursday, Raskin urged Republicans to promptly abandon the impeachment inquiry.

“Special counsel Weiss’s investigation is just the most recent to debunk the Ukraine-Burisma conspiracy theory at the heart of this fraudulent impeachment inquiry,” Raskin said.

The big picture

According to the indictment, the Justice Department concluded its assessment of Smirnov's allegations in August 2020. However, after Senator Grassley made the FD-1023 form public last July, the Department requested special counsel Weiss to assist in a follow-up investigation. Weiss had been assigned to investigate Hunter Biden and related matters.

The impeachment inquiry has expanded from Ukraine to questioning the Justice Department's handling of Hunter Biden's cases and even scrutinizing the propriety of the President's son's career as an artist. Nevertheless, the corruption allegation related to Ukraine remains the most significant aspect of the endeavor.

In a recent statement on Fox News, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) emphasized that "the most corroborating evidence we have is the 1023 form from this highly credible confidential human source.”

Read more: Despite indictments, Trump four points ahead of Biden: Poll