The New York Times writes today:
In May 2023, Senator Charles E. Grassley, a chief antagonist of President Biden, strode to the Senate floor with some shocking news: He had learned, he said, of a document in the F.B.I.’s possession that could reveal “a criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden.”
This, of course, turned out to be Alexander Smirnov's claim of a $5 million bribe paid to Joe Biden, which was never credible in the first place and is now known to be not just untrue, but a deliberate invention originating with Russian intelligence.
At the time, Grassley said only that his information came from a "highly credible" whistleblower. I wonder who it was? I have a feeling it would be very interesting indeed to know.
I'm going with Putin.
Grassley is compromised???
Say it ain't so....
(or do we have a Putin wing in the FBI?)
How embarrassing for Republicans – I mean there will be many apologies coming soon, right?
We need a Church Committee for the FBI.
They're responsible for internal US counterintelligence but they seem remarkably easy to compromise and be mislead, and they are uniquely staffed by wingnuts who will swallow any insane thing.
I think the intelligence function should be separated from the regular criminal investigation function.
We need a Church Committee for Republican congressional staff, imho.
The rot is deep. To the bone.
Kevin’s right: it would be interesting to know who exactly leaked this document to Grassley. But evidently the Democratic leadership is ready to let bygones be bygones. The fact that the entire Biden impeachment circus was something ordered by Trump and orchestrated by Putin seems completely uninteresting to them.
The Democrats still “control” the Senate. Maybe they could leverage that for some naked political gain. Maybe Merrick Garland could be persuaded to investigate who leaked this top secret document to Grassley. I know they believe that it’s absolutely vital to have a strong Republican Party and that it’s gauche to do stuff just to win elections but maybe they could make an exception.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or whether the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming." - Teddy Roosevelt
Translation: We can't possibly know what is informing Garland's decisions. What we do know is that Garland is serving his country first and foremost. The critic counts when the man being criticized is obviously serving his own personal self-interest at his country's expense.
The other question is whether Garland is competent. If he's as smart as a 5th grader, then he's already done the "to investigate or not to investigate" cost-benefit analysis.
You’re right that we can’t know what’s in Garland’s mind. But he’s done nothing thus far to even remotely justify your blind faith in him. We certainly know enough now to form an opinion about the nearly two years he delayed before naming a special prosecutor. There was no justification for the delay except that Garland didn’t want to be accused of being a Democrat.
He also allowed two extremely partisan Republicans to conduct investigations and prosecutions without the slightest restraint of DOJ policy or oversight. And now he’s given what might be one of the most important investigations in American history to a partisan Republican (who, incidentally, might himself be implicated in the scandal).
Everything related to investigations of any Biden will eventually lead to David Weiss and Scott Brady. One or the other or both might be in trouble. Special counsel to investigate a special counsel? Give it to Jack Smith.
Evidently our bold, courageous attorney general decided to give the most important investigation since 2015 and likely of the Biden administration to a diehard Republican and Trump supporter who seems to have already made a good start on screwing up the case.
This is the most informative article I have found so far:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/23/how-bill-barr-assignment-led-biden-impeachment-effort-based-lie/
It answers some questions and raises others. The prosecutor assigned to investigate Giuliani's and Smirnov's allegations concerning the Bidens and Ukraine seemed to think that the FBI had confirmed that Smirnov's travels were consistent with his reports of meetings in various locations. Yet the indictment rests on the impossibility of his having been in any meetings with Burisma at the times he claimed, as established by the FBI.
Smirnov commented to his FBI handler about the release of recorded excerpts of telephone conversations between then-VP Biden and Ukrainian then-President Poroshenko. The recordings were released by Andriy Derkach, a Russia-aligned Ukrainian politician with a KGB background. Despite attempts by the Trump campaign to make something of these, they apparently contained nothing substantiating wrongdoing.
It would seem parsimonious to attribute the various threads to Russian meddling. Smirnov is likely telling the truth now, that the disinformation was given to him by Russian agents; he was only too willing to be a conduit because of his animosity toward the Bidens.
The suspicions of cld and D_Ohrk about the motives of the prosecutors and the FBI may have some basis, but the possibility of manipulation by Russian intelligence services needs investigation.
I agree that everyone and everything connected with Smirnov very much needs to be investigated. But the investigation should not be lead by people who are more interested in avoiding embarrassment for themselves and their political party. D’Ohrk is absolutely right to say that “everything related to investigations of any Biden will eventually lead to David Weiss and Scott Brady”. And the question for them, and for other Republicans like Gym Jones and Comer, is what did they know and when did they know it.
Yep.
Those who want to follow along should brush up on their Manafort and Giuliani, and maybe recall details like the fact that Roger Stone knew the Russian leak of DNC mail was coming before it happened.
I think the deal between Don Trump and Putin is coming into the open - presidency for Ukraine. Only this time Vlad's price is going up. Don is not negotiating from a position of strength. Thus the recent blurt about not defending NATO countries against Russian aggression, for instance. More than one analyst watching this suspects Poland is on the menu.
This is getting interesting, and with a bit more pressure and sunlight, more folks may decide they're being chatty is the better part of avoiding prison.
Yes, a competent and unbowed Department of Justice would certainly revisit the situations and people you mention regarding their possible connections with Russian intelligence agencies. It would certainly inquire into what Jordan and Comer knew and when they knew it. But the odds against that happening are simply astronomical.
The Democrats are supposedly in control of the Senate and can conduct investigations. The AG is ostensibly in charge of the Justice Department and can assign this investigation to whoever he wants instead of a hopelessly compromised special prosecutor.
I think that Brian Beutler sums up the situation perfectly when he says: “ Will Democrats Really Shrug Off The GOP's Latest, Biggest Betrayal?
Republicans teamed up with Russian intelligence to smear Joe Biden; they inflicted serious political damage on him over YEARS; Democrats can't let bygones be bygones”
https://www.offmessage.net/p/democrats-shrug-off-gop-betrayal
Agree. There is already plenty of evidence that Republicans have acted with at least reckless disregard for the strong possibility that they were being fed disinformation by Russia; they can’t even claim to have been unwitting, given the Mueller report, the indictments of Parnas, Fruman, Firtash, et.al., the DNC hacking, any reasonable person would have been alert to the possibility of (criminal) Russian meddling. There is plenty of predication for a well-staffed, thorough investigation.
The key here is that nobody in the media is going to make a scandal of this Russian collusion for the Democrats if they're not willing to push it as the scandal it absolutely is. I think that Brian Beutler expressed the reality of the situation extremely well in the post which I cited above:
[Republicans] should not be allowed to walk away from it like this, and Democrats should not absolve them with an unrequited olive branch of bipartisanship. Republicans will not discredit themselves with their conduct alone. Mainstream political media will not treat this as a scandal if Democrats don’t act like it’s one. If it’s allowed to disappear into the news cycle, the new expectation, already half-established, is that Republicans can, without consequences, be willing dupes to any shady characters who want to manipulate our elections, so long as it’s to help them.
And more likely, we’ll find out some of them weren’t merely dupes."
Yes! Definitely. Some possible approaches:
* Republicans knew they were being spun by Russian intelligence, but the chance of smearing Joe Biden was so good, they didn't care.
* Republicans sold out the United States to our greatest foreign enemy for cheap political advantage.
* The Russians hoodwinked the entire Republican Party, because frankly, they now prefer Vladimir Putin to America and the Constitution.
Etc.
" Chuck Grassley’s leaker"
I saw what you did there.
😂
Grassley's leaker may never be known it "depends" on how hard they push the issue.
I assume Grassley either saw the document or was made aware of its existence during his Senate committee's investigation of Hunter Biden that reported in September 2020. Once the House had a committee with subpoena powers and Joe Biden was president, it was too good a ratfucking opportunity to pass up. Grassley coyly said he didn't know if the hearsay allegations were true or not, he just wanted them properly investigated*.
Well, he got his wish.
*A demand that stood in stark contrast to Republicans' insistence that the FBI should never have investigated all that hearsay evidence in the Steele dossier.
Smirnov was the “leaker”. He told Grassley’s staff that he sent the FBI the letter, and the FBI wasn’t investigating. So Grassley demanded to know why the FBI wasn’t investigating. It was a setup from the start, but of course they were too stupid to pull it off.
"These weren't very smart people and things got out of hand..."
Yep. This conspiracy is pretty simple.
This sounds right-- Agent Smirnov making sure it was "mission accomplished."
I suppose some enterprising political journalist could ask him. And if he doesn't answer, then start shouting "COVER UP" and running page one stories about it.
But Grassley is a Republican, so that would be against the rules.
Who was Grassley's leaker?
Who was Smirnov's handler?
I think it's a pretty good guess that if Biden's re-elected that Garland will NOT be the AG next term. After the Hur debacle they're getting fed up with him as well.