This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Desperate to derail former President Donald Trump's candidacy back in 2016, Democrats used a bogus dossier created by a former British spy to convince voters Trump was "colluding with the Russians" to win the election.
Although Trump ultimately won, the investigation triggered by the allegations made in the now-debunked dossier exerted a hugely negative impact on the first three years of his presidency.
Then, when the New York Post broke the Hunter Biden laptop story just a few weeks before the November 2020 presidential election, raising concerns that then-candidate Joe Biden had been involved in his son's foreign influence-peddling business, Democrats teamed up with Big Tech and the media to suppress the story. This was followed up by a letter signed by 51 former intelligence community leaders who claimed the laptop story had all the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign. But as is now known, that utterly false letter had secretly been instigated by then-Biden campaign adviser and current Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The letter proved key to Biden's victory. Just days after it was published, Biden used it to effectively shut down Trump when he raised the topic in their final presidential debate.
Although Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said he would prefer a Biden win in November, Democrats are turning once again to a contrived Russian disinformation campaign to discredit the House Republicans' Biden impeachment inquiry.
Last summer, Republicans released a June 2020 FBI FD-1023 report in which a confidential human source, or CHS, alleged that Joe Biden and his son Hunter each accepted $5 million bribes from Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of the notorious energy conglomerate Burisma Holdings, in exchange for policy intervention on his company's behalf. It was an explosive revelation but was just one piece of the treasure trove of evidence that House investigators have collected over the past year.
Then almost two weeks ago, on Feb. 15, Special Counsel David Weiss's office announced it had arrested Alexander Smirnov, an FBI informant since 2010, for "making a false statement" to the FBI and "creating a false and fictitious record."
In a subsequent court filing, the Weiss team enumerated Smirnov's extensive "contacts with Russian officials who are affiliated with Russian intelligence services" and claimed they were "not benign." The filing also stated he "has had such contacts recently."
Following his arrest, Smirnov was released with an ankle monitor, and then rearrested last Thursday at his lawyer's office in downtown Las Vegas and transferred to a California jail, where he will remain in custody until his trial. Prosecutors convinced the judge that Smirnov represented a flight risk.
According to the New York Times, Smirnov was rearrested because Weiss's prosecutors "grew alarmed after a search of the $980,000 condo where he has lived for the past two years revealed nine handguns."
As one prosecutor told the Times, "The sheer number of guns prompted Justice Department officials to arrest at the law office, rather than Mr. Smirnov's home, which they believed would not be safe."
Very few people know whether Smirnov lied to the FBI. But thanks to two brave IRS whistleblowers who worked on Hunter Biden's case, now in its fifth year, as well as the presiding judge's refusal to rubber-stamp his sweetheart deal and diversion agreement, it is now known that Weiss and his Department of Justice colleagues have been far more interested in protecting the Bidens than in pursuing actual justice. Indeed, after having been lied to – twice – about claims of "Russian disinformation" from high-ranking intelligence community officials and Democratic politicians, many find it difficult to trust anything coming from them.
Meanwhile, Democrats are using Smirnov's arrest to debunk the entire impeachment inquiry. And their cheerleaders in the legacy media have gotten the memo. In an op-ed published by CNN last week, former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut claimed that Smirnov is the Republicans' "key witness" and that his allegations constitute the "heart" of their investigation. Aftergut concluded that Smirnov's indictment "pushes [the] GOP impeachment probe of Biden off the edge."
Another CNN op-ed offered readers "[a] step-by-step guide to how one debunked story fueled Republicans' Biden impeachment effort."
The New York Times called Smirnov the "centerpiece" of the impeachment inquiry against Biden, emphasized his connection to Russian intelligence, and characterized his arrest as a "stinging setback" for the GOP.
In a statement to CNN, Hunter Biden's attorney Abbe Lowell said, "For months we have warned that Republicans have built their conspiracies about Hunter and his family on lies told by people with political agendas, not facts." He added, "We were right, and the air is out of their balloon. This is just another instance of Chairmen Comer and Jordan peddling falsehoods based on dishonest, uncredible allegations and witnesses."
But House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told CNN, "To be clear, the impeachment inquiry is not reliant on the FBI's FD-1023. 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."
Comer also noted that the committee had asked the FBI about its level of confidence in the CHS at the time, and was told he was "credible and trusted, had worked with the FBI for over a decade, and had been paid six figures."
The Democrats' strategy here is clear: They are assuring voters that the entire premise of the Biden impeachment inquiry is based on Russian disinformation.
Never mind that Joe Biden was referred to as "the big guy" slated to receive 10% of the profits from a joint venture between members of his family and Chinese energy giant CEFC in an email found on his son's laptop. Or that one of his son's former business partners, Tony Bobulinski, has gone on the record to authoritatively confirm that Joe Biden is indeed "the big guy." Never mind that Comer has pieced together the money trails from Chinese and Romanian nationals to nine members of the Biden family, including a grandchild, and that the funds were transferred via a network of up to 20 shell corporations set up by Hunter Biden and his associates.
To a large segment of the American voting population, Democrats don't even try to win elections based on the issues anymore. Instead, they are widely seen as sowing disinformation and propaganda to mislead the public, as exemplified in the current campaign to resurrect Russiagate for yet another election cycle.
