CNN — The former FBI informant charged with lying about the Bidens’ dealings in Ukraine told investigators after his arrest that Russian intelligence officials were involved in passing information to him about Hunter Biden, prosecutors said Tuesday in a new court filing, noting that the information was false. Prosecutors also said Alexander Smirnov has been “actively peddling new lies that could impact US elections” after meeting with Russian spies late last year and that the fallout from his previous false bribery accusations about the Bidens “continue[s] to be felt to this day.”
Smirnov claims to have “extensive and extremely recent” contacts with foreign intelligence officials, prosecutors said in the filing. They said he previously told the FBI that he has longstanding and extensive contacts with Russian spies, including individuals he said were high-level intelligence officers or command Russian assassins abroad.
Prosecutors with special counsel David Weiss’ team said Tuesday that Smirnov has maintained those ties and noted that, in a post-arrest interview last week, “Smirnov admitted that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story about Businessperson 1,” referring to President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
The revelations about Smirnov’s alleged foreign contacts were disclosed as part of Weiss’ arguments to keep him in jail while he awaits trial. A federal judge, however, ruled later Tuesday that Smirnov be released while he awaits trial. The release was granted with several conditions, including that Smirnov be subject to GPS monitoring and surrender both his American and Israeli passports.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/20/politics/biden-former-fbi-informant-russian-intelligence/index.html
Comment: The photo above probably catches the mood of a lot of Trump supporters. This turn of events just adds to the disappointment and embarrassment of Comer’s effort to take down Biden at the behest of Trump. I could have used a picture of Homer Simpson. Do’oh!
What this does not mean is that Trump is colluding with the Russians. I still believe that Trump is incapable of colluding with anybody, much less the Russians. He is, what we call in the business, unsuitable for a clandestine relationship, immune to any degree of control. It’s always been this way and it will not change.
It is just unfortunate that so many Trump adjacent people are pussy footing around with the Kremlin’s agents. In addition to Smirnov, there’s Paul Manafort’s many years of crooked dealings with Viktor Yanukovych and others in Russian Intelligence. There’s also Charles McGonigal, former CI Chief in the FBI’s NY Field Office, cozying up to Oleg Deripaska and another Albanian intelligence official. He also aggressively pushed for the public reopening of the FBI investigation of Clinton and was responsible for dismissing a real investigation into the Trump Tower server connection with Alfa Bank. And the hapless Rudy Giuliani working with Andrii Derkach to help Trump take down Biden.
None of this is collusion with Russian Intelligence. It is Russian Intelligence attempting to conduct their influence operations through those Trump adjacent characters. They do it. We do it. I don’t think what the Kremlin did to influence our recent elections holds a candle to what we did in Guatemala in 1954. But we still have to guard against such influence operations and do what we can to mitigate those efforts by the Kremlin or anybody else.
TTG
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nvd.167064/gov.uscourts.nvd.167064.15.0.pdf
My initial reaction is that this revelation (if even true) will be used to let some corrupt democrats off the hook due to childish and irrational thought processes; i.e. Russia = pure evil, so any contact with Russians, other than our bombs exploding on them, is forbidden. And anything they have to say or offer is so tainted with evil that we can’t talk about it.
We sure brought a lot of Nazi scientists to the US after WW2 because, despite being Nazis, we were grown up enough to recognize they had knowledge we needed.
Hunter’s laptop is what it is – and what it is, is pretty damning.
Steele (aka FBI, CIA, State and Clinton) collaborated with Russians, allegedly, to develop the fraudulent dossier.
The information obtained is real (or not) independent of where and from whom it was obtained.
I think the story is BS – right up there with the dossier
Eric Newhill,
The admission by Smirnov himself that his accusations were a complete lie tears a hole in the GOP effort to find a reason to impeach Biden. Maybe it will help Hunter, but his reputation is already trashed. Much like Trump, any further revelations of outrageous behavior will not cause a huge outcry. He’ll never be able to run for office. 🙂
Steele did collaborate with Russians. About 70% of the claims in his dossier have proven true. I collaborated with Russians, Poles, Germans, Kurds and Iranians
TTG,
I don’t understand your argument. What about this is going to damage Trump?
Smirnov was probably pressured into making this admission. It doesn’t really matter one way or the other. Biden condemned himself with his own statements about Ukraine and by using Hunter as his bagman. No one is being fooled. No one cares about the media narrative other than the AI controlled zombies. Everyone with an ounce of common sense understands Burisma. Everyone with common sense also understands how the FBI can get a confession and how Steele/Clinton/spooks used shadier Russian contacts the Smirnov.
What your camp has continuously failed to comprehend is that the more the deep state/democrats play “rules for thee and not for me” games, the more they persecute Trump, the more we are going to vote for him – or, put another way, just how much we hate the deep state and the leftist/globalist blob that it supports. We neither impressed nor convinced by the sort of “news” you are reporting here; quite the opposite.
All of that said, you don’t seriously believe that even the deep state thinks it can prop up senile, drooling, old Joe Biden for another four years, do you? It seems pretty obvious that he’s going to be clipped around primary time. So the impeachment becomes moot. If they actually run the stupid old SOB, that would be yet another massive insult to common sense Americans, who will be that more energized to vote Trump.
What’s funny is that you guys are just getting warmed up. I’m looking forward to seeing how far into madness you will charge while in the throes of TDS. But yeah, go ahead and make a martyr out of the man. Please.
Eric Newhill,
It won’t damage Trump. It just severely damages the effort to damage Biden.
Eric Newhill
Spot on. Biden is almost certainly yesterday’s news as far as November 5th is concerned.
The madness will go much further. What Mike Benz was describing in the Tucker interview was the color revolution apparatus being employed to keep Trump out of power. In the lead up to the election we are going to see the ongoing stress test of Americans’ tolerance of tyranny dialed up to 11 – and it won’t have anything to do with the meddling of a foreign power.
BA,
Yep – and, IMO, the madness will be one of those things Walrus was talking about.
I think the color revolution methods that Benz describes only work when the population doesn’t fully understand how they are being manipulated. Here in the US, something like 50% see right through it. That happens to be the 50% that have the guns, grow the food, drive the trucks, constitute the majority in the combat arms and in local law enforcement.
I dread that there will be some event – or chain of events – that is a tipping point where all of the decent people – that 50% noted above – decide it’s time to become indecent for the good of future generations – and b/c they’re just plain pissed-off.
Most of the left/democrats are either drugged out, generally spaced out and, therefore, useless in martial conflict – or already indecent and attacking the citizens of this country, from the criminals on the street to the criminals in tech co boardrooms
Eric – also Steele/Dearlove/spooks.
Steel had run, in Le Carre parlance, our “Russia desk”. He remained in touch, very much so, with MI6 after moving to private work. The notion that he was some sort of loopy freelance is one we’re encouraged to believe but it is not true. His Russian contacts were dubious but such as they were he had gained them in the course of his official duties.
Dearlove, whom he had consulted before he released his dossier, had been head of MI6. Anyone who believes that such people aren’t kept a close eye on after retirement needs his head examining.
Such people aren’t allowed to strike out on their own without getting clearance. Colonel Lang, who had also been engaged in Intelligence work, mentioned that he had to get clearance for “Tattoo” and had had to change or omit quite a lot before clearance was given.
The rules for all that seem to be quite loose in the States. But the Colonel, our own TTG, Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern, a host of ex officials in the States, would nevertheless be looked at carefully if after retirement they made use of contacts gained in the course of their official duties. The reason being obvious. Intelligence services don’t like to see information released about who their contacts are, particularly contacts in countries regarded as hostile.
The rules are tighter in the UK. That’s why we don’t get as many whistleblowers as you get in the States. A recent Court case shows that those rules are very tight indeed.
If we are to believe that Steele and Dearlove didn’t get clearance before the release of the Steele dossier, that belief doesn’t hold up in the light of what happened afterwards. Steele was given a safe house and protected from enquiry. Neither Steele nor Dearlove were investigated, let alone censured, for breaking the rules.
That’s because they didn’t break the rules. They had clearance for what they did.
We can assert that that clearance had been given at a lower level and HMG knew nothing about it. That assertion cannot hold after the Steele dossier was made public. It caused a great scandal and severely damaged the reputation of the President of the United States. If the then UK Foreign Secretary had been kept in the dark about the activities of MI6 before the scandal broke, he assuredly was not kept in the dark afterwards. Nor the UK Prime Minister and his Cabinet. All they had to do was read the newspapers.
This was, then, an operation carried out with the knowledge of and assistance from MI6, either cleared by HMG all along or cleared after the scandal broke. A simple statement from HMG that the operation was unauthorised and much of the Steele Dossier untrue, and that the most discreditable part of the dossier, would have laid to rest a scandal that was directly aimed at the US President and that dogged him throughout his Presidency. Instead, three British Prime Ministers either cleared or went along with the operation.
A very special relationship indeed, this.
Why involve the Brits at all? Because Washington is leaky as a sieve and if this operation had been run from there some indignant Congressman or other would have dug into it. Best to entrust scrubby work like this to the Brits, who would keep it tight as a drum and from whom indignant Congressmen, as Nunes found out, can’t demand information or explanation.
We were Washington’s cut-out, Eric.
EO,
I am perplexed, to say the least, about Steele’s use of former contacts. It is something that people like Pat and myself could never do. We could never recontact our clandestine sources. It would put too many lives at risk. What I don’t know is Steele’s relationship was with these sources he used. Were they clandestine sources or just people he may have openly worked with in the past? There’s a world of difference between the two.
I do believe Steele’s former employers were made aware of his contacts and his activities. That’s far different from being in cahoots with Steele. His activities didn’t seem to bother HMG too much or they would have stopped those contacts. Given Steele’s reliance on his former contacts both in and out of government, I doubt he would risk getting cut off from those official contacts.
TTG,
When did GCHQ inform the American government of what Steele was doing to interfere in our election?
Eric, he seems to have quite good money sources—sources he at one point didn’t want to disclose. Not that this is forbidden; quite the opposite. With that amount of money, you are welcome everywhere.
Maybe this is a good case study on how to make money through storytelling.How does one manage to get hired by the FBI?
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/smirnov.pdf
One more thought – I don’t see Russian intelligence as worse than Chinese intelligence. What were Hunter and The Big Guy doing over there?
Eric Newhill,
Both countries are actively and aggressively conducting espionage and “active measures” against the US. I think China is the most aggressive for espionage. Joe Biden has had several official trips to China. Hunter was conducting business. Was all that business legal? I guess that’s what Comer’s investigation is trying to determine.
I’m very sure that China’s espionage is worse than Russia’s over the past 30 years or so. Legal business? Yeah sure. Outside of politics and the corruption opportunities it affords them, I don’t think the Bidens know any business.
Hunter Biden, man of honor. Except when it comes to chores and child support.
Fred,
Hunter Biden trashed his own reputation by his own actions. But the accusation that he took a five million dollar bribe, along with his father, was a lie instigated by Russian Intelligence. The guy that made the accusation said it was a lie.
TTG,
Special Counsel Robert K. Hur issued a report that said
.
.
.
Hmmmm The Timing Timing Timing…
Putins Opposition Leader Dies a Brutal Death in Prison…Where Many of His Supporters..MRGA..have just Would up with A Ballerina..Who Donated to Charity..and a Russian Pilot who Defected to Ukraine is shot Full of Many..Holes..
All On The Same Day Trump was Suppose to Lose All His Court Cases..and The Biden “Family” comes to Testify…No OATH…Maybe They Ran a Counter Op To Protect Smirnoff..Or He was a Lollipop…It Cost 80 Million Dollars to Produce the Collusion Results…And There is still a Ton of Back Story about the Clintons..Who Operated better than the KUBIS…on that One With Lots of Help…Overt..Covert..Paid for..
And Sold….To the POTUS Amatures..It Seems…by 50 Signers..of THAT Declaration..
Yes…
All The Chinese Cranes in Docks all over America Are Being Replaced on Orders From Biden…Spyware..Can You Imagine…that..and All Eggs sold in Washington and Colorado Have The Be Free Range…Raising Costs 50 Percent..And the Tiajuana River i Dumping 60 Billion Ton of Raw sewage into San Diego Bay.. P.U. Plenty….
Great article A slice of truth.I am curious….what happened in Guatemala ?
mcohen,
In answer to your question about what happened in Guatemala – it was operation PBSuccess:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
The thing that gets me is that United Fruit Company ended up going bankrupt because of some bad investment decisions made by the executives. So it was all for naught.
Stephen Kinzer has a chapter on it in his book Overthrow.
Jim,
Here’s a question I’m unable to answer…….if the chickens are “free range” then they running around laying eggs under bushes and whatnot…..and some has to go crawling around to find those eggs…..when they do eventually find the eggs, who can tell how old they are….how long they’ve been lying around in the sun?
Democrats and their top-down enforced “bright ideas” have us paying more than twice as much for rotten eggs.
Eric Newhill,
My first paying job was on the Roaring Brook Poultry Farm. The chickens lived in large open buildings with a foot of sand on the floors, automatic waterers and conveyer delivered chicken feed. Roosting boxes were placed around the walls. The chickens naturally returned to the roosting boxes to lay eggs. Even truly free range chickens return to the roosting boxes at night to lay eggs. I spent a couple of hours gathering eggs from those boxes every morning. All afternoon I would wash those eggs. The farmer’s daughters would do the sorting. I often lunched with a few of the Rhode Island Reds under an apple tree. Additional duties included shoveling chicken shit into a 1930s era IH dump truck with 1st, 3rd and reverse gears and policing the barns for dead chickens first thing in the morning. I also filled that IH dump truck with rocks from New England fields.
Farmer Schweitzer loved his chickens and treated them well, far better than those who spend their lives in rows of small wire cages. That might make gathering eggs easier, but it’s inhumane. I now belong to Compassion in World Farming largely based on my experience on the roaring Brook Poultry Farm.
Maybe Rhode Island Reds, but try telling that to my Polands. During the laying season its an Easter egg hunt every day. When you discover one hiding place they just find another. They are an endearing breed though, so long as you don’t mind earning your free range eggs.
Barbara Ann,
The farm also had white leghorns for the white eggs that many in town preferred. Also needed them for Easter eggs. There were a lot of freakin’ chickens and a lot of freakin’ eggs. Thinking back, I think I gathered 25 to 30 egg baskets a day. And those were big rubber coated wire baskets.
Uncle Clarence had six or seven Wyandottes. Beautiful birds, they almost looked like the silver Polands with a haircut.
TTG,
Hmmm….yours were more cooperative chickens that the ones I’ve dealt with. Must be a matter of choosing the right breed and maybe training. Dunno.
Eric/Jim –
I’m in WA. No such egg law exists here. I just bought a dozen eggs yesterday at the local grocery. Had 10 brand choices. Only one was Free Range, no hormones, no bone meal. They tasted just like the eggs on Great Uncle Clarence’s farm when I was a boy 70 years ago – delicious.
Leith…The Washington State Cage Free Egg Law is
RCW Chapter 69.25… It Was passed in Olympia in 2019
and Took Effect January 1st 2024 this Year… Look up and Google Washington State Cage Free Egg Law…KIRO 7 and see how much more its costing Bakery’s and Consumers Now…That $1.99 Box of Dozen white eggs is Now $2.99 and Bakerys pay Almost Twice For Eggs Now..Costing
Consumers $100 more a year on Average..
Jim –
Interesting. Although looking at the egg-crate, I note my free range eggs came from an Oregon farm. I’m retired, fixed income, but still don’t trust the low priced eggs. Perhaps they’re ok for a man of my 81 years. But no way I’m letting my great-grandkids eat that crap. Or maybe I’m just old fashioned.
Jim –
PS – “cage free” is nowhere near the same as “free range”.
TTG,
Way off topic, apologies, but couldn’t resist tapping your expertise.
Any thoughts on the cyber attack on United Healthcare/Optum/ Change Healthcare + apparently, some AT&T service. Looks like it started last night. The damage to Change Healthcare s massive. Lots of healthcare services shut down. Many people unable to get their prescriptions filled.
Eric Newhill,
I heard about the AT&T outage this morning, but nothing about the cyberattacks on health care systems. I’m preparing a posting about a major leak concerning the Chinese patriotic hackers that came out today. I wouldn’t doubt that China was involved in the AT&T and health care system hacks. I’ll keep an eye out for more info.
Thanks, TTG.
Check out stories on Change Healthcare. I can tell you that the stories are not exaggerated, rather downplaying impact if anything.
Am I the only one who thinks that we need to judge Smirnov’s new story (that his previous story was a lie) on a scale of probability rather than absolute truth? Isn’t that the only appropriate way to judge statements by anybody, especially Spooks?
Don’t get me wrong – I’m glad to see this GOP witch hunt fall apart. I have even less respect for GOP attempts to smear Joe by attacking his messed-up son than I do for the Dem’s attempts to paint Trump as Putin’s Poodle.
TTG, I appreciate your appraisal of Trump as “unsuitable for a clandestine relationship”; I’d even say that the word “clandestine” is optional in this case, but I get that it’s a Term of Art (and a good one).
General question, which I may have asked here in years past: why is it “normal” or even ever *legal* for a person to have passports from multiple countries? If I ran the zoo, we’d remove & destroy the US passport of anyone found to have a passport from another country. Are there good reasons that we don’t do this?
My Dad was Swiss, and I was born in the US. This gives me dual citizenship and the ability to have two passports. Apparently this has become the boring, old-fashioned way to do this, though.
Do/can you vote in both countries?
I could but I don’t. I have voted in every election (including primaries) in the US since I turned 18, though.
Ich war 1993 Kameramann beim K1-Event in Basel, wo ich den führenden Schweizer Kämpfer Andy Hug traf. Dein Vater vielleicht?
I am not in the business of creating imaginative transliterations of Swiss German, so I will write this in English.
He was actually five months younger than I am. I do have a cousin named Andy Hug, but you will understand that the name is a very common one in some parts of Switzerland. As far as I know, I’m not related (closely) to the Andy Hug you brought up; I’m also (probably) not to the historian Peter Hug who examined the disposition of Jewish money that came into Switzerland during WWII.
As a very senior spook frequently said: “those that know don’t talk and those that talk don’t know”.
Question: What sort of public reputation would a good intelligence service desire?
– a bunch of very public bumbling idiots going around poisoning people and confiding in highly visible people?, or,
– a highly effective and capable operation that never sees the light of day?
what concerns me is that we may never find and disrupt the really dangerous operations while we are focussed on this chickenfeed. The biden’s are a criminal enterprise any way you look at it, period. “russian agents” my ass!
An element of the Russia collusion election hoax mythology that is usually overlooked. For those interested. Evidently a federal judge takes it seriously.
FBI’s last-ditch efforts to keep Seth Rich laptop hidden.
https://youtu.be/XThp3Rx4HyM
F&L
Seth Rich’s laptop has certainly taken on mythological proportions, even more so than Hunter Biden’s. Perhaps one day we’ll discover what countless evils lay within this container.
“There is a noise when Justice is being dragged in the way where those who devour bribes and give sentence with crooked judgements, take her” – Hesiod likening the corruption of Justice to the cries of a nightingale carried off by a hawk.
“What a tangled web we weave…”
I don’t seem to be able to get the trump card expectation up-someone’s-sleeve out of my mind. 😉
Hesiod likening the corruption of Justice to the cries of a nightingale carried off by a hawk.
It feels that the nightingale might symbolize Hesiod and the hawk his successfully bribing brother Perses. … But I am more familiar with his Theogony. Hesiod, Work and Days:
And now I will tell a fable for princes who themselves understand. Thus said the hawk to the nightingale with speckled neck, while he carried her high up among the clouds, gripped fast in his talons, [205] and she, pierced by his crooked talons, cried pitifully. To her he spoke disdainfully: “Miserable thing, why do you cry out? One far stronger than you now holds you fast, and you must go wherever I take you, songstress as you are. And if I please, I will make my meal of you, or let you go. [210] He is a fool who tries to withstand the stronger, for he does not get the mastery and suffers pain besides his shame.” So said the swiftly flying hawk, the long-winged bird. But you, Perses, listen to right and do not foster violence; for violence is bad for a poor man. [215] Even the prosperous cannot easily bear its burden, but is weighed down under it when he has fallen into delusion. The better path is to go by on the other side towards Justice; for Justice beats Outrage when she comes at length to the end of the race. But only when he has suffered does the fool learn this. For Oath keeps pace with wrong judgements. [220] There is a noise when Justice is being dragged in the way where those who devour bribes and give sentence with crooked judgements, take her. And she, wrapped in mist, follows to the city and haunts of the people, weeping, and bringing mischief to men, even to such as have driven her forth in that they did not deal straightly with her.
Imaginative Conservative:
http://tinyurl.com/Hesiod-Perses
Below is Jonathan Turley’s, February 22, 2024, column in the New York Post on the indictment of Alexander Smirnov and the use of the charges by Hunter Biden to seek to dismiss his own charges. That dog won’t hunt.
Here is the column:
The Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff once joked that “in America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, the Party can always find you.”
Alexander Smirnov is no comedian, but he is about to discover the truth of that statement.
Alexander Smirnov is now a defendant in federal court after being charged by special counsel David Weiss for spreading a false story about Hunter Biden receiving $5 million from Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company.
The allegation has produced a stampede of Democrats who view his indictment as a much-needed talking point as the House continues to build the case of influence-peddling by the Biden family.
Some are using the charges to revive a previously debunked story that Hunter Biden’s laptop could be Russian disinformation. But a closer reading of the filing dispels those claims and contradicts a new effort by Hunter Biden to dismiss charges against himself.
The filing itself is actually an argument to keep Smirnov in federal detention.
The government points out Smirnov’s admitted contacts with Russian intelligence officials and previously scheduled meetings with such figures to argue he is a flight risk.
However, there are a couple of aspects to the filing that undermine the claims of a “bombshell” revelation of a Russian disinformation campaign. First, these disclosures were not the result of surveillance or interceptions by American intelligence. Smirnov appears to have been cooperating with the United States and told his US “handler” about all of these contacts.
Second, Smirnov’s contacts were described as “recent” and did not apparently precede 2020. They have nothing to do with the laptop or the evidence of influence-peddling found in emails on that computer. This is solely a claim of a large payment to the Bidens from Burisma.
Third, the Justice Department states that Smirnov had expressed “bias” against Joe Biden and used “his routine and unextraordinary business contacts with Burisma” to make the bribery allegations.
So Smirnov operated off a bias against Biden, made an allegation separate from the laptop, and ultimately disclosed his communications to his U.S. handler. He detailed conversations with the “son of a former high-ranking government official” and “someone with ties to a particular Russian intelligence service.” Reports indicate that Smirnov was not only an asset of American intelligence but on the payroll for roughly a decade as a trusted informant.
That does not mean that the Russians were not eager to spread false claims, though it shows again how low-grade such efforts could be. It does not address hundreds of confirmed emails of Hunter Biden cashing in on an array of foreign contacts.
Hunter Biden’s legal team is citing the filing in seeking to cast doubt on all of the allegations and even the pending charges: “It now seems clear that the Smirnov allegations infected this case.”
They insist that the bribe allegation was key to the loss of the plea agreement that they struck with the president’s son. They argued that “having taken Mr. Smirnov’s bait of grand, sensational charges, the Diversion Agreement that had just been entered into and Plea Agreement that was on the verge of being finalized suddenly became inconvenient for the prosecution, and it reversed course and repudiated those Agreements.”
That is not how it happened.
Hunter Biden had received a sweetheart deal so rich as to put most defendants into hyperglycemic shock. Hunter would have avoided any jail time and been given sweeping immunity from future charges.
The reason that the deal fell apart was not any particular allegation of bribes. The alleged bribe was not part of the case. It fell apart because the judge asked a simple question on the meaning of the immunity. The deal immediately imploded as the prosecutor was forced to admit that he had never seen a deal like this for anyone other than Hunter Biden.
In relation to the influence-peddling investigation, this filing does not change the evidence that the Biden family made millions in shaking down foreign companies and business figures.
On Wednesday, Capitol Hill will witness something that many thought would never come. The House is calling a Biden to actually answer questions under oath about influence-peddling. James Biden, brother of the president, will testify on his long history of leveraging the name and influence of his brother. That includes $200,000 given to him by a collapsing hospital chain company, Americore.
Biden reportedly pitched a percentage deal with his brother and immediately turned over the money to Joe Biden to pay off a prior “loan.”
That was not the creation of a “biased” Russian but the Biden family itself. Smirnov was not at the dinners and meetings where Joe Biden called in to chat. He was not the recipient of messages from Hunter threatening that his father was “sitting next to” him and waiting for transfers of money. He was not the source of gifts and expense accounts to cover Hunter’s lavish lifestyle.
Most importantly, Smirnov was not the reason that Hunter was indicted by the same prosecutor, David Weiss, who just indicted him.
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/02/22/no-the-indictment-of-alexander-smirnov-does-not-exonerate-hunter-biden/
just another case of the gqp running headlong into an ass-ripping. methinks they enjoy it, or think everyone is as dim as their base. maybe their House leadership is as dim as their base… not perfectly clear, but there is data. sure appear to enjoy being willing dupes of Russian (heck, anyone’s) influence. is it the $$$, the chicks or a comfy seat at the table-of -power? I’m leaning towards all, + the Jesus Told Me I Could Do it For Him excuse.
which reminds me… many correspondents (& readers too) are not US citizens. {which I welcome (as if my attitude matters)}. from whom I rarely note any serious concern over the threat of theocracy to the American Experiment. I can understand that … “all takeovers of political governance by religious zealots are local” as the saying goes. just a domestic weirdness to American cultural history. yet, many of God’s chill’en have a hanker’n for making life perfect in a miserable way. & most non-US citizens seem to care a lot about some domestic American issues while averting their eyes (window to the soul) from “christian nationalism” (more generally; authoritarian dictatorship in the name of Jesus). I fully understand the attitude – non US citizens won’t have to live it – it doesn’t register bigly in the view from that end of the telescope.
unfortunately, giving a serious damn about the clear & present threat, knowing & understanding it quite clearly (direct experience over four generations, academic study & “living amongst them” to this day), its salience will not be overlooked… I’m partisan that way.