Republicans in Congress sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray seeking information on the vetting of a former informant who has been accused of making false statements in regards to the Biden family and their business dealings.
Republicans want to know how Alexander Smirnov was vetted and how much he was paid. According to HuffPost, they also suggested that Smirnov's recent arrest was designed to protect President Joe Biden.
Smirnov was accused last month of fabricating a bribery allegation against President Biden.
According to reports, that allegation was boosted by Republicans despite the fact that they were warned by the Department of Justice that the claim was flimsy.
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“Only after Mr. Smirnov reported that President Joe Biden accepted a bribe from a Ukrainian energy company in exchange for using his official position to oust the Ukrainian Prosecutor General did the FBI apparently take a hard look at this CHS [confidential human source],” House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) and House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) wrote in their letter.
“This episode is just another example of how the FBI is motivated by politics,” Comer and Jordan wrote.
According to prosecutors, Smirnov made the bribery claim because he opposed Biden for the presidency.
“Although the FBI and Justice Department received Mr. Smirnov’s information in 2020, it was only after the FD-1023 was publicly released nearly three years later ― implicating President Biden and his family ― that the FBI apparently decided to conduct any review of Mr. Smirnov’s credibility as a CHS,” Comer and Jordan wrote.
As HuffPost points out, the Justice Department initially vouched for Smirnov, saying he was a years-long trusted FBI informant.
According to senior U.S. diplomatic officials, Biden's push for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor during his time as vice president was not done as a favor to his son.
