'Backfired on them tremendously': GOP blamed for causing arrest of their key Biden witness

Despite their attempts to find ammunition against President Joe Biden with their investigations into his business dealings, House Republicans' efforts have "backfired on them tremendously," namely with the arrest of ex-FBI informant Alexander Smirnov for making false claims about Biden and his son Hunter.

As columnist Hayes Brown pointed out, Smirnov's indictment shows he was warned repeatedly to “provide truthful information to the FBI,” but he still provided “false derogatory information” about the Bidens.

"If not for the Republicans trying to bring down President Biden, Smirnov many never have been charged," Brown wrote for MSNBC.com. "A former IRS official had claimed to the House that David Weiss, the U.S. Attorney for Delaware, had been rebuffed when he’d asked to be appointed as a special counsel to better pursue his criminal investigation of Hunter Biden."

"Even though Weiss told them that wasn’t true, Republicans still howled that the Biden administration was trying to protect Hunter Biden. So Attorney General Merrick Garland went on and made Weiss a special counsel in August. That increased his authority, which he used to bring charges against Smirnov."

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Smirnov's indictment was just an addition to the list of the GOP's self-inflicted wounds after they rushed to launch an impeachment inquiry into Biden "which drew attention to the negligible evidence they possessed. Their witnesses gave them nothing useful, and the upcoming deposition of Hunter Biden is unlikely to reveal any bombshells."

"The sensible thing to do at this point would be to call it quits and admit that there’s nothing more to be gained from going down this rabbit hole. But that would involve Republicans admitting to their voters that there was nothing to their promises to prove Biden is a criminal and satiate their base’s call for his arrest. More likely, though, they’ll double down and insist that Smirnov is being silenced for his bold truth-telling."

Alexander Smirnov, who was identified as a confidential human source in the investigation, was arrested at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.

According to the indictment, Smirnov falsely claimed to FBI agents that executives at the Ukrainian industrial company Burisma told him they hired Hunter Biden to "protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems," at a time when Biden was vice president and bribed both of them for their efforts.

At the time, Biden had been instrumental in pressuring Ukraine to remove prosecutor general Viktor Shokin, which Republicans have claimed was to prevent an investigation of Burisma. But this has been repeatedly debunked; Biden was acting in line with U.S. policy, Shokin was not planning to investigate Burisma, and international observers had accused him of corruption.

FBI officials became suspicious in part because Smirnov changed his story and provided different details when questioned at a later date.

This comes after a number of other failed Republican allegations against the Bidens, including a series of payments the younger Biden made to his father that turned out just to be repaying loans for a truck.