'A criminal lie': Politico writes obituary for GOP's Biden impeachment probe

Politico's Playbook on Wednesday published what was essentially an obituary for House Republicans' impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

In particular, Playbook zeroed in on explosive new revelations that Alexander Smirnov, the main source for Republicans' bribery claims leveled against Biden, admitted to FBI agents that he got that information from people who are connected to Russian intelligence services.

Smirnov was charged last week with lying to law enforcement officials about Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, receiving bribes from Ukrainian energy company Burisma in exchange for the firing of former Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, although many foreign policy experts had long been skeptical of this claim given that pushing for Shokin's firing had been official American government policy and not simply an initiative concocted by Biden.

All of this, wrote Playbook, was a massive blow to GOP efforts to impeach Biden.

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"The House impeachment effort had already been losing steam," the publication contended. "Comer, the Kentucky Republican leading the effort, said recently that a vote might not happen at all, given the House GOP’s tiny majority. And many Republicans suddenly seem more interested in talking about Joe Biden’s age rather than his son Hunter."

A source described as "close to Biden" absolutely blistered the GOP in an interview with Playbook.

"Obviously there’s a case that’ll have to play out here,” said the source. “But based on the indictment and filing, it lays bare how unscrupulous the entire GOP and their enablers in right wing media have become... Republicans in Congress ought to be facing the crushing burden of a massive scandal of their own making right now: An impeachment based on what might be a Russian intelligence operation. If nothing else, a criminal lie, based on the indictment.”