President Biden called for House Republicans to drop their impeachment inquiry against him, saying on Friday that it has been “an outrageous effort from the beginning.”
The president’s comments came after the indictment of FBI informant who alleged that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden had been paid millions of dollars in exchange for their help firing the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma Holdings.
“He is lying, and it should be dropped,” Biden said after a reporter asked about the indicted FBI informant.
House Republicans told Fox News Digital that their impeachment inquiry has much more evidence that does not rely on the indicted FBI source.
FBI INFORMANT CHARGED WITH GIVING FALSE INFORMATION ABOUT HUNTER BIDEN IN 2020
Special Counsel David Weiss charged Alexander Smirnov, 43, with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record during FBI interviews.
According to the indictment, Smirnov gave “false derogatory information” to the FBI despite “repeated admonishments that he must provide truthful information and that he must not fabricate evidence.”
The indictment says that Smirnov had told an FBI agent in March 2017 that he had had a phone call with Burisma’s owner concerning the firm potentially acquiring a U.S. company and making an initial public offering (IPO) on a U.S.-based stock exchange.
In reporting this conversation to the FBI agent, Smirnov said that Hunter Biden was a board member of Burisma, though that was publicly known.
In June 2020, Smirnov is accused of having told the FBI, for the first time, about two meetings he had had four to five years earlier, in which executives associated with Burisma had supposedly admitted that they had hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”
President Joe Biden at the White House on December 13, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
During this meeting, the indictment alleges that Smirnov said the executives had paid $5 million to each of the Bidens while Joe Biden was still in office. The indictment alleges that Smirnov falsely claimed that the Bidens had been paid so that Hunter Biden, with his dad’s help, could take care of a criminal investigation being conducted by the then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General, Viktor Shokin, into Burisma.
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The allegations were recorded on an FBI FD-1023 form, which is used by FBI agents to record unverified reporting from confidential human sources. The form is used to document information as told to an FBI agent, but recording that information does not validate or weigh it against other information known by the FBI.
The FD-1023 form containing the allegations last year became a key document in the House investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley were approached by a whistleblower last summer who alleged that the FBI was in possession of a document — an FD-1023 form, dated June 30, 2020 — that explicitly detailed information provided by a confidential human source alleging that Biden, while serving as vice president, had been involved in a multi-million-dollar scheme with a foreign national in exchange for influence over policy decisions.
Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., arrives for the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing titled “Unsuitable Litigation: Oversight of Third-Party Litigation Funding” in the Rayburn Building on Wednesday, September 13, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
On Friday, Biden was asked about the indictment of Smirnov—and whether it should bring the impeachment inquiry to an end.
“He is lying, and it should be dropped,” Biden said, referring to Smirnov’s allegations and the impeachment inquiry. “It’s just been a — it’s been an outrageous effort from the beginning.”
Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell, earlier Friday, said the same: “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. We were right, and the air is out of their balloon,” Lowell said in a statement. “This is just another instance of Chairmen Comer and Jordan peddling falsehoods based on dishonest, uncredible allegations and witnesses.”
But Comer, who is leading the impeachment inquiry, said that the FBI’s FD-1023 form containing Smirnov’s is not being used in an impeachment inquiry against the president.
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The impeachment inquiry, he said, “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.”
Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, speaks to members of the media outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, December 13, 2023. (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“We have over $30 million reasons to continue this investigation and not one of those reasons relies on the corrupt FBI or an informant. Bank records don’t lie,” Comer told Fox News Digital on Friday. “Bank records and witness testimony reveal Joe Biden knew about and participated in his family’s business schemes, and he has repeatedly lied to the American people about these facts.”
Comer added: “The American people demand the truth and accountability for any wrongdoing. We will continue to follow the facts to propose legislation to reform federal ethics laws and to determine whether articles of impeachment are warranted.”
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Coming up in the impeachment inquiry is testimony from the president’s brother, Jim Biden, on February 21, and a deposition of Hunter Biden on February 28. Both testimonies will take place behind closed doors.
Smirnov is accused of repeating some of his false claims during an interview with FBI agents in September 2023, while changing other bits of information, and promoting a new false narrative after claiming to have met with Russian officials.
If convicted, Smirnov faces a maximum of 25 years in prison.
Fox News Digital’s Bradford Betz contributed to this report.