Jamie Raskin Calls Biden Impeachment Inquiry A 'Product Of Russian Disinformation'

WASHINGTON — Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said that House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden is a product of Russian propaganda.

The Justice Department revealed Tuesday that Alexander Smirnov, an FBI informant who is charged with making up a bribery allegation against Biden, may have ties to Russian intelligence sources.

“It appears like the whole thing is not only obviously false and fraudulent, but a product of Russian disinformation and propaganda,” Raskin, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, told reporters Wednesday.

In a Tuesday court filing urging a judge to keep Smirnov in jail ahead of his trial, the Justice Department said Tuesday that he “claims to have contacts with multiple foreign intelligence agencies” and that those agencies “could resettle Smirnov outside the United States if he were released.”

The brief said that “law enforcement knows about Smirnov’s contact with officials affiliated with Russian intelligence” because Smirnov had provided information about them, along with photographs and documents, to his FBI handler before the agency caught on to his made-up bribery allegation about Biden last fall.

It’s not clear if the Justice Department has independently confirmed Smirnov’s ties with Russian intelligence. Spokespeople declined to comment.

Smirnov had served as an FBI source for years, earning thousands of dollars for his tips, Justice Department officials told lawmakers during a private briefing last year, adding that they considered him highly credible. Republicans obtained and released an FBI file describing Smirnov’s account of the head of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that employed the president’s son on its board, saying that he’d paid both Joe