Republicans remove mention of FBI informant from letters requesting interview in impeachment inquiry

House Republicans removed a reference to an FBI informantin a letter to a possible witness in their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

The interview request letters have generally outlined the reasons for the investigation, including information regarding a supposed source speaking to a Ukrainian gas company executive claiming to have bribed Mr Biden.

The informant, Alexander Smirnov, made up the claim, the Department of Justice said last week.

Republicans now appear to be crossing out anything relating to him in their messages regarding their inquiry.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep Jim Jordan and Oversight Chair James Comer included the information regarding Mr Smirnov in a letter on Tuesday requesting an interview with former State Department official Amos Hochstein.

But only about an hour later, the same letter was sent out but with the section about Mr Smirnov removed, a Democratic House staffer told HuffPost.

Last week, Special Counsel David Weiss charged the former FBI informant with lying about Mr Biden and his son’s business dealings with Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company.

Following his arrest, Mr Smirnov said that he was handed the false information about Hunter Biden by Russian intelligence, prosecutors said in a Tuesday court filing.

A staffer working on the impeachment told HuffPost that the letter was written before the indictment of Mr Smirnov.

The inaccurate information backed up the top allegation pushed by Republicans – that as vice president, Mr Biden worked for the removal of a Ukrainian prosecutor to protect Burisma, which had Hunter Biden on its board.

But a number of State Department officials, including Mr Hochstein, have on several occasions debunked the version of