Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio hinted Wednesday that the Department of Justice is operating under a double standard after it moved to indict an FBI informant who allegedly provided false evidence of corruption involving President Joe Biden, while letting the author of the debunked Steele Dossier off the hook.
Special counsel David Weiss indicted Alexander Smirnov, who told the FBI in 2020 about alleged corruption involving Ukrainian energy company Burisma, Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, on one count of making a false statement and one count of creating a false and fictitious record.
Jordan appeared to suggest this as a double standard because Christopher Steele, a former operative of the Secret Intelligence Service, never got charged for the discredited Steele Dossier, which was used to try and remove former President Donald Trump from office.
“I don’t believe that David Weiss had even approached the FBI, looked at this — this issue with this confidential human source,” Jordan said in an interview with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo. “I’m not sure he had done that until he’s named special counsel. You know, they — they’ve had this investigation going for four and a half, five years. So we’ll have to see how that — that all shakes out.”
Smirnov told the FBI that Burisma executives had talked about paying millions of dollars to Hunter and Joe Biden to guarantee the elder Biden would employ his political clout to safeguard the company’s interests.
James Biden, the president’s younger brother, laughed off a suggestion that the Biden family’s Chinese business dealings could harm its reputation, citing “plausible deniability,” according to the transcript of a closed-door testimony released Friday. James Biden is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Feb. 21 about the family’s alleged influence-peddling scheme.
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“What I do know is, again, with Christopher Steele, who gives false information about President Trump to the FBI, he continues to get paid,” Jordan added. “With this Smirnov guy, he gives false information to the FBI about the Biden’s and he gets indicted. Doesn’t seem to me to be the — the same standard. But again, we’ll have to wait and see.”
The FBI offered in October 2016 to pay Steele $1 million for proof to back up claims made in his dossier about then-candidate Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, FBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten testified, according to CNN. Steele failed to “prove the allegations” and never received the $1 million.
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