James Biden Gave Republicans Exactly What They Asked for in Testimony

House Republicans have hit yet another dead end in their Biden impeachment crusade, after perhaps their biggest witness yet debunked all their claims in closed-door testimony.

Joe Biden’s brother testified Wednesday before the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, whose Republican chairmen have led the charge against his brother. Biden slammed Republicans for accusing the president and his family of influence peddling, accusing the GOP of “flat-out lying” during their impeachment inquiry.

The GOP has insisted for about a year that the president was involved in his family’s business ventures and accused his relatives, particularly his brother and his son Hunter, of wielding their proximity to him to leverage their work. But in his opening statement, which was obtained by The New Republic, Jim Biden firmly debunked every allegation.

“I have had a 50-year career in a variety of business ventures. Joe Biden has never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest in those activities. None,” Biden said. “I never asked my brother to take any official action on behalf of me, my business associates, or anyone else.”

“In every business venture in which I have been involved, I have relied on my own talent, judgment, skill, and personal relationships—and never my status as Joe Biden’s brother. Those who have said or thought otherwise were either mistaken, ill informed, or flat-out lying.”

Biden summarized his various business ventures over the past couple decades, which included a few partnerships with his nephew Hunter. But Joe Biden “played no role, was not involved with, and received no benefits,” his brother said.

Republicans have also seized on two checks that James Biden gave his older brother, one for $200,000 labeled “loan repayment,” and another for $40,000. GOP lawmakers insist these were actually Joe Biden’s share of profit from his brother’s businesses. Jim Biden, however, said they were nothing more than repayment for money his brother loaned him when he fell on hard times.

“With my appearance here today, the Committees will have the information to conclude that the negative and destructive assumptions about me and my relationship with my brother Joe are wrong,” Biden said. “There is no basis for this inquiry to continue.”

Republicans have repeatedly insisted that Joe Biden is guilty of corruption, but they have yet to produce a single shred of evidence tying the president to criminal behavior. What’s more, the informant who provided the main accusations behind the investigation was charged just last week with providing false information to the government.

Alexander Smirnov, a longtime FBI informant with ties to Ukraine, had claimed to have proof of Biden and his son Hunter accepting $5 million bribes each from a Ukrainian oligarch. In addition to being charged with making false statements, the Justice Department revealed Tuesday that Smirnov had likely been spreading Russian disinformation when he made the Biden allegations.

Representative Andy Ogles is making headlines over flippant remarks he made regarding the harrowing conflict in Palestine, saying in a recently released clip that America should help “kill ’em all.”

On Thursday, the far-right Tennessean got into a fiery spat with an activist, who pressed Ogles on his position regarding Israel’s atrocities in Gaza and America’s never-ending distribution of munitions to the cause.

“Do you know there’s a genocide happening right now in Palestine?” the activist asked. “Over 300 health care workers have been killed. Have you called for a cease-fire?

“Let’s be clear. Hamas raped and murdered babies,” Ogles started. “I’ve seen the footage, and you haven’t.”

“I’ve seen the footage of shredded children’s bodies,” the activist responded. “That’s my taxpayer dollars that are going to bomb those kids.”

But Ogles had no mercy for the plighted people, ruthlessly advocating for the complete extermination of Palestine.

“You know what? So, I think we should kill ’em all, if that makes you feel better,” Ogles, a self-described Christian, spat back. “Everybody in Hamas.”

“Do you have a heart? Do you have a family?” the activist responded, flabbergasted.

“Hamas and the Palestinians have been attacking Israel for 20 years. And It’s time to pay the piper,” the lawmaker continued.

Other prompts jumped out at the Republican after a small flock had gathered around him, with activists decrying Israel as an “occupier” that has spent decades attacking Palestine.

“Your naïveté doesn’t make it true,” Ogles said, adding, “Death to Hamas” before descending further into the Capitol.

The blatant cruelty is maybe not as shocking given that Ogles seemingly doesn’t care about dead children in his home state either, allegedly pocketing tens of thousands of dollars donated to build a child graveyard in Tennessee.

On Tuesday, the White House vetoed a resolution at the United Nations Security Council for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza proposed by Algeria, claiming it would  “jeopardize” talks to end the war. 

“Examine your conscience; how will history judge you?” said Amar Bendjama, Algeria’s U.N. diplomat.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday that Israel is bringing more than two million Palestinians to the brink of death—especially for those living in the northern section of the enclave.

“Israel’s prevention of aid trucks from entering and its occasional targeting of the few allowed in is already resulting in the death of children, elderly, and patients due to hunger,” the ministry said in a statement to Al Jazeera.

“The sight of thousands of children holding empty pots and standing in long lines waiting for any meal or food rations dominates life in northern Gaza.”

New York real estate mogul Donald Trump could soon be without any New York real estate, as the state attorney general has warned that she is prepared to seize his buildings if he doesn’t pay his $354 million penalty for financial fraud.

A judge fined Trump the whopping amount on Friday for committing real estate–related financial fraud in New York state. Trump can appeal the ruling, but he would first have to pay the entire amount plus interest, which could add as much as an additional $100 million.

The penalty could prove too much for Trump’s personal coffers to bear. But New York Attorney General Letitia James, who initially sued Trump for fraud, has a plan.

“If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” James told ABC on Tuesday.

“We are prepared to make sure that the judgment is paid to New Yorkers, and yes, I look at 40 Wall Street each and every day,” she said, referring to one of Trump’s iconic Wall Street skyscrapers.

James accused Trump, his sons Don Jr. and Eric, the Trump Organization, and other company executives of fraudulently inflating the value of various real estate assets to get more favorable terms on bank loans. Presiding Judge Arthur Engoron determined in September that Trump committed fraud and last week delivered the final judgment.

In addition to Trump’s massive penalty, his two adult sons have been fined $4 million each. Trump has been banned from serving as an officer in any New York company for three years, while his sons have been banned for a period of two years.

James had originally sued for $250 million, but the penalty went up significantly after Trump repeatedly bragged about his alleged net worth during his deposition.

“Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological,” Engoron wrote in his ruling. “They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. The documents prove this over and over again.”

Representative Jim Jordan seems to be struggling with the realization that Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden appears to be founded on a bed of lies peddled by the Russian government.

On Wednesday, the Ohio Republican got caught up in his own words, insisting that the inquiry still had merit, despite the Justice Department indictment against its primary witness, Alexander Smirnov.

“You said the 1023 is the most corroborating piece of information you have,” CNN’s Manu Raju prompted the Freedom Caucus politician on Wednesday, referring to the FBI’s FD-1023 form that documents Smirnov’s claims, which he is now accused of completely making up. In December, Jordan claimed the 1023 form constituted the “key” impeachable offense.

“It corroborates but it doesn’t change the fundamental facts,” Jordan responded, trying to flip the script and maintain that Biden was still involved in his son’s business dealings during his vice presidency.

But, of course, those facts are untrue. On Tuesday, the Justice Department revealed that Smirnov admitted to prosecutors that “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved” in developing the Hunter Biden narrative.

According to a new court filing, Smirnov told investigators he was in contact with “four different [top] Russian officials,” two of whom were the “heads of the entities they represent.”

Ultimately, Smirnov’s testimony—and the GOP’s ongoing turmoil to save the impeachment probe against the president—serves as just another staining example of how effectively the Russian government is capable of infiltrating and undermining U.S. elections.

“It targeted the presumptive nominee of one of the two major political parties in the United States. The effects of Smirnov’s false statements and fabricated information continue to be felt to this day,” prosecutors wrote.

On Thursday, special counsel David Weiss announced the indictment of Smirnov on one count of making a false statement and one count of creating a false record, related to what he told the FBI in 2020 about alleged corruption by the Biden family and its connection to Ukrainian-owned Burisma Holdings.

Republicans had spent months building up the hype around Smirnov as a witness, isolating his allegation that Biden had pocketed millions of dollars from the Ukrainian company as the centerpiece of their probe.

On Tuesday, attorneys for the president’s son, Hunter Biden, argued that the “Smirnov allegations infected this case,” and that the special counsel threw out Biden’s plea deal while following Smirnov “down his rabbit hole of lies.”

Meanwhile, legal experts are predicting an unpretty ending for Jordan and other GOP representatives hawking the conspiracy.

“Jim Jordan, Chuck Grassley, and James Comer were either duped by Smirnov and the Kremlin—or they were in on it,” Tristan Snell, a lawyer and former assistant attorney general for New York state, argued on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Either way, DOJ must subpoena every single communication Jordan, Grassley, and Comer had with or about Smirnov and anything related.”

“Either way—because either they are material witnesses—or they’re co-conspirators,” Snell added. “They have ZERO grounds to quash the subpoenas.”

House Republicans quietly deleted a reference to their epic fail of an FBI informant in a letter to a potential witness in the somehow-still-ongoing impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.

Republicans have hinged their Biden investigation on accusations from a supposedly credible but confidential FBI source that Biden and his son Hunter accepted bribes from a Ukrainian oligarch. But the Justice Department has since charged that source, former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, with making false statements and revealed his accusation may have been Russian disinformation.

As a result, House Republicans have begun to scrub mentions of Smirnov from their imploding investigation. Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan and Oversight Chair James Comer, who have spearheaded the probe, sent a letter Tuesday to former State Department official Amos Hochstein requesting an interview. The GOP has accused Hochstein of advising Hunter Biden when the latter served on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

The original letter, which was obtained by The New Republic, included a section explaining the reason for the Biden investigation, with a paragraph that described a credible, confidential source’s accusation that a Ukrainian gas company executive had bribed the president. This background information has been standard for Republicans’ interview request letters during the impeachment inquiry thus far.

But an hour later, Republicans sent out a second version of the letter, also obtained by TNR. This time, the entire paragraph about the informant had been deleted.

Republican leadership has recently been forced to acknowledge that their impeachment efforts are a total bust. Comer said just last week that the inquiry is highly unlikely to result in an impeachment vote. He told Spectrum News that the “math keeps getting worse,” both in terms of his party’s shrinking House majority and growing skepticism about the impeachment.

Removing the reference to Smirnov from the interview request letter is the GOP’s latest admission of how badly things are going. With Smirnov’s initial allegation completely discredited, it’s unclear how the investigation can actually continue.

Smirnov, a longtime FBI informant with ties to Ukraine, had claimed to have proof of Biden and his son Hunter accepting $5 million bribes each from a Ukrainian oligarch. Republicans repeatedly touted Smirnov’s claims in their quest to impeach the president. But last week, the Justice Department announced that it was charging Smirnov with making a false statement and creating a false record related to the bribery allegation.

On Tuesday, the department revealed Smirnov actually confessed that Russian intelligence officers helped him smear Hunter Biden. In fact, department prosecutors warned that Smirnov was still “actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November.”

The memo notes that Smirnov himself reported several meetings with Russian officials as recently as December 2023.

This article has been updated.