Who Knew What, and When? House GOP Inquiry Promotes Foreign Disinformation

Republicans [_____] that their impeachment argument was foreign disinformation.

  • probably knew

    Votes: 1 33.3%

  • probably suspected

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • could not possibly have known

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • (other [___])

    Votes: 2 66.7%
  • Total voters
    3
  • Poll closed .
Tiassa

Tiassa

Let us not launch the boat ...
Valued Senior Member
Poodling for Puti: House GOP Pitching Russian Propaganda to Impeach Biden

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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA04) and Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY01) suffered yet another humiliation this week when the House Republican impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden (D) saw its star witness indicted for lying about the case; even more, the witness has affirmed that he was working with Russian intelligence asssets.

The revelation was the latest in a series of embarrassing setbacks for the House GOP's impeachment effort. In July, one of its whistleblowers was arrested for acting as a Chinese agent. In August, Hunter Biden's longtime associate Devon Archer—who House Oversight Chair James Comer said could become a "hero" of the probe—testified that President Biden had no involvement in his son's business dealings. At the inquiry's first public hearing in September, Comer's star witness, conservative lawyer Jonathan Turley, said there wasn't enough evidence to impeach Biden. And on Tuesday, federal prosecutors claimed that FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who made false bribery allegations against President Biden and his son Hunter, had "extensive and extremely recent contacts" with the Kremlin.

Democrats and Republicans alike saw it as the clearest sign yet that the GOP hope of impeaching Biden was slipping from its grasp. "My sense is it's not going to happen," says Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican. "We should determine the next president through the election."

Others are less diplomatic. "There's no question this is dead," says Rep. Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat. "To the extent that they continue to push forward with it, they are now doing it with a knowing asset of Russian intelligence. It is one thing to lead an investigation where you fail to find evidence to support unfounded conclusions. It is altogether something else when you are acting as an agent of Vladimir Putin."

(Cortellessa↱)​

Interestingly, Time drew their headline from House Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman (NY-10), so we can reasonably expect that no, the House Republican impeachment inquiry is not yet over.

After all, as Chairman Comer stumbles through the motions of retreat, he struggles to keep his inquisition alive:

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said Wednesday that indicted FBI informant Alexander Smirnov — whose claims against the Bidens gave fuel to the House GOP-led impeachment inquiry — was not "an important part" of their investigation into President Biden.

"At the end of the day, he wasn't an important part of this investigation — because I didn't even know who he was," Comer said in a Wednesday interview on Newsmax. "All I knew was there was a 1023 [form] that alleged bribery."

"My investigation's about all the money the Bidens have taken from China, from Romania, from Kazakhstan," Comer continued, referring to his efforts to connect President Biden to his family's business dealings around the world.

"This guy had absolutely nothing to do with it. We got a tip, we investigated it. We couldn't figure out who it was," Comer said of Smirnov ....

.... The recent developments have delivered a serious blow to House Republicans, some of whom have pointed to Smirnov's discredited claims about the Bidens as central to the corruption case House Republicans are trying to build against Biden.

(Fortinsky↱)​

The Hill understates Comer's two-bit disowning; this was a witness upon whom pretty much the entire inquisition depended.

Allison Gill↱ tracks this point, recalling October, 2020, "Right around the time Bill Barr asked David Weiss to take a second look at the Smirnov 1023 form, which he KNEW was Russian trash."

The backgroud is that U.S. intel, in 2019, while Rudy Giuliani was in Ukraine, picked up communications from known Russian assets to Rudy Giuliani, which in turn had to do with the Bidens and Burisma. Donald Trump's own National Security Advisor warned that information Giuliani brought from Ukraine was contaminated. Gill notes↱, "the information matched that which turned up in the New York Post Hunter Biden laptop story." Giuliani, of course, refused to believe he could be used in this way, but even before this, it turns out, American intel services warned the White House in writing that Giuliani was in contact with Russian assets. Gill explains↱:

[AG] Barr, [FBI Dir.] Wray AND [WH Counsel] Cipollone all had knowledge way back then that Rudy was being targeted by the Russians. So why was Barr giving [Special Counsel] David Weiss the 1023 if he KNEW it was Russian disinformation?

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE: CONGRESS was warned by the FBI in 2020 that Rudy was a Russian target, including SPECIFIC warnings to [Sen.] Ron Johnson, who was going to release rudy's info in senate hearings.

Here is a quote from Ron Johnson: “Regarding reports that I received an FBI briefing warning me that I was a target of Russian disinformation, I can confirm I received such a briefing in August of 2020." August 2020 was when Barr's DoJ told Weiss the Smirnov 1023 was closed.​

Or, as such↱, "there is no way that [House Oversight Chair] Comer and [House Judiciary Chair] Jordan didn't know their key evidence in the Biden impeachment inquiry was Russian garbage."

There is, of course, a flip-side: They really didn't know, because they are just that incapable.

That's the thing; if you want reasonable doubt of culpability, the prospect that James Comer and Jim Jordan are just that stupid isn't impossible. Nor Mike Johnson.
____________________

Notes:

@MuellerSheWrote. "THREAD: A REMINDER: RUDY WAS A RUSSIAN TARGET AND REPUBLICANS KNEW IT: This is a reminder of a report that came out in October, 2020. Right around the time Bill Barr asked David Weiss to take a second look at the Smirnov 1023 form, which he KNEW was Russian trash. 1/". (thread) X. 22 February 2024. Twitter.com. 22 February 2024. https://bit.ly/4bKc15P

Cortellessa, Eric. "'There's No Question This Is Dead': Biden Impeachment Inquiry Falls Apart". Time. 22 February 2024. Time.com. 22 February 2024. https://bit.ly/3wtSZAA

Fortinsky, Sarah. "Comer says indicted FBI informant 'wasn't an important part of this investigation'". The Hill. 22 February 2024. TheHill.com. 22 February 2024. https://bit.ly/3uL0oLb
 
If they didn't know, it's because they didn't want to know. Their desire to "bring down Biden" was so strong, and they wanted to believe they had found something that would do it so very much, that they had no desire to test its veracity.
 
Janus58 said:
If they didn't know, it's because they didn't want to know. Their desire to "bring down Biden" was so strong, and they wanted to believe they had found something that would do it so very much, that they had no desire to test its veracity.
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Did they care if it was true or not as long as it served their propaganda purposes and could not be disproved at that point?
 
From what I understand it seems the Dems think this is now dead in the water, while the Reps are thinking "well, the corroborating file may not be trustworthy, but there's still the underlying facts! So we'll proceed with those anyway!" Now, I'm not sure what those "facts" actually are, and therefore whether they suggest anything improper, but given that they previously spent months saying that the now-discredited Smirnov evidence was the crux of their case, I'm struggling to see how anything they have now is more than just "We'll get you, Biden, if it's the last thing we do!!" They'll likely go on looking. And looking. And looking. All the while they'll not actually be doing anything useful for the American people. For the sake of actually doing anything in the US, let's hope the Dems get back into a majority!

As to the poll - I voted "other".
I think they're too blinkered to say that they probably did know, or even probably suspected. They probably should have known, or at least suspected. But then that would be to judge them against a standard that would result in me voting Democrat.

What they're certainly guilty of is promoting it as the key to their case before actually establishing whether it was genuine. There was an interview with Comer where he stated that doing just that was something they needed to do... but clearly they didn't bother, and made too much of it in the meantime, only to have it blow up in their faces.
 
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Will any Republican involved ever admit to having known or suspected this (aside from those who were never going to vote to impeach or conduct an "impeachment inquiry "?

Maybe it will become obvious in due course if some of them were entirely cynical about the while process.

Trump(alternative facts)clearly had no interest in knowing the truth ,or anything tangential to the truth of it and the rest of them followed in the stinking line it would seem.
 
geordief said:
Did they care if it was true or not as long as it served their propaganda purposes and could not be disproved at that point?
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Of course Republicans don't care.

Two things make this significant compared to other conservative histrionics:

1) It was an impeachment inquiry.

2) It came from a foreign intel service specifically intending to affect American governance.​

That is, this was a rarified, historically significant valence of scandalmongering, and it depended on foreign adversarial disinformation.

Most days, "did they care or not" has a different context.

This one, though, is kind of big. It will be interesting to see how our society and institutions respond.
 
Well I might give them some benefit of the doubt as they have mostly cornered the market in stupid but I do not give them the benefit of any doubt in that they have not ,so far as I have yet seen taken any steps to apologize or atone for their apparent gross misconduct in what is an extraordinarily consequential case.
 
That's the thing with this GOP, though: they'll continue to focus on the supposed "facts" of their impeachment crusade rather than on the issue of foreign involvement in the corroboration or their willingness to be taken in by it. These latter two matters massively outweigh the former to everyone other than those trying to ignore the latter two, a willingness borne either of simple stupidity or, more likely, from willful self-preservation in the eyes of their base. Neither does them any favours.
 
Sarkus said:
From what I understand it seems the Dems think this is now dead in the water, while the Reps are thinking "well, the corroborating file may not be trustworthy, but there's still the underlying facts! So we'll proceed with those anyway!" Now, I'm not sure what those "facts" actually are, and therefore whether they suggest anything improper, but given that they previously spent months saying that the now-discredited Smirnov evidence was the crux of their case, I'm struggling to see how anything they have now is more than just "We'll get you, Biden, if it's the last thing we do!!" They'll likely go on looking. And looking. And looking. All the while they'll not actually be doing anything useful for the American people. For the sake of actually doing anything in the US, let's hope the Dems get back into a majority!
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The "facts' according to Jordan.
1.Hunter Biden was paid 1,000,000 dollars from Burisma.
So what? People get paid large sums from companies all the time. Not a crime.

2. Hunter Biden wasn't qualified for the position he had with that company.
Again, This kind of thing happens a lot. While it may not be the most pure business practice, it is not unusual to hire someone based on name recognition. Let's put it this way: How many companies hire celebrities to be a spokesperson for their product even though that person knows little to nothing about it?

3. Burisma asked Hunter to talk to his dad on their account.
They may have asked, but there is no indication or evidence that he did.

4. Joe Biden got the prosecutor investigating Bursima fired.
This was actually done by international effort, and because he wasn't doing his job. His firing was actually bad for Burisma.

Was Burisma trying to use Hunter in order to get "favors" from his father? Very likely. But there is no evidence that their plan paid off.
 
LaurieAG said:
Nobody seems to care as long as you smear your political opponents and blame Russia.
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But that line doesn't work as well, this time.

Think of it this way: Even the witness in question claims to be taking information from Russian assets, and there will always be some not-quite cynic to drop a line about, "as long as you blame Russia".

And another way to look at it is a practical difference between what some barfly says and trying to overturn a government. Barflies saying stuff is one thing, but the idea of Congress shepherding known foreign disinformation in order to participate in foreign adversarialism is a bit different.
 
Tiassa said:
But that line doesn't work as well, this time.

Think of it this way: Even the witness in question claims to be taking information from Russian assets, and there will always be some not-quite cynic to drop a line about, "as long as you blame Russia".

And another way to look at it is a practical difference between what some barfly says and trying to overturn a government. Barflies saying stuff is one thing, but the idea of Congress shepherding known foreign disinformation in order to participate in foreign adversarialism is a bit different.
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In your opinion. Why distinguish between 1 lot of dropkicks doing something that another lot of dropkicks also do, just because they are 'your' dropkick doesn't make it any better. They are all dropkicks and you just become a hypocritical dropkick by association.
 
LaurieAG said:
Why distinguish between 1 lot of dropkicks doing something that another lot of dropkicks also do ....
Click to expand...

The setup is fallacious.

just because they are 'your' dropkick doesn't make it any better.
Click to expand...

The wag is typal.

They are all dropkicks and you just become a hypocritical dropkick by association.
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The moralistic accusation dependent on a fallacious article of faith is a notoriously desperate and indefensible refuge.
 
You can look at things from both sides or you can act like a one eyed dropkick, it's your opinion/choice.

‘The Eternal Battle of the Wits’

Quarter wits view things from one perspective alone
while half wits see things in two colour monochrome.

Three quarter wits see things in a third way
while few can see all four colours anyway.

Some entirely witless unfortunates
devoid of any original thoughtfulness
champion judgements made through three quarter wits cautiousness.

Witless advice from three quarter wits is unfit
when it recommends promoting quarter wits, to wit.

Soon all the half wits appear very blue
only one shade of colour when previously there were two.
 
LaurieAG said:
You can look at things from both sides or you can act like a one eyed dropkick, it's your opinion/choice.
Click to expand...

And you can try to be clever about generic platitudes, or you can be just another half a witless platitude.

Maybe if you started with something original, instead a passed-around potshered.

Still, on opinions and facts:

• Of course Republicans don't care — The best retort to this, obviously, is to assert that Republicans do care, but that only leads to the question of what they care about, and that's the question they want to avoid.

• Even the witness in question claims to be taking information from Russian assets — That statement is not a matter of opinion, but, rather, one of recorded fact. That you need to reduce the point to be merely an opinion is not a new phenomenon among folks who think tu quoque is somehow a defense. (Remember, accusing another of doing it, too—i.e. "Nobody seems to care"—implicitly acknowledges the underlying suggestion that the one has done something.)

• a practical difference — A barfly accusing falsely is one thing; objectively speaking, a prosecutor trying to convict and imprison someone falsely is a different and much more severe circumstance. The idea of government officials accepting the intentional disinformation provided by an adversarial foreign government in order to disrupt and even overturn American governance is, by the implications of what such action can affect, a different and far more severe circumstance than some podunk sheriff obstructing justice because they're too stupid and prideful to do the job.​

And as a matter of opinion, I'm still uncertain what to think of a political defense that requires such self-denigration and validation thereof. Whatever your opinion of Democrats and Republicans, there are still facts, and pretenses of equivalence that depend on turning away from the detail are overwhelmingly more likely to be false equivalence.

Dressing up the same old fallacies in the latest trends does not change what those fallacies are. That is, yes, yes, dropkicks this and that, but since you need false pretenses to prop up the line, it's just one more person trying the latest styles for the same old dysfunctional forms.

You can wrap a garbage sack around a mannequin and call it high fashion, if you want, but that wouldn't change the underlying fact that it's a garbage bag wrapped around a cheap imitation.
 
Tiassa said:
Dressing up the same old fallacies in the latest trends does not change what those fallacies are. That is, yes, yes, dropkicks this and that, but since you need false pretenses to prop up the line, it's just one more person trying the latest styles for the same old dysfunctional forms.
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A leopard never changes its spots.
LaurieAG said:
Tiassa, in my last two posts (in the past 2 pages) I have identified 2 of your most recent posts where you have either removed text from James quotes and claimed bewilderment or added extra caveats to what James posted and also claimed bewilderment!

You are obviously an intelligent person so it ill behooves you to continue to use these means, that appear to be at the least concocted straw men or at worst pure sophistry, in this thread to reach ends which appear to be 'win at any cost'.
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The Eternal Struggle of Caring

A moment with Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ05):

Biggs: So, I think when the transcript comes out, it's gonna read, it's gonna read well for him, 'cause they did a great job prepping for a read. But that's―

Host: How interesting.

Biggs: ―But the reality is, yeah, yeah, but when you get down to it and you start parsing the words, you start realizing, "Oh, yeah, yeah, that's very interesting."

(via @atrupar↱)​

Anyway, what happened is that Hunter Biden finally testified before the House Oversight Committee, and while it is wise to remain cautious about early Democratic-side smirking, the scattershot conservative response seems to imply that things went about as poorly for Republicans as it could without being one of their own witnesses.

(You know, the one on the lam, the one in prison, the one indicted. And, oh, yeah, the other one in prison, whose testimony didn't say what House Republicans said it would.)

Meanwhile, the Distinguished Gentleman from Arizona Five, Mr. Biggs, isn't especially aged, so maybe his incoherence isn't dementia, but, rather, a symptom of running out of things to say while utterly embarrassed.
 
Tiassa, please don't take this personally. What has happened is that your ilk has been used by the extreme right wing elements of the left wing as a tool/weapon to cow the traditional left wing rump and implement draconian right wing policies that benefit the wealthy. While your targets may be the extreme right wing per se, your left wing victims are going directly to Trump because your methods are dubious and you label all of them as racist bigots at the minimum anyway.

If you don't believe me then read the ancient Greek play "the Clouds" written by by Aristophanes around 2 thousand four hundred years ago. It was no wonder that the Athenian League lost the Peloponesian war to the Spartans shortly after and democracy came a cropper. If you really want to learn the lessons from history and be constructive I recommend that you read the Penguin Classics translation and try to determine how to prevent the Academy from being burnt down without sophistry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clouds
 
LaurieAG said:
Tiassa, please don't take this personally. What has happened is that your ilk has been used by the extreme right wing elements of the left wing as a tool/weapon to cow the traditional left wing rump and implement draconian right wing policies that benefit the wealthy.
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LaurieAG, please don't take this personally: That's just stupid.

While your targets may be the extreme right wing per se, your left wing victims are going directly to Trump because your methods are dubious and you label all of them as racist bigots at the minimum anyway.
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The left wing is far from perfect, but if someone is willing to run to Trump, they weren't left-wing.

Look at your participation in this thread:

• #10↑: Generic accusation, link, generic platitude.

• #12↑: Fact is opinion; mild variation on generic platitude.

• #14↑: Opinion and poem.

• #16↑: Ironic attempted insult.

• #18↑: Crackpottery and Greek literature.​

You might notice what's missing: History, facts, and a clue.

Telling me to go read something and then do your thinking for you is not an intelligent argument.

So, remember what you're complaining about: Of course Republicans don't care.

And you say that will make leftists vote for Trump?

Or are you more upset that the issue is somehow about Russia?

Nothing you've said in these posts actually addresses anything I said in #6↑.

So, go back to #10-12:

LaurieAG: Nobody seems to care as long as you smear your political opponents and blame Russia.

Tiassa: But that line doesn't work as well, this time.

LaurieAG: In your opinion.

(Now, I don't utterly insist on that compression; there are other words in our posts. For instance, maybe you mean something else when you say, "In your opinion". But that's the thing: "Even the witness in question claims to be taking information from Russian assets" is a statement of fact. Do you think that's an opinion? Or is it that, "there will always be some not-quite cynic to drop a line about, 'as long as you blame Russia'." Because, bothsides is a well-known trope, and it's also a fact that as sick as people are apparently supposed to be of hearing about Russia, Russians keep turning up. Or, perhaps, do think the difference between the barflies and Congress is mere opinion? And so on: Do we have to go sentence by sentence until you run out of stuff to say no to, or are you going to make some sort of affirmative argument that isn't a dismissive and visibly dysfunctional platitude?)​

Sometimes the generic platitudes just don't suit the occasion.

Meanwhile, what has happened is that, unsurprisingly, someone responds to bad news for Republicans with vapid platitudes suggesting unawareness of facts. And while the bit about "ilk" always cracks me up, we can leave it for another day.
 
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