Conservatives who 'rightly pilloried' Steele dossier peddled 'bunk' Biden conspiracy theories

28 February 2024

House Republicans' campaign to impeach President Joe Biden suffered a major blow when former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov was arrested on federal charges for allegedly lying to the FBI. And the news became even worse for House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — two of the leading proponents of a Biden impeachment — when news of Smirnov's ties to Russian intelligence broke.

Comer, Jordan and other House Republicans stridently touted Smirov as their star witness against President Biden and his son Hunter Biden. But Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Democrat) has been stressing that Comer and Jordan's efforts to impeach the president have been getting discredited more and more.

In an article published on February 28, The Atlantic's David A. Graham draws a "parallel" between House Republicans' Biden impeachment efforts and the Steele Dossier of 2016. And his comparison isn't the least bit favorable.

Some of former President Donald Trump's most scathing critics have had no kind words for the Steele Dossier, Christopher Steele's controversial report alleging a full-fledged conspiracy between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian government. The Mueller Report, years later, found that the campaign's interactions with Russians, although questionable, did not rise to the level of a full-fledged criminal conspiracy. Former special counsel Robert Mueller, however, has maintained that the Kremlin clearly interfered in the 2016 election.

"The Biden impeachment was never about the substance of the allegations against him; it was revenge for what former President Donald Trump's allies view as witch hunts against him," Graham argues. "After Trump was impeached twice, Republicans were always going to search for some cause to impeach Biden — preferably one that involved just the kind of untoward foreign dealings of which Trump was accused."

Graham continues, "Instead, the conservative media and House Republicans seem to have blundered into their own version of the Steele Dossier, the infamous collection of allegations against Trump gathered before the 2016 election. Both stories involve dubious dealings in the hall of mirrors that is the former Soviet Union, an FBI informant with sketchy intelligence ties, and accusations that Russian intelligence planted false information. And in both cases, the underlying information has proved to be effectively bunk."

Graham recalls that right-wing outlets "rightly pilloried" left-wing outlets that reported the Steele Dossier as fact rather than unproven allegations.

"When Smirnov came around," the reporter notes, "the same (conservative) outlets were eager to gin up an impeachment based (Smirnov's) clearly flimsy claims."

Read David A. Graham's full article for The Atlantic at this link (subscription required).

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