‘Our Trust Has Been Shattered’: Experts Decry Biden’s DOJ amid Smirnov Controversy

Last week, former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov was arrested and charged by Special Counsel David Weiss with giving false information to federal investigators regarding the international business ties of President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. But a former FBI special agent, at least one congressman, and numerous observers are pointing to the suspicious timing of the charges and contending that they illustrate how political corruption has entered Biden’s Justice Department.

Smirnov is accused of falsely alleging that Joe and Hunter had both accepted $5 million from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma during Joe’s time as vice president. But as reported by The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland, Weiss knew about Smirnov’s allegations against the Bidens for almost three years beginning in October of 2020, and Smirnov continued to serve as an informant during that time. Cleveland notes that Weiss’s failure to investigate the allegations for such an extended time period illustrated not only his “incompetence” but also “harmed our national security.”

As Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) contended on Monday’s edition of “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins,” Smirnov’s arrest also illustrates a deeply troubling pattern of selective targeting on the part of Biden’s Justice Department.

“It’s worth questioning, I think, why the FBI is interested in Smirnov regarding allegedly false statements when they seem to have no interest in Christopher Steele for allegedly false statements,” he observed. “They literally have no interest in many members of their own organization that have sat before members of Congress in official hearings, having taken the oath to tell the truth — and only the truth — who have then given us false statements.”

Stephen Friend, a former FBI special agent and current senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America, also expressed concern about the Smirnov case due to what appears to be specific political targeting by the Biden administration through the Justice Department.

“It actually reminded me a lot of the ordeal that we saw with the two individuals who recovered Ashley Biden’s diary in Florida and then gave that journal to Project Veritas,” he noted during Tuesday’s edition of “Washington Watch.” “[T]he Biden administration weaponized the Department of Justice and the FBI [and] actually had James O’Keefe pulled out of his apartment in his underpants to embarrass him and humiliate him when he had not even run that diary as a story. It’s more evidence that the DOJ and the FBI are completely weaponized against significant portions of the country and doing the bidding of the Biden administration.”

Friend further pointed out that the charges leveled against Smirnov could end up undermining a large number of criminal cases due to his extensive informant background.

“[I]f you look at Smirnov’s record, he has been paid in excess of six figures for his services rendered as a confidential human source, which means he was a very reliable informant for the FBI,” he explained. “So now the FBI is willing to burn down all the evidence and all the information he’s provided to them on other investigations that have likely led to convictions of felons to break his credibility to protect the Biden administration. So now anyone who’s been charged with a crime can go back and say, ‘Well, the informant who provided the information against me was not reliable and [he] perjured himself and lied to federal agents when it came to the Biden administration.’ So the FBI and the DOJ are willing to sacrifice all their successful prosecutions of righteous cases in order to circle the wagons and protect the Biden family.”

Still, Perry argued that the amount of other evidence that has been compiled point to an influence peddling scheme perpetrated by the Biden family that cannot be ignored.

“[The Smirnov charges are] just one small piece,” he said. “It doesn’t include the bank records, it doesn’t include the millions of dollars, it doesn’t include the myriad countries — it doesn’t include a lot of things. So while [Weiss] would like it to just go away, I don’t see any relenting, just based on this. … I think it might further what should be an investigation into the FBI who has taken a very long time to deal with what we know are provable crimes offered by Hunter Biden’s laptop. As a matter of fact, the FBI was [allegedly] involved in the cover up, telling the people of the United States that it was Russian propaganda. Where is the investigation into that?”

Perry also noted that despite the damaged reputation of the DOJ, the House’s investigation into the Biden family will continue.

“I grew up revering the FBI, the Department of Justice, law enforcement in general,” he related. “And unfortunately, our trust and our faith in these institutions has been shattered. Not because we shattered it, but because they shattered it through their actions. And unfortunately, because of that, it is right … for us to ask the question and to be skeptical about these claims. [This] two-tiered system of justice … can’t seem to be bothered to take a look at anything which is right in front of the American people, and they can see the disparity. And so I think I’m going to remain skeptical, and we’re just going to continue proceeding until we actually know the truth for ourselves.”