Useful Idiots in the Truest Sense
Few things will cure you of conspiratorial thinking more effectively than a long career in [or even around] government. I’m an annoying person to watch DC-related movies or television shows with because I have a hard time suspending disbelief well enough to accept the premise. Nearly two decades working with and for the federal government has pretty thoroughly disabused me of the idea that there’s some shadowy cabal pulling strings from behind the scenes. Anyone who thinks a government agency is capable of complex conspiracies should first have to watch a random federal office plan a group birthday party. The reality of Washington is much better portrayed by “Veep” than it is House of Cards, or even the West Wing, to say nothing of the Blacklist or anything Tom Clancy ever wrote. But sometimes the events in D.C. are so comically stupid, so tritely on-the-nose, that they don’t even rise to the absurdist humor of Veep.
Enter: Alexander Smirnov. Now, if you’re not familiar with that name, that’s not unreasonable. He’s a recently-revealed character in the ongoing Hunter Biden drama; and honestly at this point the Hunter Biden drama is, at least for me, like a show I watched through the first season but then lost track of and now there’s too much to catch up on so I’ll just do it after the series finale. Anyway, Smirnov is the previously-confidential informant to the FBI who was at the center of a rather contentious interaction last spring between Congress and the FBI.
Last May, y’see, House Republicans on the Oversight Committee were apparently tipped off by a “whistleblower” to the existence of what’s known as an FD-1023, which is a type of document that the FBI uses to record information provided by informants. [It should be noted here that the FD-1023 merely records information, it does not verify or investigate it. It’s essentially a record of “here’s what the guy said.”] This particular FD-1023 purported to explain a corruption scheme implemented by Joe and Hunter Biden, including how they each supposedly received a five million dollar bribe from a Ukrainian energy company. James Comer, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, then issued to subpoena to the FBI to obtain the FD-1023, which the FBI resisted — not least of which because the allegations had already been investigated and found unsubstantiated, but also because releasing raw and unconfirmed accusations is, y’know, bad form for the world’s premiere investigative organization.
Comer then threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress if he didn’t turn over the FD-1023, at which point Wray relented. Comer and some of his fellow Republicans then immediately started waving the FD-1023 around as the smoking gun evidence of Joe Biden’s corruption, even though [again] it was merely an accusation that had already been deemed unsubstantiated by the Trump Justice Department [which is precisely why the FBI has a policy against releasing such documents]. The bribery allegations then quickly became the foundation of the House GOP’s effort to impeach Joe Biden.
Fast forward to last week, when Alexander Smirnov was indicted by the Special Counsel for making a false statement [to Special Counsel investigators] and creating a false and fictitious record [presumably the now-infamous FD-1023]. And the kicker is that Smirnov now admits that the bribery accusations were fed to him by Russian intelligence operatives.
So just to recap: Some schmuck went to the FBI years ago with fantastical claims about a bribery scheme involving Joe and Hunter Biden. The FBI took down the accusations, investigated them, and found them to be nonsense. A few years later, House Republicans learn that these allegations were made [for all we know, they were alerted by the source himself] and subpoena the FBI to obtain the allegation document even though it’s against policy to share such things [for what would become obvious reasons]. Upon receiving the allegations document, House Republicans proceeded to treat the allegations as proof, despite the fact that the allegations had already failed to be corroborated by an investigation, and use them as a basis to pursue impeachment against the president. Then less than a year later, the source of the allegations get indicted for fabricating the allegations and admits that they were passed to him by Russian intelligence. That’s not even Veep-level stupid. That’s…I dunno, Rocky-and-Bullwinkle-level-stupid.
It’s indicative of a zeal to prosecute Joe Biden that leads to a credulity that, well, makes certain lawmakers especially gullible and therefore vulnerable to literal Russian counterintelligence efforts. It seems like all of this could have been avoided if James Comer et al would have pondered for more than two seconds “Does this sound right?” Joe Biden has been in the federal government in one capacity or another for fifty years. In all that time, he’s developed certain…reputations. He’s a bullshitter. He often makes claims that, to be charitable, don’t align with reality. He says weird things [totally unrelated to his stuttering]. He can be needlessly hackish in his partisan attacks. He’s a bit thin-skinned. He exhibited some petty corruption early in his career. He may not be the paragon of civic virtue that some of his supporters claim, but there is simply scant evidence that he was ever so corrupt — or stupid! — as to accept a five million dollar bribe in the last year of his vice presidency. It’s an extraordinary claim, and one that should require convincing evidence. Even if you have an exceedingly low opinion of Joe Biden, you should consider — is he that dumb?
Granted, this is assuming that Comer was merely blinded by his zeal and not knowingly lying. Presumably Christopher Wray explained to him during their meeting that the accusations against the elder Biden had been investigated and found lacking. Whether Comer charged ahead with the allegations because he didn’t believe Wray or didn’t care that the allegations were untrue is between him and God, I guess. But he had plenty of opportunities to avoid this humiliation, so he kinda deserves it.
Comer and fellow zealot Jim Jordan are adamant that this doesn’t completely devastate their already-foundering impeachment case against the president, but that, much like the accusations themselves, simply don’t pass the laugh test. Jordan himself said the FD-1023 was the “most corroborating evidence” of Joe Biden’s corruption, and now that has been revealed to have been completely fabricated. It’s just silly. If people like James Comer Jim Jordan had the capacity for shame, they should be terminally embarrassed by this.
It doesn’t negate any of the other charges against Hunter Biden, who is a well-documented schmuck and almost certainly a criminal. But if the biggest charge against Joe Biden was that he’d accepted a bribe from Burisma during his vice presidency, well, there is no longer any evidence of such a thing.
I don’t necessary have a problem with Congress zealously investigating the president for corruption. I think we’d be better off if Congress had a more adversarial relationship with the president in general. Just, y’know, not so zealous that they unwittingly fall prey to Russian counterintelligence efforts.
Petty Tyranny is Nevertheless Tyranny
Alas, I come to bury Biden, not to praise him.
The president announced earlier this week that he was cancelling the student debt of roughly 150,000 borrowers, totaling around 1.2 billion dollars. During a press conference on the day of the announcement, Biden bragged:
Tens of millions of people in debt were literally about to be cancelled, their debts. But my MAGA Republican friends in the Congress, elected officials, and special interests stepped in and sued us. And the Supreme Court blocked it. They blocked it. But that didn’t stop me. I announced we were going to pursue alternative paths for student debt relief, for as many borrowers as possible.
Having the politics that I do, I’m pretty used to being the skunk at the garden party. But it still grinds my gears to have a president bragging about how he was undeterred by the opposition of both Congress and the Supreme Court. Either we respect our political institutions or we don’t, y’know?
And sure, some of this is just normal Biden hyperbole. The actual action is relatively small ball — the president has at least been chastened from his more elaborate plans to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in debt for tens of millions of borrowers, and forgiving student debt is a popular policy [particularly among those getting their debt forgiven]. But when the other guy running for president is famously [infamously?] ignorant of and often outright hostile to the Constitution and the entire American political system, Biden really shouldn’t be lending credence to the idea that it’s acceptable for presidents to end-run Congress and the Courts.
I understand that the president has political concerns that we politically homeless do not share. He’s made choices during his presidency — ones that I agree with! — that have alienated younger and more liberal voters, which in turn necessitates attempted sops like this. And let’s be honest that this is what it is: a nakedly political effort to purchase goodwill from a constituency whose support the president has been losing. But we can’t complain — rightfully — about Donald Trump’s illiberal excesses and trampling of the Constitution and then excuse similar behavior in Biden. It’s a difference in degree, not in kind.
If the president wishes to cancel student debt, there is a mechanism by which he can do so — he can advocate for legislation to originate in and then pass through Congress, and then he can sign it. I am well aware that Congress, particularly in the House, is made up of unserious buffoons who see themselves primarily as political pundits instead of legislators. But the remedy to that is, y’know, elections, not a usurpation of authority by the executive branch. President Biden was supposed to represent a return to normalcy. The normalcy I would most like to return to is the idea that if a president and congress disagree on a particular action, it doesn’t happen. So many of our political unpleasantries could be solved if we simply worked through the institutions as intended.
Occasional Trivia
Answer from last time:
Category: Artists
Clue: In 1889, he completed his “Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear And Pipe.”
Vincent Van Gogh
Today’s clue:
Category: Football coaches
Clue: He was the first coach to win both an NCAA Football Championship and a Super Bowl.
Dispatches from the Homefront
Kids are observant. I made what ended up being a 20-minute mistake on my way home the other night — I meant to get gas during lunch, ended up not leaving the building, so when I got in my car to drive home I realized I still needed gas. So I went to the nearest gas station, which is apparently the nearest gas station for everyone within a 10-mile radius. The line for each pump was three cars deep, and the constant demand meant that the pumps’ output had been throttled such that it was taking each car 10 minutes to fill up. So by the time I figured that out and went to the second-closest gas station, I was 20 minutes behind schedule.
So when I finally got home, my kids were already in the tub. I poke my head into the bathroom and the first thing out of my older daughter’s mouth is “Daddy why didn’t you come home when we were having dinner?”
Because I made one bad choice during rush hour, kiddo.