Chris Crucial: Jim Jordan's case collapses
PLUS: NEW Michigan polling!
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1. Jim Jordan, call your office. On January 11, 2024, in an interview with Fox News, Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan said this about allegations that Joe and Hunter Biden were trading on their influence for personal financial gain: “The most corroborating evidence we have is the 1023 form from this highly credible confidential human source.”
What Jordan was talking about — “the 1023 form” — was testimony offered by Alexander Smirnov, a former confidential FBI source. According to the Associated Press, Smirnov told the FBI that “executives associated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden $5 million each in 2015 or 2016… Smirnov told his handler that an executive claimed to have hired Hunter Biden to ‘protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.’”
Except, well, it wasn’t true.
Special counsel David Weiss filed charges last week that made clear that Smirnov made up the entire thing. He was charged — after being arrested at the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas! — with making felony false statements and obstruction.
But, wait, there’s more! According to a court filing on Tuesday, Smirnov said that he had been fed information by Russian intelligence officials. Which at least raises the possibility that the attempt to smear the Bidens is part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Now, back to Jordan, who just saw the “most corroborating evidence” of alleged Biden corruption blow up in his face. CNN’s Manu Raju, who is a dogged and terrific reporter, confronted Jordan over this, uh, issue on Wednesday.
Manu: “You said the 1023 was the most corroborating piece of information you have.”
Jordan: “It corroborates but it doesn’t change those fundamental facts.
Manu: “But it’s not true.”
Jordan: “Well, ok”
Well, so, yeah. The claim at the heart of the investigation — led by Jordan — was that the Bidens had been given millions of dollars in bribes by Burisma in exchange for favorable treatment by the U.S. government. But that claim is not only NOT true but ALSO could well be a piece of Russian disinformation.
As Maryland Democratic Rep. Jaime Raskin put it:
“The impeachment investigation essentially ended yesterday...with the explosive revelation that Mr. Smirnov's allegations about Ukrainian Burisma payments to Joe Biden were concocted along with Russian intelligence agents.”
I get that Jordan — and the other Republicans who hitched their wagon to the Smirnov testimony — want to keep an investigation into Biden going as a way to muddy the waters and distract from the four indictments currently facing Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2024 election.
But, like, any rational person recognizes that the Smirnov charges — and his alleged ties to Russia — BADLY undermine the case that Republicans have been making for months now.
2. Michigan is Trump Country (for now): A new non-partisan poll conducted for the Detroit Free Press gives Donald Trump 45% to 41% for President Joe Biden in what is expected to be one of the most hotly contested states in the November election.
“It points to a potential Trump win unless things dramatically change,” the pollster who conducted the survey told the paper — adding, of Biden: “He’s at a point where, before long, he's got to start moving numbers in his direction.”
The latest result is broadly consistent with where other polls have shown the race in Michigan — Trump with a narrow but steady edge over Biden. Trump has, in fact, led Biden in 6 of the most recent 7 polls conducted in the state.
Which is a BIG deal given that, I think, Michigan is one of the three swingiest states in the country — where the election will be won or lost. I break down the other two in this video I made for my YouTube channel today:
If Trump holds onto his lead in Michigan, it will be a reversal of the 2020 election. In that race, Biden beat Trump by, roughly, 150,000 votes out of more than 5 million cast.
Four years earlier, however, Trump narrowly edged Hillary Clinton in the state — by less than 11,000 votes (out of more than 4 million cast).
My prediction: It’s going to be close. Very close.
3. Oregon kills standard time: One of my favorite hobbyhorses is the dumbness of changing our clocks twice a year. I have written that we should permanenty adopt daylight savings time — an extra hour of light every night! — and abolish so-called “standard time.”
The Senate actually passed a measure making daylight savings time permanent in 2022 but the House never acted. That inaction has left it to the states to navigate our ridiculous clock-changing culture.
Which brings me to Oregon where on Tuesday the state Senate deadlocked 15-15 on a measure that would have made it the lone state on the West Coast to observe only standard time.
Five years ago, a measure to stay on daylight savings time permanently passed the Oregon legislature but required Congressional approval to institute. And Congress — stop me if you’ve heard this one — failed to act.
“If and when the federal government ever decides to entertain daylight saving time again, we can look back at that and reconsider,” said state Sen. Kim Thatcher, a Republican, who introduced the standard time legislation. “For now, we have that ability, we have that power to step out on this issue.”
Worth noting: As of now, only two states do not change their clocks — Hawaii and Arizona. Both stay on standard time year round.
NOTABLE QUOTABLE
“We need to make sure that every penny of every dollar donated to the RNC is going to Donald Trump's campaign, to making sure that we expand our lead in the House with America First patriots who love this country, that we take back the Senate.” — Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of the former president, makes her case to be RNC co-chair
ONE GOOD CHART
No one thinks that the situation on our southern border is good. But is it a “problem” or a “crisis”? That depends on your political affiliation, according to these numbers from Pew.
SONG OF THE DAY
Beck’s “Morning Phase” — one of my favorite albums of his — came out on this day in 2014. Here’s “Waking Light,” a standout from it.
I still can’t quite believe, with everything we know and everything else we’ve found out, that voters in Michigan and maybe other swing states are looking at Trump and thinking, “Yeah, we want four more years (or more) of that.”
The Russians sure do know how to play us. They knew a prior 1023 had been made public by the Rs. So they planted the story with Smirnov knowing it would be made public . Good for Weiss for exposing the lie. But I’m pretty sure the rank and file Rs will keep believing it. FOX and other right wing outlets will either not report the truth or will gloss over the story. So the right wing info bubble will insulate the minions from the truth