Liar, Liar
It’s a town still located on the “high plains” of Eastern New Mexico. Or, it was a game show your grandparents (my parents) watched on television. But the term “truth or consequences” has a simple meaning: tell the truth, or suffer the consequences of your lies.
Truth or Consequences used to be a bedrock of American politics. Much like the Lincolnesque phrase about fooling some of the people, some of the time; while a politician might get short-term gains from lying, ultimately the truth would win out, and the liar wouldn’t. But in our “post-truth” political era, the consequences of not telling the truth seems to have little impact on American politics today. You can take that in two different ways. One is that old joke: “You know a politician is lying when their mouth is moving”. It’s a cynical outlook; they all lie, all the time, so don’t believe any politician; even the ones that agree with you.
Or you might believe there no longer is a single political “truth”, and that “fact” is whatever fits your current political proclivity. That way, you can only listen, read, and immerse yourself in those that agree with your view; and shut off any information to the contrary as being “political horse puckey!!”
But sometimes, like the Eastern sun cutting through the dust rising off the New Mexico plains, a truth blazes across the silos of information. And like any good story, the truth of this one should bring consequences to those politicians who depend on the lie.
Ukrainian Corruption
It starts in 2015, when then-Vice President Joe Biden was given the “portfolio” to deal with Ukraine by President Obama. The United States wanted to support the nation and particularly support their breakaway from Russian sponsorship. In the “Revolution of Dignity” in 2014 Ukraine declared independence from Russian influence. Russia responded by taking the strategic Crimean Peninsula and Eastern Ukraine with military force, the beginning of the current Ukrainian conflict.
But, even severed from Russia, much of the Ukrainian government was corrupt. It didn’t matter whether they supported Ukrainian independence, or wanted to remain in the Russian sphere of influence. You might remember that the last Russian supported President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, fled a decadent palace with; “…a bowling center, swimming pool, super-modern boxing ring, tennis courts, massage rooms, therapeutic baths, cryo sauna, salt-cave, and other facilities” (Mezhyhirya). He’s the one that employed the future Trump Campaign Chairman, Paul Manafort.
Biden encouraged Ukrainians to clean-up their government by prosecuting corrupt officials. When a US aid package to Ukraine came up, Biden used that cash to leverage Ukrainian leaders to get rid of a corrupt prosecutor and appoint a new one. Biden actually made the comment that either they got rid of the old prosecutor, or the US would not provide the one billion dollars in promised aid.
Russian Fable
Russian Intelligence specializes in mis-information. They take the facts of a story, then misdirect conclusions to further their own policy goals. By 2019, it was clear that Russia’s goals were advanced by the then-President of the United States. Donald Trump was shaking the foundations of NATO, the major alliance protecting Eastern Europe. Trump envisioned foreign policy as a series of bilateral transactions, summed up best by the phrase: “…what have you done for me lately”.
The long-term, carefully crafted American foreign policy of world alliances protecting against Russian (and Chinese) aggressions was at risk. And the chaos that ensued played perfectly into Putin’s hands. So when it became clear that the main opponent to Trump in 2020 was Joe Biden, Russian intelligence went to work.
And Biden did have a vulnerability, a son who clearly used the Biden name to advance his own financial well-being. And, of course, there was the cocaine habit. Hunter Biden was contracted by a Ukrainian firm, Burisma, to represent their interests in the United States. The Biden family name certainly helped.
Creating “Facts”
All of those are facts. And it didn’t take much to twist those facts into Russian misinformation. Vice President Biden didn’t have the prosecutor removed because of corruption. He did it to protect his son from criminal charges. And Burisma didn’t just hire Hunter, they paid the Vice President himself to influence US policy, perhaps while he was still in office.
Trump was searching for “proof” of this misinformation, when he made the “perfect” phone call to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, the subject of Trump’s first impeachment. Rudy Giuliani went to Ukraine before the 2020 election, to find the source, the “star witness” to the phantom Biden criminality. And he found him, a dual Israeli-American citizen with the perfect “James Bond” spy name, one that would make Albert Broccoli himself proud: Alexander Smirnov.
Giuliani’s own “henchmen”, Lev and Igor, warned him that Smirnov was a Russian plant. But Smirnov’s “facts” were too good to pass up: supposedly each Biden was given $5 million to protect Burisma. And then, out of “nowhere”, Giuliani obtained a laptop with Hunter’s whole sordid private life on video. Some of the emails, with a little “stretching”, seemed to confirm Smirnov’s story.
Rudy couldn’t get the Trump Justice Department to touch it. They recognized that it had the imprimatur of Russian intelligence. And after the 2020 election passed, and the Insurrection occurred, Smirnov’s story faded away.
Impeach Biden
That is, until the MAGA-Republicans narrowly gained a majority in the House of Representatives in 2022. They came in with a goal: do to Biden what the 2018 House did to Trump, impeachment. So all they had to do was find “facts” to fit their goal. And Smirnov’s Russian fairy tale exactly fit their bill.
The Director of the FBI warned them; Smirnov was an undependable source, probably tainted with Russian money. But the committee Chairman, Comer and Jordan; like Trump himself and Giuliani, found the story to good to pass up (it should have been too good to be true).
They staked their Congress, the 118th, on impeaching Joe Biden. And they staked their impeachment on Alexander Smirnov.
This week, the Republican Special Prosecutor, David Weiss, appointed to investigate and prosecute Hunter Biden; arrested Mr. Smirnov. He is charged with making false statements while an FBI informant. Smirnov himself admitted during questioning to having contact with “high level” Russian intelligence officials.
The story that Trump, Giuliani, Comer and Jordan couldn’t resist was a Russian plant. The warnings of Republicans Bill Barr and Chris Wray, and the current Department of Justice, were ignored. The truth is, that this current House leadership wanted to impeach Biden so badly, the bought into a Russian fable.
We will soon see if there really are consequences to that truth.
