Politics
Biden calls for an end to impeachment inquiry after indictment of FBI informant: 'Outrageous effort'
President Biden called for House Republicans to drop their impeachment inquiry against him, saying on Friday that it has been “an outrageous effort from the beginning.”
The president’s comments came after the indictment of FBI informant who alleged that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden had been paid millions of dollars in exchange for their help firing the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma Holdings.
“He is lying, and it should be dropped,” Biden said after a reporter asked about the indicted FBI informant.
House Republicans told Fox News Digital that their impeachment inquiry has much more evidence that does not rely on the indicted FBI source.
FBI INFORMANT CHARGED WITH GIVING FALSE INFORMATION ABOUT HUNTER BIDEN IN 2020
Special Counsel David Weiss charged Alexander Smirnov, 43, with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record during FBI interviews.
According to the indictment, Smirnov gave “false derogatory information” to the FBI despite “repeated admonishments that he must provide truthful information and that he must not fabricate evidence.”
The indictment says that Smirnov had told an FBI agent in March 2017 that he had had a phone call with Burisma’s owner concerning the firm potentially acquiring a U.S. company and making an initial public offering (IPO) on a U.S.-based stock exchange.
In reporting this conversation to the FBI agent, Smirnov said that Hunter Biden was a board member of Burisma, though that was publicly known.
In June 2020, Smirnov is accused of having told the FBI, for the first time, about two meetings he had had four to five years earlier, in which executives associated with Burisma had supposedly admitted that they had hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”
President Joe Biden at the White House on December 13, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
During this meeting, the indictment alleges that Smirnov said the executives had paid $5 million to each of the Bidens while Joe Biden was still in office. The indictment alleges that Smirnov falsely claimed that the Bidens had been paid so that Hunter Biden, with his dad’s help, could take care of a criminal investigation being conducted by the then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General, Viktor Shokin, into Burisma.
BIDEN, NOT SPECIAL COUNSEL HUR, BROUGHT UP SON’S DEATH IN QUESTIONING
The allegations were recorded on an FBI FD-1023 form, which is used by FBI agents to record unverified reporting from confidential human sources. The form is used to document information as told to an FBI agent, but recording that information does not validate or weigh it against other information known by the FBI.
The FD-1023 form containing the allegations last year became a key document in the House investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley were approached by a whistleblower last summer who alleged that the FBI was in possession of a document — an FD-1023 form, dated June 30, 2020 — that explicitly detailed information provided by a confidential human source alleging that Biden, while serving as vice president, had been involved in a multi-million-dollar scheme with a foreign national in exchange for influence over policy decisions.
Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., arrives for the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing titled “Unsuitable Litigation: Oversight of Third-Party Litigation Funding” in the Rayburn Building on Wednesday, September 13, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
On Friday, Biden was asked about the indictment of Smirnov—and whether it should bring the impeachment inquiry to an end.
“He is lying, and it should be dropped,” Biden said, referring to Smirnov’s allegations and the impeachment inquiry. “It’s just been a — it’s been an outrageous effort from the beginning.”
Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell, earlier Friday, said the same: “For months we have warned that Republicans have built their conspiracies about Hunter and his family on lies told by people with political agendas, not facts. We were right, and the air is out of their balloon,” Lowell said in a statement. “This is just another instance of Chairmen Comer and Jordan peddling falsehoods based on dishonest, uncredible allegations and witnesses.”
But Comer, who is leading the impeachment inquiry, said that the FBI’s FD-1023 form containing Smirnov’s is not being used in an impeachment inquiry against the president.
SPECIAL COUNSEL ROBERT HUR TO TESTIFY PUBLICLY AT HOUSE HEARING ON BIDEN CLASSIFIED RECORDS PROBE
The impeachment inquiry, he said, “is based on a large record of evidence, including bank records and witness testimony, revealing that Joe Biden knew of and participated in his family’s business dealings.”
Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, speaks to members of the media outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, December 13, 2023. (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“We have over $30 million reasons to continue this investigation and not one of those reasons relies on the corrupt FBI or an informant. Bank records don’t lie,” Comer told Fox News Digital on Friday. “Bank records and witness testimony reveal Joe Biden knew about and participated in his family’s business schemes, and he has repeatedly lied to the American people about these facts.”
Comer added: “The American people demand the truth and accountability for any wrongdoing. We will continue to follow the facts to propose legislation to reform federal ethics laws and to determine whether articles of impeachment are warranted.”
Coming up in the impeachment inquiry is testimony from the president’s brother, Jim Biden, on February 21, and a deposition of Hunter Biden on February 28. Both testimonies will take place behind closed doors.
Smirnov is accused of repeating some of his false claims during an interview with FBI agents in September 2023, while changing other bits of information, and promoting a new false narrative after claiming to have met with Russian officials.
If convicted, Smirnov faces a maximum of 25 years in prison.
Fox News Digital’s Bradford Betz contributed to this report.
Politics
Fetterman unleashes on ‘dirtbag’ wing of Dems after far-left victories: ‘Orgy of socialism’
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Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., unloaded on his own party on Sunday evening, blasting a series of victories for progressives he called “anti-America.”
“Big night for the dirtbag left,” Fetterman said, referring to New York’s recent primaries, where two members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) won primaries.
“I’ve said the party is becoming an orgy of socialism. Clearly anti-America, anti-Western Civilization,” Fetterman said.
Fetterman’s striking calls give a rare look at how some moderates may view the developments on their far-left flank that have dominated the party’s momentum in recent months, sparking concern that their high visibility is dragging the party further and further left.
FETTERMAN WARNS DEMOCRATS ‘DRIFTING FIRMLY INTO COMMUNISM’ AFTER SOCIALIST PRIMARY WINS
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., speaks to reporters outside the Senate Chamber during votes on Nov. 10, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
His comments come on the heels of a handful of key progressive victories.
In Maine, Graham Platner, a controversial Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, has attracted controversy for denying knowledge of the meaning behind a Nazi-linked tattoo, for off-color comments about race and calling himself a “communist” in a deleted Reddit post.
In New York, one DSA member, Claire Valdez, won a primary on a platform of abolishing ICE and a Green New Deal-style approach to climate change. Similarly, Darializa Avila-Chevalier, another DSA candidate, beat out incumbent Rep. Adriano Espillat, D-N.Y., a high-ranking Democrat and the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
WINNERS AND LOSERS EMERGE AFTER SOCIALIST EARTHQUAKE ROCKS NYC PRIMARIES
Graham Platner, Democratic Senate candidate for Maine, speaks at a primary election night event at the Blue Hill YMCA in Blue Hill, Maine, on June 9, 2026. Platner won the party’s Senate primary after a campaign marked by accusations of past misbehavior and voter concerns. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Both Chevalier and Valdez had the backing of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, himself a socialist.
The wins have captured national attention and drawn criticisms from Republicans who have pointed to their success as emblematic of the direction of the Democratic Party.
Fetterman, who has not shied away from confrontations, has been one of the few Democrats to express alarm about the kind of candidates carrying the party’s banner.
“I mean, you look at some of the things that people have said. Abolish prison, abolish the border, abolish ICE, I mean these crazy people — I have colleagues in my caucus that refuse to even call this out,” Fetterman said.
FETTERMAN REACTS TO MAMDANI’S REFUSAL TO ACCEPT SUPREME COURT’S IMMIGRATION RULING
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., walks through the Senate Subway during the Senate War Powers vote on April 22, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
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“Between P-hustle in Maine and some of the other winners in New York, they should form their own party and run on all the things that they’ve had to delete on social media,” Fetterman said, referring to Platner.
“That’s where our party has moved,” he added.
Politics
Supreme Court limits police use of cellphone data to find crime suspects
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court cast doubt Monday on whether police may obtain cellphone data to find crime suspects.
In a 6-3 decision, the justices said this location information showing where a cellphone user has traveled is personal and private and subject to the protection of the 4th Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches.
Justice Elena Kagan said these “records serve as a personal journal of a user’s movements.”
She said the information “resembles other private materials — think of emails, documents, photographs, or calendars—that even if stored on Google’s servers, a user reasonably views as his own…and reasonably expects to be shielded from the inquisitive eyes of the government.”
Because an “individual has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his cellphone location data,” she said police investigators need a valid search warrant from a magistrate.
The court stopped short of deciding the proper basis for a search warrant in such cases. Instead, the justices sent the case back to judges in Virginia.
But the outcome casts doubt on “geofence warrants.”
In recent years, police have gone to Google and cellphone companies seeking tracking data on cellphones that were at a crime scene. Sometimes, they have had a warrant from a magistrate.
Civil libertarians say the use of this tracking data raises the specter of mass surveillance on innocent people.
Police and government lawyers say no one has a reasonable right to privacy when they are walking on a sidewalk or driving down the street.
The case before the court arose from the armed robbery conviction of a Virginia man who stole $195,000 from a credit union in a small town near Richmond.
By the time police arrived, the robber had fled. But surveillance cameras showed he was carrying a gun and a cellphone.
Lacking other leads, detective Joshua Hilton asked a judge to issue a special type of warrant seeking information from Google.
Referred to as a “geofence warrant,” it seeks data from phones in a particular area at a particular time.
The detective sought data on phones that were within 150 yards of the credit union within one hour of the late afternoon robbery.
After examining and paring down the data, the detective asked for the phone records of Okello Chatrie. Then, with a search warrant of his home, investigators found two robbery-style demand notes, a semi-automatic pistol and about $100,000 in cash.
A judge refused to suppress the evidence from an allegedly unconstitutional search, and Chatrie entered a conditional guilty plea.
The full 4th Circuit Court of Appeals split evenly on the legality of the geofence warrant, and the Supreme Court agreed to decide the issue in Chatrie vs. U.S.
Usually investigators obtain warrants to search the home or vehicle of a known crime suspect.
The new and disputed geofence warrants seek to find a suspect by examining data on the cellphones that were at the scene of a crime.
The FBI used this cellphone data in 2021 to identify suspects who broke through police barricades on Jan. 6, 2021, and pushed their way into the Capitol to disrupt the official counting of electoral votes.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed on the outcome in Chatrie vs. U.S.
In a 21-page dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the court had “carefully set the stage for its planned performance: striking a pose as a great champion of privacy in the digital age. I cannot support this irresponsible escapade.”
Justice Clarence Thomas agreed.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed in a one-paragraph dissent. “Chatrie had no reasonable expectation of privacy in data about his public movements that he voluntarily disclosed to Google,” she said.
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