"But it's not true!": CNN reporter confronts Jim Jordan over indicted informant's debunked claims

Jim Jordan Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Jim Jordan Drew Angerer/Getty Images
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House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, denied the questionable nature of a key piece of evidence in his investigation of President Joe Biden when confronted by CNN reporter Manu Raju on Wednesday.

Ex-FBI informant Alexander Smirnov was indicted last week for allegedly falsifying bribery claims against the Biden family, after sharing intel with agents years ago that President Biden and his son Hunter sought multi-million dollar bribes from a Ukrainian energy company, according to The New York Times. Smirnov claimed that funds were in exchange for protection against a probe into the company by the country’s prosecutor general at the time. He also admitted that "officials associated with Russian intelligence" were involved in advancing the phony allegations against Hunter Biden, per The Washington Post.

Jordan during the exchange with Raju claimed that Smirnov being charged "doesn’t change the four fundamental facts."

"Hunter Biden was put on the board of Burisma and gets paid a million dollars a year. Fact number two, he’s not qualified to be on the board. He said so himself in an interview with, I don’t know, you or some network,” Jordan said, referring to a 2019 ABC interview in which Hunter Biden conceded that nepotism had a hand in his being on the Burisma board. He also noted, however, that he was “completely qualified to be on the board.”

“Burisma specifically asked Hunter Biden, 'Can you weigh in with D.C. and help us deal with the pressure we are facing from the prosecutor?' Fact number four, Joe Biden, then he gets called — Hunter Biden calls his dad, according to Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s business partner. Fact number four, Joe Biden goes to Ukraine three days later and conditions the release of the money, American tax money, on the firing of the prosecutor who was applying the pressure to the company that Hunter Biden sat on the board of," Jordan said.

“You said the 1023 is the most corroborating piece of information you have,” Raju retorted, in reference to Smirnov’s initial assertions. Jordan claimed that the “fundamental facts” have not changed, in response, to which an incredulous Raju replied, “But it’s not true!”