This is an adapted excerpt from the December 16 episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
On Monday in a Los Angeles courtroom, one of the most spectacular debacles of the current Congress came to an embarrassing and pathetic conclusion. You may or may not have followed every twist and turn, but Republicans have really spent more than a year trying to impeach President Joe Biden.
At the heart of this impeachment effort was a key witness, a man Republicans claimed was their smoking gun: Alexander Smirnov, an FBI informant who allegedly had proof that Biden had taken bribes and that a Ukrainian energy company had paid millions of dollars to the government. chairman and his son.
But problem No. 1 for Republicans arose when that man, their star witness against Biden, was arrested on charges that he lied to the FBI about those bribery allegations.
Then came problem two for the Republicans. According to the indictment, Smirnov claimed that some of the information he passed on was information he received from Russian intelligence officials.
Issue three arose Monday when Smirnov pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of lying to the FBI about the bogus bribery scheme. He likely faces four to six years in prison.
And yet, you won’t be shocked to learn that this story isn’t getting much attention in the right-wing media, which has been hyping Biden’s bribery allegations for well over a year. You also won’t be shocked to hear that Republican lawmakers aren’t showing up not at all punished by this outcome. Just last week, the new Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, was still citing Smirnov’s nonsensical accusations.
It’s a spectacular debacle for Republicans that has finally come to an embarrassing end — except there is nothing ever really closed to these guys.
Allison Detzel contributed.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
