The Smirnov indictment makes it clear he was telling the truth about Biden taking bribes from Ukraine. Prosecutors never challenged his claim. They simply tortured him until he would confess to some minor discrepancy about the dates of his meetings.
Kingmaker explains:
"There’s a couple of “tells” in the statement of facts Smirnov agreed to that suggest Weiss and his team are conveniently burying some important evidence with this deal. The first is the statement that Smirnov communicates with Burisma officials in 2017, after Joe Biden left office and could no longer deliver on the quid pro quo for the bribe: to get the prosecutor fired. The prepared statement goes to great lengths on the timeline: the alleged bribery of the Bidens could only have happened in 2015-2016, and Smirnov lied about speaking to the owner of Burisma about the bribe during that time frame. Smirnov’s conversations occurred in 2017 at the earliest, and Smirnov didn’t report the bribe until 2020, after Joe announced he was running for office. QED.
The “tell” here is that the timing of Smirnov’s alleged conversation with Zlochesky has nothing to do with 1) whether Zlochesky admitted to having made a bribe, and 2) if so, whether the bribe was in fact made. The admission could have been made to Smirnov in 2015, during discussions b/w Zlochesky and the Bidens over the terms, in 2017, after Biden left office, or even in 2020, after Joe declared he was running for president. The statement in which Smirnov admits to lying focuses almost exclusively on the timing of his conversation with Zlochesky about the bribe.
The second tell is the absence of any details regarding the substance of the bribe allegations as opposed to timing. Nowhere does Smirnov admit he never talked to Smirnov. Nowhere does he say they talked, but not about the Bidens or any bribe. And nowhere does he say that nobody associated with Burisma ever discussed their arrangement and under the table deal with Hunter.
All of this leads me to conclude that the absence of these critical facts- and in particular the absence of any explicit denial by Smirnov they ever happened- suggests that Weiss wants to bury the facts."
Tom |
