Epic fail: GOP source indicted, caught pushing Russian lies about Biden to FBI

as the United States and Global pressure mounts on Vladimir Putin for the imprisonment and death of opposition leader alexe noal and some Republicans are facing blowback for defending Putin and touting his government is all that's happening and magga favorite Tucker Carlson of course faces his own outrage over that controversial interview tonight there is now damning new evidence on how Putin's spies are trying to infiltrate American politics again and specifically using spies and lies to align

with some Republican efforts to damage President Biden now if this plot sounds familiar it's because Russia operates ongoing plots like this many countries do but one difference which I'm going to get into in our top story right now is how warm a reception Putin keeps getting from some American politicians on the right here's the news backed by hard evidence from an FBI and doj investigation the indicted operative who was feeding lies about the bidens to the FBI who was cited by the Republican p

arty's ongoing B investigations well that indicted individual says himself he got his materials from Russian intelligence now this is the operative and former FBI informant Alexander smov recently indicted in that case as mentioned for lying to the FBI you can see him leaving Court this week in Las Vegas he's out of custody after the US took his passports he's subject to digital location monitoring he's Presumed Innocent but faces these charges now he admitted officials associated with Russian i

ntelligence helped with his story about Hunter Biden in an FBI interview he admits that so that's the source the FBI looked into those claims to determine their veracity and obviously they were false indeed so false they led to these charges but top Republicans who've been hyping this for months did not look into it it was never fact checked none of the characters implicated came to testify which is something Republicans could have done they have power there in Congress none of the so-called mee

tings in Europe locals were confirmed no recordings ever surfaced political reports no Financial records ever showed any payments to Biden or his son so there you have tonight a link back to Russian intelligence and an indictment and independent reporting like Politico telling you how little Republicans did to look into this so it'd be bad enough if just the original story was false or if Republicans could say their work was simply negligent or sloppy but legally this story that we've been follo

wing legally and factually has now been proven to be far worse the supposed source that Republicans invoked is indicted for lying about the stories the Republicans hyped the doj says it ties back to a Putin program to divide and damage America and even though that plot and the disinformation was here obviously caught and exposed many Espionage and Security Experts now say some of the Republicans did knowingly or not help Putin's bidding by pushing these lies in inuendo sometimes at the highest l

evels of Congress even a trusted FBI informant has alleged a bribe to the Biden family if there is bribery High crimes misdemeanor we are compelled by the Constitution to move there an alleged bribery scheme between then vice president Biden Hunter Biden and a foreign National the confidential human Source Who provided information about then Vice President Biden being involved in a criminal robbery scheme is a trusted highly credible informant highly credible this is a co-equal branch of governm

ent it does its own investigations it has subpoena power and the evidence tonight is that those Republicans you just saw did not do anything to check if their credible informant was credible and now the facts the indictment show the opposite so what do some of these same Republicans say now Congressman Jordan argues this revelation of a foreign operation which did impact members of Congress this Revelation he says still does not change the facts you're not well I mean it is what it is so uh does

n't change the fundamental facts Jordan is trying to argue that there are some other reasons or facts to continue probing the bidens even without this wit he didn't really meaningfully address the propaganda part the link to Russian Intelligence on the other side the top Democrat on the house oversight committee says this is another reason to end the Biden probe and impeachment Quest and I'm restating my call to Chairman comr to speaker Johnson to fold up the tent uh to this circus show it's rea

lly over at this point it feels to me as if everyone knows the impeachment investigation is over so here we are this is a big development that it ties back to Russian intelligence and you can see how the members of Congress are responding so before I bring in our guests I want to walk you through where we are now I think a sober reading of the Congressional process and rules suggests that Congressman Rasin is overstating his case there the house can continue an impeachment investigation even if

some sources or evidence goes south the burden though is on Republicans to provide hard evidence so far they haven't nor even explained the written grounds for the potential president presidential impeachment here now a sober reading of the evidence also suggests that these top Republicans like Jordan comr and Grassley were at least duped by this secondhand Russian disinformation and that's the most charitable way you can put it they also all back a presidential candidate who goes well beyond du

p Donald Trump started this whole thing before he ever won a race actively seeking campaign meddling from foreign governments like Russia and those calls that he made to Russia were heated according to the exhaustive findings in the Müller probe and so here we are again back to Russia Russia Russia and I don't know how much you listen to what they say on the right but there are a lot of trump apologists who claim it's their opponents who are obsessed with Russia and that that's why all of this k

eeps coming up like it's a thing that other people are obsessed with well let me tell you with this Russian disinformation campaign partly exposed tonight that that idea that other people are obsessed with Russia like so much Maga political projection has it exactly opposite so why are we back on Russia tonight in our Congress in the news in America I'll go through it quite briefly one because Putin's an autocrat who runs these operations on an ongoing basis he's not just going to stop two becau

se Trump and part of the Republican Party use or even actively welcome some of the fruits of those campaigns they're made to Target our process and some people in the American political process welcome it three there's a whole group of operatives who profit off Putin and his Associated interests some were ultimately convicted for corrupt acts like the person you see on your screen who's not some random felon he was the number one person on the Trump campaign when they won in 16 he's former Trump

campaign chair Paul manord convicted in the Muller Pro now that's three four Trump's long loud defenses of Putin have laundered and popularized him as a figure on the right and that has consequences for everything from foreign policy to our fellow Americans views are understanding of how much authoritarianism they can actually stomach for Mr Carl who is very relevant here whether you like it or not as one of mag's most prominent voices on Russia well Tucker Carlson could stomach Putin's record

as recently as last week I'll show you what I mean he responded to a question posed about Putin's tactics about jailing a dissident we've told you about noal who was then still believed to be alive Tucker was asked about that right after his Putin interview and the New York Times reports asked why he had not questioned Putin about Russia's Free Speech Crackdown naval's jailing or suspected political assassinations they mean in general Carlson said those were the things that every other American

Media Outlet talks about times noting Carlson was actually the first Western media figure to interview Putin in over two years but Carlson responded quote leadership requires killing people sorry that's why I wouldn't want to be a leader okay well there is more than one way to be a leader that's the whole point and the times also reports a quote notable change as Carlson then later this week responded to nal's death in Russian custody saying quote it's horrifying what happened in Nal the whole t

hing is barbaric and awful no decent person would defend it so no decent person would defend the Putin system that led to naval's death yet Carl was defending that Barry system last week okay so they can try to make sense of that now some of what Putin does especially within his borders is not easily stopped by other countries Russia is a nuclear armed adversary that invades its neighbors but what is notable here and avoidable what is not normal and what does not need to happen is how much of wh

at Putin continues to do within America American borders is minimized or even sometimes welcomed by some of the most prominent conservatives in public life and government