Why Is Trump DOJ Trying To Break Lying Joe And Hunter Biden Burisma 'Witness' Out Of The Clink?
Oh, you know why.
For a president who claims to have been “totally exonerated” on charges that he has secretly colluded with agents of Russia, Donald Trump sure will go to the mat for shady characters who helped his political cause by colluding with Russia.
Y’all may remember the saga of Alexander Smirnov, whom we wrote about quite a bit in the last year or so of the Biden administration. Smirnov was the FBI informant who claimed to have information that the Ukranian energy company Burisma had bribed Joe and Hunter Biden with $5 million each to get Ukraine’s prosecutor general fired because he was investigating Burisma for corruption. Pig-fucking Congressman James Comer was going to use Smirnov as his star witness to testify to all this, and the testimony was supposed to be the lynchpin upon which Joe Biden would be impeached, removed from office, and sent to president jail. (His multi-million-dollar beach house in Delaware.) SOOEY!
But then, fiddlebritches and tugglenuts! Smirnov turned out to be lying his ass off. What’s more, he admitted he had gotten the lies from Russian intelligence agents who for some reason seemed to want to sow American intelligence with fake info about the Bidens. Smirnov confessed and pleaded guilty to both lying to the FBI and tax evasion. For his trouble, he was sentenced to six years in federal prison. (The indictment made for some fun reading.)
Now, if you are Donald Trump and the passel of smooth-brained idiots who have attached themselves to his ass like barnacles on a boat hull, you might think Whew! Dodged that bullet! Because sure, it certainly looks like the years of investigation and evidence-gathering of Trump knowingly and unknowingly colluding with Russia were accurate! But also, there was nothing tying Smirnov to anyone in Trump’s orbit, so at least you have some plausible deniability here.
In other words, maybe you let sleeping dogs lie. But that is not the Trump Way. So now, according to David Corn at Mother Jones, the Trump Justice Department has spent the last year trying to spring Smirnov from the pen.
They haven’t been subtle about it, even if it has all been lost in the hourly flood of atrocities with which we have filled our eyeballs for the last year. Smirnov was sentenced on January 8, 2025. Not long after that, he filed a motion to be allowed to stay out of prison while he appealed his conviction. The DOJ, which had come under Trump’s thumb 12 days after his sentencing, reversed course and filed a joint stipulation with Smirnov in support of the motion.
First, Smirnov tried to claim he had an eye condition, so he should get to stay out on bail during his appeal. Then, the DOJ went to bat for him in a way that honestly made the department sound like his defense lawyer:
During a hearing last April, a department prosecutor pointed out that Smirnov had “the lowest incentive that he would ever have to flee the country … when he has a receptive ear to people who are willing to look anew” at his case.
A “receptive ear” to the case of a guy who lied to the FBI, and whose actions could have affected the outcome of both the 2020 and 2024 elections. Yeah, this doesn’t look weird or suspicious or shady at all.
Anyway, the judge last April turned down the request. But that hasn’t stopped the DOJ from trying. In November, an independent journalist found out that Smirnov had been “furloughed” from prison, ostensibly because of the same eye condition that a judge had determined wasn’t enough to justify letting him stay free while he appealed. These sorts of medical furloughs, according to Corn, can last for 30 months and you can apply for multiple extensions beyond that.
Oh, and his lawyer, David Chesnoff, is a Trump affiliate who defended alleged Kristi Noem fuck toy Corey Lewandowski a few years ago when he was accused of groping a Trump donor at a fundraiser.
Smirnov’s is a crusade that has reached the highest levels of the department, which is all in on the latest gambit:
On March 4, in a move that has drawn no media attention, the department quietly filed an unusual brief—submitted by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche—supporting Smirnov’s attempt to throw out his sentence and withdraw his guilty plea.
Aw, it’s nice that Blanche took time away from helping Ghislaine Maxwell keep covering up for Trump to help Alexander Smirnov keep covering up for Trump.
It is unclear from Corn’s reporting where Smirnov even is right now. There is nothing about his medical furlough having ended, but the Bureau of Prisons website shows him being located at low-security Terminal Island near Los Angeles, with a release date set for 2029. For all we know, he’s chilling at Mar-a-Lago until then.
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This is what happens when you elect a career criminal.
Rooshin agents look out for each other despite failing to impeach Moose and Squirrel.