WASHINGTON — Republicans deleted a reference to a discredited FBI informant in a letter they sent on Tuesday to a potential witness in their impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden.
Republican interview request letters typically spell out the basis for their investigation, including with a paragraph describing a credible confidential human source’s conversations with a Ukrainian gas company executive about bribing Biden.
The Justice Department last week said the informant, a U.S. citizen named Alexander Smirnov, made up the allegation, and now Republicans appear to be striking any mention of it from their impeachment correspondence.
On Tuesday, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) included the paragraph about the informant in an interview request letter to former State Department official Amos Hochstein. An hour later, according to a Democratic House aide, the chairman sent another version of the same letter, but without the paragraph about the informant. HuffPost reviewed both versions of the document.
