‘Embarrassing’: CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Roasts Republicans ‘Grasping At Straws’ On Biden Impeachment After Bombshell Arrest

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins opened her show with an extended roast of Republicans still “grasping at straws” to impeach President Joe Biden after the bombshell arrest of a key informant for lying to the FBI.

Special Counsel David Weiss announced Thursday that Alexander Smirnov — a key informant behind the Republican effort to impeach the president over his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings — has been charged with lying to the FBI.

But that hasn’t stopped Republicans — who once touted Smirnov as “credible” and “trusted” — from soldiering on, as Rep. Jim Jordan did in a scrum with Manu Raju.

On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins offered a grim assessment of the Biden probe, saying “if the impeachment inquiry is not dead, yet, it is certainly on life support” and mocking Jordan:

Tonight, the impeachment investigators are back on Capitol Hill, just in time to interview their first member of the Biden family under oath. The President’s brother, James. And they’re preparing to haul in Hunter Biden to testify a week from today. They believe that they’ve got President Biden right where they want him, or so they had hoped.

Instead, it has blown up in their faces, in a very public and embarrassing way. The apparent centerpiece of this inquiry, as we now know, a now former FBI informant, says that his claims about the Bidens, and the millions of dollars in bribe money, actually came from Russian intelligence.

So, it would appear if the newly-indicted ex-informant, Alexander Smirnov, is telling the truth? And we don’t know, given his history. House Republicans did exactly what Vladimir Putin was hoping that they would. At this point, if the impeachment inquiry is not dead, yet, it is certainly on life support.

But just don’t ask the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee that. Listen to what Jim Jordan said about this, just a few weeks ago, about what the claims of this very informant are, compared to what he’s saying today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): The most corroborating evidence we have is that 1023 form, from this highly credible, confidential human source.

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You said the 1023 is the most corroborating piece of information you have.

JORDAN: It corroborates, but it doesn’t — it doesn’t change those fundamental facts. So now–

RAJU: But it’s not true.

JORDAN: Well, so, OK, so it’s the — the FBI told us that this source was so — 14 years, this source was a paid source by the FBI.

RAJU: But your promotion of a bribery scheme was false.

JORDAN: Not at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Not necessarily not at all. But we’ll talk about that in a moment, more with one of Jim Jordan’s colleagues, in the House, who has had a few choice things to say, about what’s been going on.

But here’s really where we stand tonight. The James Biden interview, today, lasted more than eight hours. Republicans, still grasping at straws to keep this going.

But as CNN has learned, James Biden was just the latest, in a string of witnesses, to tell Congress that Joe Biden did not have any involvement, in his business dealings.

Even Republicans’ handpicked witnesses here have undercut their claims, including in that now-infamous televised hearing, I should note the only one that we’ve ever seen.

And also, Republicans’ star witness is now facing federal charges. He’s wearing an ankle monitor, tonight. And the Special Counsel, in that case, is hounding a federal judge, to put him back in jail, pending trial, worried that he is a flight risk. With all of that as the backdrop, some Republicans are now trying to say it’s FBI’s fault, for relying on Smirnov, in the first place.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.