I'm Ari Melber. As the United States and global pressure mounts on

Vladimir Putin for the imprisonment and death of opposition leader Alexei

Nivalny and some Republicans are facing blowback for defending Putin and

touting his government.

Is all that's happening and Maga 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 Biden's to the FBI, who was

cited by the Republican Party's ongoing by investigations.

Well, that indicted individual says himself, he got his materials from Russian intelligence.

Now this is the operative and former FBI informant Alexander Smirdov,

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 U.S. 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 intelligence helped with his story about Hunter Biden in an

FBI interview he admits that so that's the source the FBI looked into those

...