Former FBI informant pleads guilty to lying about Bidens’ false bribery schemes

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former FBI informant pleaded guilty Monday to lying about a bogus bribery scheme between President Joe Biden and his son Hunter that was at the center of the Republican impeachment inquiry in Congress.

Alexander Smirnov filed a felony charge in connection with the false story, as well as a tax evasion charge stemming from a separate indictment accusing him of concealing millions of dollars in income.

A lawyer for the 44-year-old Smirnov declined to comment after the hearing in federal court in Los Angeles.

Prosecutors and the defense have agreed to recommend a sentence of between four and six years when he is sentenced next month.

Smirnov will receive credit for time served since his arrest in February for telling his FBI handler that executives at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid President Biden and Hunter Biden $5 million each around 2015.

Smirnov had been an informant for more than a decade when he made the explosive allegations about the Bidens in June 2020 after expressing “bias” against Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, prosecutors said.

However, according to court documents, as of 2017 Smirnov only had routine business dealings with Burisma. An FBI field office investigated the allegations and recommended closing the case in August 2020, according to charging documents.

There is no evidence that Joe Biden acted corruptly or accepted bribes as president or in his previous office as vice president.

Although Smirnov’s identity was not publicly known before the indictment, his allegations played a major role in congressional Republicans’ efforts to investigate the president and his family and helped launch an impeachment inquiry against Biden in the House of Representatives. Before Smirnov’s arrest, Republicans had demanded that the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the unconfirmed allegations, but acknowledged that they could not confirm whether they were true.

During a conversation with investigators in September 2023, Smirnov also claimed that the Russians likely had recordings of Hunter Biden because a hotel in the Ukrainian capital where he had stayed was “wired” and under their control – information he said after being passed on to him by four high-ranking officials. level of Russian officials.

But Hunter Biden never traveled to Ukraine, according to Smirnov’s indictment.

Smirnov claimed to have contacts with officials linked to Russian intelligence and told authorities after his arrest this year that “officials linked to Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story” about Hunter Biden.

The case against Smirnow was filed by special counsel David Weiss, who also prosecuted Hunter Biden on gun and tax charges. Hunter Biden was scheduled to be sentenced this month after being convicted in a gun case trial and pleading guilty in the tax case. But he was pardoned this month by his father, who said he believes “crude politics has infected this trial and led to a miscarriage of justice.”