An FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, aged 43, has been indicted on two charges for allegedly providing the bureau with false information about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign.
The Justice Department stated that Smirnov, who had a dislike for Joe Biden, was arrested in Las Vegas upon his return from an overseas trip.
The case emerged from the special counsel investigation led by David Weiss, who is also handling the case against Hunter Biden and was appointed by then-President Donald Trump as the top federal prosecutor in Delaware.
The 37-page indictment claims that Smirnov had been a confidential human source for the FBI since 2010 and accused him of “providing false derogatory information to the FBI” about both Bidens after Joe Biden entered the presidential race in 2020.
Smirnov faces charges of making a false statement to a government agent and falsification of records in a federal investigation.
The indictment alleges that Smirnov falsely informed the FBI that officials from Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company where Hunter Biden worked, had disclosed to him that they hired Hunter Biden for protection through his father from various issues.
Smirnov also allegedly falsely claimed that Burisma officials told him they paid $5 million to both Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, and it would take investigators 10 years to uncover these illicit payments to Joe Biden.
After learning of Smirnov’s indictment, Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee Jamie Raskin demanded that the impeachment process come to a stop.
Smirnov’s testimony was essential to Republicans’ investigation into the president’s impeachment.
“In short, the Defendant transformed his routine and unextraordinary business contacts with Burisma in 2017 and later into bribery allegations against [Joe Biden], the presumptive nominee of one of the two major political parties for President, after expressing bias against [Joe Biden] and his candidacy,” according to the indictment.
In September of last year, following the collapse of Hunter Biden’s plea agreement, the indictment further claims that Smirnov “repeated some of his false claims” and that he “changed his story as to other of his claims, and promoted a new false narrative after he said he met with Russian officials.”
In a message dated May 2020, Smirnov informed his FBI handler that he believed Joe Biden was “going to jail” and stated that some of the claims “should be soon in the news.”
According to the indictment, Smirnov was warned by the handler at least 21 times to speak the truth to the FBI and at least seven times that he might have to testify about the information he gave them.
According to a source familiar with the Biden family impeachment inquiry, the House Oversight Committee first became aware of a problem with this confidential informant when the special counsel indictment was made public on Thursday afternoon, as NBC News reported. The source claims that Weiss’ office, the FBI, and the DOJ have not contacted the committee.
During several in-person sessions last year, FBI Director Christopher Wray and other bureau officials briefed members of Congress on this matter.
In response to inquiries from lawmakers regarding the reliability of this confidential human source, the FBI informed them that the source was highly valued by the agency, regarded as the “go to” source in the area, and had received six figures for work completed thus far.
At the time, FBI officials stated that because the source was so valuable and involved in several active investigations, they would not be providing the data Congress was requesting.
