Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant accused of falsely claiming that President Biden and his son Hunter accepted bribes will plead guilty to federal charges. In a plea deal with Justice Department special counsel David Weiss, Smirnov will admit he fabricated that the story that became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry in Congress, reports the Associated Press. The deal comes after prosecutors filed new tax evasion charges against Smirnov. The two sides will recommend a sentence of between two and six years in prison.
Smirnov was arrested in February on allegations that he falsely reported to the FBI in 2020 that executives associated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter Biden and Joe Biden $5 million each in 2015 or 2016. Smirnov told his handler that an executive claimed to have hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems. Prosecutors said Smirnov had contact with Burisma executives, but it was routine and took place in 2017, after President Obama and Biden, his vice president, had left office.. Prosecutors said he made the bribery allegations after he “expressed bias” against Biden while he was a presidential candidate. He repeated some of the false claims when he was interviewed by FBI agents in 2023 and changed his story about others and “promoted a new false narrative after he said he met with Russian officials,” prosecutors said.
Comments