Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant, has pleaded guilty to providing false information to federal authorities about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
Smirnov falsely claimed that officials from Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that employed Hunter Biden, had paid the father and son $5 million each during the Obama administration when Biden was vice president.
Smirnov’s allegations were cited by House Republicans as key to their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. However, Smirnov has now admitted that his claims were false.
He entered his plea in a California federal court after reaching an agreement that he would plead guilty to causing the creation of a false and fictitious record in a federal investigation.
Smirnov also pleaded guilty to tax evasion, admitting that he received more than $2 million in unreported income for the tax years 2020-22.
Prosecutors and Smirnov’s attorneys agreed to recommend a sentence of four to six years in prison and one year of supervised release, along with around $675,000 in restitution.
According to the indictment, Smirnov sent his handler “a series of messages expressing bias” against Biden, who was then the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in May 2020, before he made the bribery allegations a month later. Prosecutors argued that Smirnov was “actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November.”
Smirnov began working as a confidential human source for the FBI in 2010. The case against him was brought by special counsel David Weiss, who previously investigated Hunter Biden on gun and tax charges.
Hunter Biden was convicted on federal gun charges in June and pleaded guilty to tax charges in September. His father pardoned him this month ahead of his scheduled sentencing in the gun case on Dec. 12 and the tax case on Dec. 16.
