Ex-FBI informant charged with lying over Bidens’ role in Ukraine business

WASHINGTON – The special counsel investigating Hunter Biden has charged a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant with fabricating claims that President Joe Biden and his son each sought US$5 million (S$6.7 million) in bribes from a Ukrainian company – a stinging setback for Republicans who cited the allegations in their push to impeach the President.

The long-time informant, Alexander Smirnov, 43, is accused of falsely telling the FBI that Hunter Biden, then a paid board member of the energy giant Burisma, demanded the money to protect the company from an investigation by the country’s prosecutor general at the time.

The explosive story, which seemed to back up unsubstantiated Republican claims of a “Biden crime family”, turned out to be a brazen lie, according to a 37-page indictment unsealed late on Feb 15 in a California federal court, brought by the special counsel, Mr David Weiss.

Smirnov’s motivation for lying, prosecutors wrote, appears to have been political. During the 2020 campaign, he sent his handler at the FBI “a series of messages expressing bias” against Mr Joe Biden, including texts – replete with typos and misspellings – boasting that he had information that would put him in jail.

Republicans pressured the FBI to release internal reports after they learnt of Smirnov’s claims. In May 2023, Representative James Comer, chair of the House oversight committee, threatened to hold the bureau’s director, Mr Christopher Wray, in contempt if he did not disclose some details.

In July, after Mr Wray complied, Senator Charles Grassley released a copy of an FBI record that included the false allegation without naming Smirnov, or questioning its veracity.

He then described Smirnov’s claims as “very significant allegations from a trusted FBI informant implicating then Vice-President Biden in a criminal bribery scheme”.

Mr Comer, in a statement released after the charges against Smirnov became public, took no responsibility for spreading a claim that prosecutors suggested was a smear intended to hurt Mr Biden politically.

Instead, he blamed bureau officials for privately telling the committee their “source was credible and trusted, had worked with the FBI for over a decade and had been paid six figures”.

But FBI officials did not seem to think much of Smirnov’s allegations from the start, and requested he provide travel receipts to prove he attended meetings cited in his report. In 2020, they concluded that his claims did not merit continued investigation and told senior Trump administration officials in the Justice Department of that decision, prosecutors wrote.

Smirnov now faces two charges of making false statements and obstructing the government’s long-running investigation into the President’s troubled son. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison.

The indictment did not say if Smirnov was an American citizen, or specify his country of origin – only that he is a globe-trotting businessman who speaks Russian and who became an FBI informant in 2010.

He was arrested in Las Vegas on Feb 14 after disembarking from an international flight and detained pending a hearing on Feb 13.

In 2015 or 2016, Hunter Biden promised to protect the company “through his dad, from all kinds of problems”, Smirnov falsely claimed to his bureau handler in 2020, according to Mr Weiss, who has charged the President’s son twice over the past year on tax and gun charges.

This claim was easily disproved, prosecutors said: Smirnov was in contact with Burisma executives in 2017, after Mr Joe Biden left office – when he “had no ability to influence US policy”.

Smirnov told FBI investigators that he had seen footage of Hunter Biden entering a hotel in Kyiv, Ukraine, that was “wired” by the Russians, suggesting that Russia may have recorded phone calls he made from the hotel, according to the indictment.

But Hunter Biden had never been to Ukraine, let alone that hotel, prosecutors wrote.

Smirnov is accused of exaggerating his “routine and unextraordinary business contacts with Burisma” into “bribery allegations” against the President, who is identified in the filing as Public Official 1.

He repeated some of his fabricated claims when he was interviewed by FBI agents in September 2023, “changed his story as to other of his claims and promoted a new false narrative after he said he met with Russian officials”, according to the indictment.

It was not clear who was representing Smirnov in the case.

The President’s son still faces indictments on a gun charge in Delaware and tax charges in California. But his lawyers said Smirnov’s indictment was proof that he was the target of a mendacious and politically motivated smear campaign. NYTIMES