Special Counsel David Weiss on Thursday filed a 37-page indictment charging an FBI confidential human source with two felony counts, alleging he gave federal investigators “false derogatory information” about Joe Biden and Hunter Biden during the 2020 presidential election. The indictment calls the informant’s claims about the Bidens and Burisma a “fabrication.”
“Alexander Smirnov, 43, who disliked President Joe Biden, was arrested in Las Vegas after returning from a trip overseas, according to the Justice Department,” NBC News reports. Then-President Donald Trump originally appointed Weiss as a U.S. Attorney in 2018.
Rolling Stone calls Smirnov the “GOP’s Key Hunter Biden Witness,” and reports his claims are used by Republicans “to bolster allegations of a corrupt bribery scheme involving Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.”
“Smirnov allegedly told the FBI — falsely — that officials with Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that Hunter Biden worked for, had told him they hired Hunter Biden because he would ‘protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.’ Smirnov allegedly told the FBI — again, falsely — that Burisma officials had told him they paid Hunter Biden and Joe Biden $5 million and that it would take investigators 10 years to find the illicit payments to Joe Biden.”
“The Defendant’s 2020 story was a fabrication,” the indictment reads. “The Defendant’s claim that ‘in late 2015/2016 during the Obama/Biden Administration’ he first met with Burisma Official 2 and that at that meeting Burisma Official 2 told him that they hired Businessperson 1 to ‘protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems’ was false, as he knew.”
HuffPost senior political reporter Igor Boric, responding to the news wrote, Republican U.S. Senators “Grassley & Comer hyped allegations made by this informant, other Rs ran with it and said they flat out proved Biden was guilty of bribery.”
The Washington Post’s Jacqueline Alemany observes, “These ‘false statements’ have been foundational to Comer’s impeachment inquiry into Biden.”
Media Matter’s Matthew Gertz noted, “Sean Hannity’s Fox News show ran with this informant’s claims in at least 85 separate segments last year, including 28 monologues. He said they proved Joe Biden engaged in ‘public corruption on a scale this country has never seen before.'”
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) wrote: “James Comer’s star witness against Joe Biden was just charged by the TRUMP-APPOINTED Special Counsel with making false claims. THIS is the informant who provided the core ‘evidence’ in the GOP impeachment investigation. According to a federal grand jury, he made it all up.”
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This article has been updated to add information from Rolling Stone.