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

Washington: The special counsel investigating Hunter Biden has charged a former FBI informant with fabricating claims that President Joe Biden and his son sought two $5 million bribes from a Ukrainian energy company, according to an indictment in a California federal court.

The former informant, Alexander Smirnov, 43, was accused of falsely telling the FBI that Hunter Biden, then serving as a paid member on the board of Burisma, demanded the money to protect the company from an investigation by the country's prosecutor general at the time.

The story Smirnov told investigators was part of a series of explosive and unsubstantiated claims by Republicans that the Bidens engaged in potentially criminal activity -- allegations central to the party's efforts to impeach the president.

In July, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released a copy of an FBI record that included the false allegation without naming Smirnov, or questioning its veracity.

"I've been pushing the Justice Department and FBI to provide details on its handling of very significant allegations from a trusted FBI informant implicating then-Vice President Biden in a criminal bribery scheme," Grassley said in a statement at the time, praising "heroic whistleblowers" who brought the document to light.

The claims in the report turned out to be a lie, said the special counsel, David C. Weiss, the Trump-appointed US attorney in Delaware.

Smirnov now faces a two-charge indictment for making false statements and obstructing the government's long-running investigation of the president's troubled son. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison.

Smirnov is a permanent resident of the United States, according to a senior law enforcement official. He was arrested in Las Vegas on Wednesday after disembarking from an international flight and was expected to appear before a federal judge later Thursday.

Hunter Biden promised to protect the company "through his dad, from all kinds of problems," Smirnov falsely claimed to the bureau in 2020, according to Weiss, the special counsel who has charged the president's son twice over the past year on tax and gun charges.

Smirnov, prosecutors working for Weiss said, was only in contact with Burisma executives in 2017, after Joe Biden left office -- when he "had no ability to influence US policy."

He 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."