Former FBI Informant to Plead Guilty on Fabricating Biden Bribery Allegations

Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI agent, will enter a guilty plea for making up allegations of bribery against President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

According to court records released on Thursday, a former FBI informant who allegedly concocted false allegations that President Joe Biden and his son Hunter took payments has consented to enter a guilty plea to federal charges.

In a plea agreement with Justice Department special counsel David Weiss, Alexander Smirnov will acknowledge that he made up the story that is at the heart of the congressional investigation into the Republican impeachment of him. This plea deal comes after prosecutors brought fresh tax evasion accusations against Smirnov just weeks earlier. According to the agreement, both sides would suggest a prison term of two to six years.

David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, Smirnov’s lawyers, said they will fight for a just penalty in court but would not elaborate.

After reportedly lying to the FBI in June 2020 about Burisma executives paying Joe Biden and Hunter Biden $5 million each in 2015 or 2016, Smirnov was detained in February. The CEO allegedly told Smirnov that Hunter Biden was hired to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems,” according to court filings.

Smirnov did communicate with Burisma executives, according to the prosecution, but this was normal and took place in 2017, after both Biden and President Barack Obama had left office, so Biden would not have had any impact over US policy. They claimed that after voicing prejudice against Biden, who was then a presidential candidate, Smirnov made the bribery accusations.

Prosecutors argue that Smirnov “promoted a new false narrative after he said he met with Russian officials,” changed his account on some of these false assertions, and repeated some of them during an FBI interrogation in September 2023.

Smirnov has consented to enter a guilty plea to allegations of tax evasion and fabricating an FBI record, according to court filings. The same special counsel who charged Hunter Biden with federal firearms and taxes is also prosecuting Smirnov.