Ex-FBI informant accused of lying about the Bidens is indicted on federal tax charges

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: AP

Updated 4:36 PM EST, November 26, 2024


WASHINGTON (AP) — A former FBI informant who is charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden’s family has been indicted in a new case on federal tax charges. The tax indictment against Alexander Smirnov was unsealed this week in California federal court, months after his arrest on charges that he fabricated a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company.

The indictment brought by Justice Department special counsel David Weiss charges Smirnov with tax evasion and filing false tax returns, accusing him of concealing millions of dollars of income he earned between 2020 and 2022.

Smirnov’s attorneys, David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, said in an email Tuesday that their client “intends to vigorously fight these allegations with the same intensity as he has fought the original indictment.” Smirnov’s trial was recently pushed to Jan. 8 in the case charging him with lying about the Biden family. Smirnov has denied the allegations in that case.

Prosecutors have alleged that he falsely reported to the FBI in June 2020 that executives associated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter Biden and Joe Biden $5 million each in 2015 or 2016. Smirnov told his handler that an executive claimed to have hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems,” according to court documents.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/hunter-biden-informant-tax-charges-a42f3b73dd9afd89342c0ce47dbec993

[keithbvadu2]

1. Lied about the Bidens? Does that qualify for a Trump pardon?

[Quanto Magnus]

6. I was thinking basically the same

Smirnov will get a pardon, if it even makes it to a verdict before being dropped.

A few motions that drag it out, then the whole case gets dropped Jan 21st.

[sheshe2]

2. He lied? I'm shocked, shocked I tell ya!

[Basso8vb]

3. Every accusation is a confession from these dolts.

Every.
Single.
Time.

[Raven123]

4. Wouldn't surprise me if these charges disappear when 45 takes ovet

[DENVERPOPS]

5. Alexander Smirnov

is that a Russian Name perchance.............

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. Key Republican source, accused of lying about the Bidens, pleads guilty

Alexander Smirnov may not be a household name, but his new guilty plea represents a stunning fiasco for some prominent Republicans in Congress

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/key-republican-source-accused-lying-bidens-pleads-guilty-rcna183988

It’s easy to forget why, exactly, many House Republicans talked about trying to impeach President Joe Biden earlier this year, but the weird crusade was rooted in a scurrilous accusation: The Democrat, GOP officials claimed, was the beneficiary of a weird Ukrainian bribery scheme.

The story never really made any sense, but several congressional Republicans nevertheless took the claims seriously — and when pressed to justify their efforts, they pointed to an informant who brought the bribery allegations to the attention of the FBI.

Whatever became of that informant? I’m glad you asked. The New York Times reported:

A former F.B.I. informant accused of fabricating a claim that President Biden and his son Hunter were each paid a $5 million bribe by a Ukrainian oligarch has agreed to plead guilty to a range of federal charges, according to a court filing on Thursday. Alexander Smirnov, a profiteer, fixer and gossip based in Las Vegas, reached a deal with the special counsel overseeing the investigation into Hunter Biden, David C. Weiss, that could lead to 48 to 72 months in prison, according to the filing in federal court in California.

The trouble began in earnest in February when Smirnov was indicted for providing “false derogatory information” to the FBI about Biden and his son. The charges stemmed from the special counsel investigation led by David Weiss, a Trump-appointed prosecutor......

Rep. Jim Jordan, for example, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, is on record publicly declaring that he was relying largely on Smirnov’s claims as part of his pursuit of Biden. The Ohio Republican specifically told Fox News in January that the allegations raised by Smirnov represented “the heart” of the GOP’s case against the president.

Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the GOP chair of the House Oversight Committee, made similar comments, declaring last year that Smirnov’s claims were “a very crucial piece of our investigation.”

At least one House Republican conceded that the party was warned not to take these uncorroborated anti-Biden allegations seriously, but Jordan and Comer, among others, ignored the advice and ran with the claims that have since collapsed.

In the GOP’s impeachment crusade, the real “scandal” isn’t what Joe Biden did, it’s what his accusers did.