By Steve Neavling
The U.S. government is now supporting the release of a former FBI informant who fabricated a bribery story about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, according to a court filing unsealed Thursday, ABC News reports.
Alexander Smirnov, 44, was sentenced to six years in prison in January after pleading guilty to tax evasion and lying to the FBI about a phony bribery scheme that prosecutors said was meant to sway the 2020 election. He has been in custody since his February 2024 arrest at the Las Vegas airport after returning from overseas.
In a joint motion filed Thursday, federal prosecutors and Smirnov’s attorneys asked for his release while he appeals the conviction. The government said it would review its “theory of the case” and noted that release would allow Smirnov to receive proper treatment for eye-related health issues.
Smirnov, a dual U.S. and Israeli citizen, falsely told his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid $5 million each to then-Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden around 2015. Prosecutors said he made the claim after expressing “bias” against Biden as a presidential candidate.
Investigators later found that Smirnov’s contacts with Burisma didn’t begin until 2017, after Biden had left office. Authorities said his false claim “set off a firestorm in Congress” when it resurfaced during the House impeachment inquiry into Biden. The administration called the inquiry a political “stunt.”
Smirnov was prosecuted by former special counsel David Weiss, who resigned in January, days before Donald Trump began his second term. The case has since been reassigned to a new federal prosecutor.
Weiss had also brought gun and tax charges against Hunter Biden, who was convicted and pleaded guilty last year. He was set to be sentenced in December but was pardoned by his father, who said “raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”
