21-02-24, 09:51
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Re: FBI Informant Who LIED About The Bidens Had Contact With Russian Intelligence
FBI Informant Who Lied About Bidens’ Ukraine Ties Had Contact With Russians
Prosecutors reveal alleged ties to Russian intelligence-affiliated persons to urge US judge to deny Alexander Smirnovs’ release
Hunter Biden says special counsel used Alexander Smirnovs’ discredited bribery claims to derail his plea deal
The Guardian 21 FEB 2024
A former FBI informant charged with making up a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company had contacts with officials affiliated with Russian intelligence, prosecutors said in a court paper on Tuesday.
Hunter Bidens’ lawyers accused special counsel David Weiss on Tuesday of using a since-discredited bribery allegation from an FBI informant to blow up his plea deal last year.
Prosecutors revealed the alleged contact as they urged a judge to keep Alexander Smirnov behind bars while he awaits trial. He’s charged with falsely reporting to the FBI in June 2020 that executives associated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter and the president $5m each in 2015 or 2016. The claim has been central to the Republican impeachment inquiry in Congress.
Smirnov is due in court later Tuesday in Las Vegas. He has been in custody at a facility in rural Pahrump, about an hour west of Las Vegas, since his arrest last week at the airport while returning from overseas.
David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, the defense attorneys, said in a statement ahead of the hearing that they were asking for Smirnov’s release while he awaits trial “so he can effectively fight the power of the government”.
Prosecutors said that during an interview before his arrest last week, Smirnov admitted that “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story” about Hunter. They said Smirnov’s contacts with Russian officials were recent and extensive and said Smirnov had planned to meet with one official during an upcoming overseas trip.
They said Smirnov has had numerous contacts with a person he described as the “son of a former high-ranking government official” and “someone with ties to a particular Russian intelligence service”. They said there is a serious risk that Smirnov could flee overseas to avoid facing trial.
The White House didn’t immediately comment on the claims in Tuesday’s court filing.
Prosecutors say Smirnov, who holds dual US-Israeli citizenship, falsely reported to the FBI in June 2020 that executives associated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden $5m each in 2015 or 2016.
Smirnov in fact had only routine business dealings with the company starting in 2017 and made the bribery allegations after he “expressed bias” against Joe Biden while he was a presidential candidate, prosecutors said in court documents. He is charged with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record. The charges were filed in Los Angeles, where he lived for 16 years before relocating to Las Vegas two years ago.
Smirnovs’ claims have been central to the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family, and helped spark what is now a House impeachment inquiry into Biden. Democrats called for an end to the investigation after the indictment came down last week, while Republicans distanced the inquiry from Smirnovs’ claims and said they would continue to “follow the facts”.
Hunter is expected to give a deposition next week.
The Burisma allegations became a flashpoint in Congress as Republicans pursuing investigations of the president and his family demanded the FBI release the un-redacted form documenting the allegations. They acknowledged they couldn’t confirm if the allegations were true.
UPDATE: Hunter Biden
In a court filing Tuesday, attorneys for the presidents’ son asked a judge to force Weiss’ team to turn over additional information about the plea deal that went awry, and to provide materials about their discussions regarding a tip from by Alexander Smirnov, a 43-year-old former informant who was indicted for lying to the FBI about the Bidens’ alleged business dealings.
Smirnov appeared in a Nevada federal court Tuesday afternoon, where a judge ruled that he be released while he awaits trial. The release was granted with several conditions, including that Smirnov be subject to GPS monitoring and surrender his passports.
Weiss’ team wrote last week in Smirnov’s indictment that he falsely told his FBI handler in 2020 that President Joe Biden and his son each took $5 million in bribes from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The FBI investigated Smirnov’s allegations at the time, his indictment says, and recommended the probe into his claims be closed in August of that year.
Prosecutors continued their investigation of Smirnovs’ claims into 2023, the indictment says.
“The discussion about the scope of the immunity agreement appears shaped by the prosecution’s investigation of the Smirnov allegations, which it began looking into just days before the July 26, 2023 hearing,” Hunter Biden’s lawyers alleged in their filing, referring to their client’s botched plea deal.
“It now seems clear that the Smirnov allegations infected this case,” they wrote, adding that prosecutors followed Smirnov down a “rabbit hole of lies” and “having taken Mr. Smirnovs’ bait of grand, sensational charges, the Diversion Agreement that had just been entered into and Plea Agreement that was on the verge of being finalized suddenly became inconvenient for the prosecution, and it reversed course and repudiated those Agreements.”
The case will continue on 27 March
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