FBI informant accused of lying about Joe and Hunter Biden's ties to Ukrainian energy company
Kyiv • UNN
An FBI informant is accused of lying about alleged payments by the Ukrainian energy company Burisma to Joe and Hunter Biden.
An FBI informant is accused of lying to his supervisor about the ties between President Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and a Ukrainian energy company. This is reported by the AP news agency, UNN reports.
Details
Oleksandr Smirnov falsely told FBI agents in June 2020 that executives associated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden $5 million each in 2015 or 2016, prosecutors said on Thursday.
Smirnov told the FBI that the Burisma executive claimed to have hired Hunter Biden to "protect us through his dad from all kinds of problems.
The allegations became a flashpoint in Congress last summer, when Republicans demanded that the FBI release an unredacted form documenting the allegations as they continued their investigation of Biden and his family. They acknowledged at the time that it was unclear whether the allegations were true.
Prosecutors say that although Smirnov claimed to have contacted Burisma executives at the end of the Obama administration, it was actually after Obama and Biden left office - when Biden would have no ability to influence US policy.
The Defendant turned his routine and unusual business contacts with Burisma in 2017 and then into bribery allegations against Public Official 1, a likely presidential candidate of one of the two main political parties, after expressing bias against Public Official 1 and his candidacy
He repeated some of the false statements during an interview with FBI agents in September 2023 and changed his story for others and "promoted a new false narrative after he said he had met with Russian officials," prosecutors said.
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Smirnov, 43, is charged with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record. He was arrested in Las Vegas on February 14, immediately after his arrival from abroad. He is expected to stand trial.
If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.
The charges were filed by the Department of Justice's Special Prosecutor David Wise, who separately charged Hunter Biden with firearms and tax violations.
