A former FBI informant has pleaded guilty to lying about a supposed bribery scheme involving United States President Joe Biden and his son Hunter that was later used by Republicans in Congress as part of an impeachment inquiry.
Alexander Smirnov entered his plea in Los Angeles federal court on Monday in response to a felony charge related to the phony story, along with a tax evasion charge stemming from a separate indictment accusing him of concealing millions of dollars of income.
Prosecutors and the defence have agreed to recommend a sentence of between four and six years in prison when he is sentenced next month.
Smirnov, 44, was arrested in February on charges of making a “false statement” and “creating a false and fictitious record” to his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid President Biden and Hunter Biden $5m each around 2015.
Smirnov made the politically charged allegations in June 2020, after “expressing bias” about Joe Biden when he was running for president, prosecutors said.
In fact, Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Burisma starting in 2017, according to court documents.
The FBI found no evidence that Joe Biden acted corruptly or accepted bribes as US president or in his previous office as vice president.
While Smirnov’s identity wasn’t publicly known before the indictment, his claims played a major part in the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family, and helped spark a House impeachment inquiry into Biden.
Before Smirnov’s arrest, Republicans had demanded the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the unverified allegations, though they acknowledged they couldn’t confirm if they were true.
During a September 2023 conversation with investigators, Smirnov also claimed the Russians probably had recordings of Hunter Biden because a hotel in Ukraine’s capital where he had stayed was “wired” and under their control — information he said was passed along to him by four high-level Russian officials.
But Hunter Biden had never travelled to Ukraine, according to Smirnov’s indictment.
Smirnov claimed to have contacts with Russian intelligence-affiliated officials, and told authorities after his arrest this year that “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story” about Hunter Biden.
“Despite repeated admonishments that he must provide truthful information to the FBI and that he must not fabricate evidence, the defendant provided false derogatory information” about the Bidens, prosecutors said in the indictment filed in federal court
Hunter Biden was supposed to be sentenced this month after being convicted at a trial in a gun case and pleading guilty to federal charges in a separate tax case. But he was pardoned this month by his father, who said he believed “raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”