The jury trial for former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov has been set for next month, NBC News reported. The 43-year-old is accused of providing false testimony about President Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden's shady dealings in Ukraine.
In the runup to the 2020 presidential election, Smirnov had told the FBI that her received information that Joe and Hunter Biden received kickbacks from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The paid informant claimed that they each received $5 million from the company.
Notably, Smirnov said that the company official who told him about the money also said it would take a decade for the "illicit payments" to be found out. Smirnov repeated these claims in September 2023 to House GOP investigators.
Federal prosecutors have accused Smirnov of providing "false derogatory information to the FBI." He has been charged with making false statements and creating a false and fictitious record.
Smirnov pleaded not guilty to the charges in February. He will now argue his case in front of U.S. District Judge Otis Wright's Los Angeles court on April 23.
In addition to the charges about fabricating the information, Smirnov will also be penalized for repeating the information to investigators last year. At his hearing Monday, the judge ruled that Smirnov will remain in custody while he awaits trial.
He had previously been arrested and released with a court-ordered tracking device. However, Smirnov was deemed a flight risk and was rearrested last week in Los Angeles.
Legal documents filed contend that Smirnov's information came from "officials associated with Russian intelligence." The filing also accused Smirnov of "actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November."
Prior to these recent accusations, Smirnov served as an informant for the FBI for 14 years, CBS News reported. The allegedly false information he shared about the Bidens was not made public until the agency reluctantly released it to Congress.
House Republicans on the Judiciary and Oversight committees had relied on the information from Smirnov to finalize their impeachment probe against Joe Biden. Now they're requesting answers from FBI Director Chris Wray about how this could happen.
The GOP representatives who headed the probe, led by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer ,said this case causes "even greater concerns about abuse and mismanagement in the FBI's [confidential human source] program," in a letter Friday. They contend that Smirnov was presented to them as a "highly credible" source.
The congressmen also noted that Smirnov's information from 2020 "implicating President Biden and his family" wasn't scrutinized until it was publicly used against the president. "During the intervening period, the FBI represented to Congress that the CHS was 'highly credible' and that the release of his information would endanger Americans," they contend.
It is very strange that Smirnov was considered a "credible human source" for more than a decade. He somehow remained so until the precise time that his information containing dirt on the Bidens was shared with the public.
By definition, the intelligence community is shrouded in impenetrable secrecy. The American people may never know the full truth or extent of what Smirnov actually knew and what was fabricated, if anything.
