WASHINGTON — A former informant for the FBI, Alexander Smirnov, has reached a deal to plead guilty to federal offenses, as indicated by documents submitted in court on Thursday.
As part of this agreement with special counsel David Weiss from the Justice Department, Smirnov will concede that he invented allegations regarding bribery involving President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. These claims had become a focal point in the Republican-led impeachment proceedings in Congress.
This plea deal arrives shortly after prosecutors charged Smirnov with tax evasion. Under the terms of the agreement, both parties will advocate for a prison sentence ranging from two to six years.
Smirnov’s legal representatives, David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, have stated their intention to argue for a favorable sentence during court proceedings but have refrained from providing additional comments at this time.
In February, Smirnov was taken into custody for allegedly misinforming the FBI in June 2020 about payments connected to the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma. He claimed that executives of the company bribed both Hunter and Joe Biden by paying them $5 million each during 2015 or 2016. According to court documents, he relayed to his FBI handler that an executive of Burisma had hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”
Prosecutors asserted that while Smirnov did have interactions with Burisma executives, those meetings were standard and took place in 2017, a time when both President Barack Obama and Biden had exited their official roles, thus limiting Biden’s capacity to influence U.S. policy matters. Furthermore, they indicated that Smirnov made his bribery allegations after revealing bias against Biden when he was running for president.
In September 2023, during an interview with FBI agents, Smirnov reiterated some of his fabricated claims, altered others, and introduced a different false narrative following purported meetings with Russian officials, prosecutors noted.
According to court documentation, Smirnov has consented to plead guilty to charges involving tax evasion and the creation of a false record with the FBI.
He is facing prosecution from the same special counsel who previously filed federal gun and tax charges against Hunter Biden. Hunter was due for sentencing this month on his convictions related to those cases; however, he received a pardon from his father beforehand.