WASHINGTON – Prosecutors are seeking a six-year prison sentence for Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant, who fabricated a story about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter accepting bribes. This false narrative played a key role in the Republican-led impeachment effort against Biden.
Smirnov, a dual U.S. and Israeli citizen, recently pleaded guilty to tax evasion and providing false information to the FBI regarding the fabricated bribery scheme. Prosecutors argue that Smirnov’s intention was to sway the outcome of the 2020 presidential election using these deceptive tactics.
Among his misleading claims, Smirnov falsely asserted to his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had made payments of $5 million each to then-Vice President Biden and his son in 2015. This misinformation added fuel to the political fire and stirred controversy during a critical time.
Smirnov’s explosive claim in 2020 came after he expressed “bias” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, according to prosecutors. In reality, investigators found Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Burisma starting in 2017 — after Biden’s term as vice president.
Prosecutors noted that Smirnov’s false claim “set off a firestorm in Congress” when it resurfaced years later as part of the House impeachment inquiry into President Biden, a Democrat who defeated Republican then-President Donald Trump in 2020. The Biden administration dismissed the House impeachment effort as a “stunt.”
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.
“In committing his crimes he betrayed the United States, a country that showed him nothing but generosity, including conferring on him the greatest honor it can bestow, citizenship,” Justice Department special counsel David Weiss’ team wrote in court papers. “He repaid the trust the United States placed in him to be a law-abiding naturalized citizen and, more specifically, that one of its premier law enforcement agencies placed in him to tell the truth as a confidential human source, by attempting to interfere in a Presidential election.”
Smirnov was arrested last February in the case accusing him of lying to the FBI, and prosecutors in November brought new tax charges alleging he concealed millions of dollars of income he earned between 2020 and 2022.
Smirnov’s lawyers are seeking no more than four years behind bars, noting the “substantial assistance” he provided to the U.S. government as an FBI informant for more than a decade. Smirnov’s lawyers noted in court papers that he suffers from serious health issues related to his eyes and argue that a lengthy sentence would “unnecessarily prolong his suffering.”
“Mr. Smirnov has learned a very grave lesson and proffers to this Honorable Court that he will not find himself on this side of the law again,” attorneys Richard Schonfeld and David Chesnoff told the judge in court papers.
Smirnov was prosecuted by Weiss, who also brought gun and tax charges against Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was supposed to be sentenced in December after being convicted at a trial in the gun case and pleading guilty to tax charges. But he was pardoned by his father, who said he believed “raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”
In seeking a lighter sentence, Smirnov’s lawyers wrote in court papers that both Hunter Biden and President-elect Trump — who was charged in two federal cases by a different special counsel — “have walked free and clear of any meaningful punishment.”
Special counsel Jack Smith abandoned the two federal cases against Trump — accusing him of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida — after Trump’s presidential victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
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