LOS ANGELES — A former FBI informant pleaded guilty Monday to lying about a bogus bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden and his son Hunter that became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry in Congress.
Alexander Smirnov entered his plea to a misdemeanor charge in connection with the fake story, along with a tax evasion charge stemming from a separate indictment accusing him of hiding millions of dollars in income.
An attorney for Smirnov, 44, declined to comment after the hearing in Los Angeles federal court.
Prosecutors and the defense have agreed to impose a prison sentence of between four and six years when he is sentenced next month.
Smirnov is getting credit for time served since his arrest in February on charges that he told his FBI handler that executives from Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid President Biden and Hunter Biden $5 million each around 2015.
Smirnov had been an informant for more than a decade when he made the explosive allegations about the Bidens in June 2020 after “expressing prejudice” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, prosecutors said.
But according to court documents, Smirnov only had routine business dealings with Burisma starting in 2017. An FBI field office investigated the allegations and recommended the case be closed in August 2020, charging documents show.
No evidence has emerged that Joe Biden acted corruptly or took bribes as president or in his previous office as vice president.
Although Smirnov’s identity was not publicly known before the indictment, his claims played a major role in Republican efforts in Congress to investigate the president and his family, and helped spark an impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives against Biden to take. Before Smirnov’s arrest, Republicans had demanded that the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the unverified allegations, although they acknowledged they could not confirm whether they were true.
During a September 2023 call with investigators, Smirnov also claimed that the Russians likely 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 obtained by four high-ranking agents had been passed on to him. level Russian officials.
But Hunter Biden had never traveled to Ukraine, according to Smirnov’s indictment.
Smirnov claimed to have contacts with officials linked to Russian intelligence, telling authorities after his arrest this year that “officials linked to Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story” about Hunter Biden.
The case against Smirnov was brought by special counsel David Weiss, who also prosecuted Hunter Biden on gun and tax charges. Hunter Biden was scheduled to be sentenced this month after being convicted at a trial in the gun case and pleading guilty to federal charges in the tax case. But this month he was pardoned by his father, who said he believed “raw politics infected this process and led to a miscarriage of justice.”
