A former FBI informant pleaded guilty Monday to providing false information to federal authorities about Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden months before the 2020 presidential election.
Alexander Smirnov was indicted this year in connection with funneling false information to his FBI handler about the Bidens in June 2020, falsely claiming that officials from Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that employed Hunter Biden, were the father and son each had paid $5 million during the election. The Obama administration, when Biden was vice president.
Many Republicans in the House of Representatives had touted a confidential human source document related to Smirnov’s allegations as key to their impeachment inquiry against Biden, who denied any wrongdoing.
Smirnov entered his plea in a California federal court after agreeing last week to plead guilty to causing the creation of a false and fictitious dossier in a federal investigation. He also pleaded guilty to tax evasion in charges related to a separate indictment unsealed last month, admitting to receiving more than $2 million in unreported income for the 2020-2022 tax years.
Prosecutors and Smirnov’s attorneys agreed to recommend the court impose four to six years in prison and one year of supervised release at his sentencing next month. They agreed to restitution of about $675,000, the settlement said.
The agreement also credits Smirnov for time spent in pretrial detention after being arrested in February.
According to the indictment, Smirnov sent his handler “a series of messages expressing bias” against Biden, who was then the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, in May 2020 before making the bribery allegations a month later.
Prosecutors, in an effort to detain him before the trial, argued that Smirnov was “actively spreading new lies that could influence the U.S. election after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November.”
A lawyer for Smirnov did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday evening.
Smirnov began working as a confidential human source for the FBI in 2010. The case against him was brought by special counsel David Weiss, who previously investigated Hunter Biden on gun and tax charges.
Hunter Biden was convicted of federal gun charges in June and pleaded guilty to tax charges in September. His father pardoned him this month, ahead of his scheduled sentencing in the weapons case on December 12 and the tax case on December 16.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
