Former FBI informant accused of lying about Bidens indicted on federal tax charges

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former FBI informant accused of concocting a conspiracy multimillion dollar bribery scheme including President Joe Biden’s family He was indicted in a new case on federal tax charges.

The tax indictment against Alexander Smirnov was unsealed in California federal court this week, months later. arrested on charges Concocted a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden, son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company.

The indictment brought by Department of Justice special counsel David Weiss accuses Smirnov of tax evasion and filing false tax returns, hiding millions of dollars of income he earned between 2020 and 2022.

Smirnov’s attorneys, David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, said in an email Tuesday that their client “intends to fight these allegations with the same intensity with which he fought the original indictment.”

Smirnov’s trial was recently postponed until January 8 due to the lawsuit accusing him of lying about the Biden family. Smirnov denied the allegations in this case.

Prosecutors alleged that he falsely stated to the FBI in June 2020 that executives affiliated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid Hunter Biden and Joe Biden $5 million each in 2015 or 2016. Smirnov told his manager that an executive claimed he had hired Hunter Biden for the role. “Protect us from any trouble through his father,” according to court documents.

Prosecutors say Smirnov actually had only routine business dealings with the company in 2017 and made the bribery allegations after he “expressed bias” against Joe Biden while he was a presidential candidate.

Hunter Biden is scheduled to be sentenced next month in two separate criminal cases incriminating him. tax avoidance scheme of at least $1.4 million And He was on federal form when he bought a gun in 2018.

First Publication Date: November 26, 2024 15:26 MST