A former FBI informant was sentenced to six years in prison on Wednesday for fabricating a story about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter accepting bribes, which became central to Republicans’ impeachment efforts.
Alexander Smirnov pleaded guilty last month in Los Angeles federal court to tax evasion and lying to the FBI about a phony bribery scheme, which prosecutors say was intended to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Smirnov, a dual citizen of the United States and Israel, falsely claimed to his FBI handler that executives from Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid then-Vice President Biden and his son $5 million each around 2015.
Smirnov’s explosive claim in 2020 came after he expressed “bias” toward Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, according to prosecutors.
In reality, investigators discovered that Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Burisma beginning in 2017, following Biden’s term as vice president.
Prosecutors stated that Smirnov’s false claim “set off a firestorm in Congress” when it reappeared years later as part of the House impeachment investigation into President Biden, a Democrat who defeated Republican then-President Donald Trump in 2020. The Biden administration called the House impeachment effort a “stunt.”
Before Smirnov was arrested, Republicans demanded that the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the unverified allegations, despite the fact that they couldn’t confirm their veracity.
“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 will be given credit for the time he has spent in prison since his arrest last February in the case accusing him of lying to the FBI. In November, prosecutors filed new tax charges alleging that he concealed millions of dollars in income earned between 2020 and 2022.
Smirnov’s attorneys are seeking no more than four years in prison, citing the “substantial assistance” he provided to the US government as an FBI informant for more than a decade.
Smirnov’s lawyers stated in court papers that he has serious health issues with his eyes and 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.
Weiss prosecuted Smirnov, and he also filed gun and tax charges against Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was scheduled to be sentenced in December after being convicted of the gun case and pleading guilty to tax charges.
However, he was pardoned by his father, who claimed that “raw politics has infected this process and led to a miscarriage of justice.”
In seeking a lighter sentence, Smirnov’s lawyers stated in court papers that both Hunter Biden and President-elect Trump, who were charged in two federal cases by a different special counsel, “have walked free and clear of any meaningful punishment.”
After Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in November, special counsel Jack Smith dropped the two federal cases against him, which accused him of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
