WASHINGTON — A former FBI informant who fabricated a narrative about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter accepting bribes that grew to become central to Republicans’ impeachment effort was sentenced Wednesday to 6 years in jail.
Alexander Smirnov pleaded guilty last month in Los Angeles federal court to tax evasion and lying to the FBI concerning the phony bribery scheme in what prosecutors say was an effort to affect the end result of the 2020 presidential election.
Smirnov, a twin U.S. and Israeli citizen, falsely claimed to his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian power firm Burisma had paid then-Vice President Biden and his son $5 million every round 2015.
Smirnov’s explosive declare in 2020 got here after he expressed “bias” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, in response to prosecutors. In actuality, investigators discovered Smirnov had solely routine enterprise dealings with Burisma beginning in 2017 — after Biden’s time period as vice chairman.
Prosecutors famous that Smirnov’s false declare “set off a firestorm in Congress” when it resurfaced years later as a 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 launch the unredacted type documenting the unverified allegations, although they acknowledged they couldn’t verify in the event that they had been true.
“In committing his crimes he betrayed the United States, a rustic that confirmed him nothing however generosity, together with conferring on him the best honor it may well bestow, citizenship,” Justice Department particular counsel David Weiss’ crew wrote in court docket papers. “He repaid the belief the United States positioned in him to be a law-abiding naturalized citizen and, extra particularly, that one among its premier legislation enforcement companies positioned in him to inform the reality as a confidential human supply, by trying to intervene in a Presidential election.”
Smirnov will get credit score for the time he has served behind bars since his arrest final February within the case accusing him of mendacity to the FBI. Prosecutors in November brought new tax charges alleging he hid thousands and thousands of {dollars} of earnings he earned between 2020 and 2022.
Smirnov’s attorneys had sought not more than 4 years behind bars, noting the “substantial help” he supplied to the U.S. authorities as an FBI informant for greater than a decade. Smirnov’s attorneys famous in court docket papers that he suffers from critical well being points associated to his eyes and argue {that a} prolonged sentence would “unnecessarily delay his struggling.”
“Mr. Smirnov has discovered a really grave lesson and proffers to this Honorable Court that he is not going to discover himself on this facet of the legislation once more,” attorneys Richard Schonfeld and David Chesnoff informed the choose in court docket papers.
Smirnov was prosecuted by Weiss, who additionally introduced gun and tax prices towards Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was speculated 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 stated he believed “uncooked politics has contaminated this course of and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”
In looking for a lighter sentence, Smirnov’s attorneys wrote in court docket papers that each Hunter Biden and President-elect Trump — who was charged in two federal cases by a different special counsel — “have walked free and away from any significant punishment.”
Special counsel Jack Smith deserted the 2 federal circumstances towards Trump — accusing him of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida — after Trump’s presidential victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
