FBI Informant Indictment: A Comprehensive Overview

On Thursday night, US special prosecutor David Weiss, known for leading the prosecution against Hunter Biden, publicly announced new charges. These charges were against a former FBI informant, who has been identified as Alexander Smirnov. Officials have accused Smirnov of lying about his interactions with the family of the US president.

The charges were filed in a Los Angeles court, accusing Smirnov of making false statements and creating fictitious documentation. This indictment didn’t only target Smirnov but also criticized the Republican Party and Congressman James Comer in particular. Comer had previously spoken about Smirnov’s allegations while he, along with other Republican lawmakers, attempted to build a “corruption case” against the president and his family.

The indictment describes Smirnov as a 43-year-old former FBI informant, who allegedly provided false information to agents in 2020 about “a senior political figure and his son.”

This description is obviously referring to President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. According to a source familiar with the details, these were the two individuals Smirnov lied about. In 2017, Smirnov reportedly told an FBI agent that he had a phone conversation with the owner of the company, Burisma. During this conversation, it was discussed that “the son of a public official was a member of the company’s board of directors.” This statement was not a revelation as it was already public knowledge that Hunter Biden served on the company’s board of directors.

Moreover, the indictment alleges that in 2020, Smirnov brought new allegations to the FBI. These allegations included conversations from 2015 and 2016, in which he claimed that Burisma executives hired Hunter to protect the company through his father “from all kinds of problems.” The indictment states that these claims made by Smirnov were false. It was also stated that some of the claims made by the Republicans against the president and his son were based on lies.

In the previous year, it was reported that a document containing allegations against the informant had been reviewed by the FBI under the supervision of then-Attorney General William Barr. This review was carried out despite warnings from officials in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They cautioned that disclosing the information more widely could potentially endanger the safety of the “confidential source”.