Ex-FBI informant accused of peddling false Biden bribery allegation denied bail
A former paid FBI informant charged with making false claims to the FBI that President Biden and his son were paid thousands of dollars by a Ukrainian businessman was denied bail by a California judge Monday.
Los Angeles US District Judge Otis Wright II, in reversing an earlier release order issued by another judge last week, concluded that Alexander Smirnov, 43, may “flee the jurisdiction.”
Prosecutors from special counsel David Weiss’ team had argued that Smirnov was a flight risk due in part to his access to a bank account that has $3.7 million and is listed under his girlfriend’s name.
Smirnov’s attorney, David Chesnoff, had argued his client should remain free pending trial, noting there was no evidence that Smirnov had tried to run or transfer money.
Smirnov, a dual US-Israeli citizen, was apprehended in Las Vegas on Feb. 14 after a grand jury indicted him on two felony counts of making a false statement to the FBI as well as creating a false and fictitious record.
On Feb. 20, Las Vegas US Magistrate Judge Daniel Albregts ruled that Smirnov could be released with GPS monitoring.
But Wright ordered that Smirnov be brought back into custody after prosecutors asked the court to reconsider possible detention. The former informant was busted two days’ later at his attorney’s office.
The indictment against Smirnov pertains to his allegations about Joe and Hunter Biden receiving $5 million each from Burisma Holdings owner Mykola Zlochevsky in exchange for helping to remove Ukrainian former Prosecutor-General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma.
Those accusations were detailed on a June 2020 FD-1023 form that Republicans fought the FBI to obtain last year.
Ultimately, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released portions of that file to the public last summer.
There is no record or evidence of either of the Bidens receiving any transfers of that amount from Zlochevsky.
Prosecutors claimed in the indictment against Smirnov that he sent his handler “a series of messages expressing bias” against Joe Biden.
Smirnov also allegedly peddled a provably false story — believed to have come from Russian intelligence — that the Premier Palace hotel in Kyiv had recordings of damaging statements from Hunter, 54.
Prosecutors claimed they easily debunked the story because Hunter “has never traveled to Ukraine.”
President Biden seized on the indictment of Smirnov and called on House Republicans to can the impeachment inquiry into him over alleged foreign influence-peddling.
House Republicans opened that probe in September, with House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) leading the investigation.
Comer has since downplayed the importance of the FD-1023 to his sprawling investigation of the president and defended his decision to examine the document, telling Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” that “we are not going to leave any stone unturned.”
Republicans have pointed out that the FBI trusted Smirnov as an informant for roughly a decade, initially giving credibility to his information