Some of the disturbing scandals of the Hunter Biden saga is the imprisonment with out trial of former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov.
The Ukrainian-born Israeli-American, who as soon as informed his FBI handler about Ukrainian claims of a $10 million bribe to the Bidens, has been languishing in a Los Angeles jail for 9 months on prices that he lied to the FBI.
Final week, federal prosecutors slapped new tax-evasion prices on Smirnov, 43, which suggests they know their authentic indictment is simply too weak for a jury to convict him when he faces trial starting Jan. 8.
Smirnov was one of many FBI’s most trusted confidential human sources, paid greater than $100,000 throughout what his legal professionals name “undivided, years-long loyalty to the USA” earlier than he was thrown to the wolves in the course of the Biden impeachment inquiry.
Busted in February
He was arrested in February on prices that he “supplied false derogatory data to the FBI in 2020 about Joseph Biden, who on the time was a candidate for president and had beforehand been the vice chairman.
“The alleged false data involved Joseph Biden’s and his son Hunter Biden’s involvement with Burisma Holdings Ltd., a Ukrainian power enterprise.”
When the FBI searched Smirnov’s Las Vegas condominium, they discovered “a hat emblazoned with an anti- [Biden] euphemism” — presumably “Let’s Go Brandon” — which the indictment says demonstrates “bias” towards Joe Biden and “bears on the defendant’s motive in offering the FBI with false derogatory details about” Joe.
Joe managed to evade impeachment over his household’s influence-peddling schemes — partly due to the Smirnov indictment — and is anticipated both to pardon his son or commute Hunter’s twin sentences subsequent month in felony gun and tax-fraud circumstances.
But it’s Smirnov who’s below indictment, when he merely relayed to his FBI handler a dialog he claimed to have had about Hunter with Mykola Zlochevsky, the proprietor of Burisma.
The corrupt power firm on the time was paying the then-vice president’s crackhead son $1 million a 12 months.
There isn’t any direct proof that Joe and Hunter had been paid $10 million by the Burisma proprietor to order the elimination in 2016 of Viktor Shokin, the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma, as Smirnov claimed he was informed by Zlochevsky.
However since when does an FBI informant have to ensure that the uncooked intelligence he supplies to his handler is 100% factual, on risk of legal prosecution?
That’s a surefire method to make sure no one will ever be an FBI informant.
It’s as much as the FBI to analyze allegations supplied by confidential human sources like Smirnov. Clearly.
Handler’s errors
However the case towards Smirnov is that he didn’t inform his FBI handler the reality, the entire fact and nothing however the fact.
His legal professionals have informed the court docket that any inconsistencies in his data as recorded by the FBI weren’t lies informed by him, however errors made by his handler, whom they accuse of “shoddy work and negligent file holding.”
Smirnov’s handler memorialized his studies in an FBI type referred to as an FD-1023, which is used to file unverified reporting from informants.
When Smirnov informed his handler in 2017 that Hunter Biden was talked about throughout a dialog he had with Zlochevsky, the handler recorded it on an FD-1023 as “transient [and] nonrelevant” to the FBI’s “kleptocracy” investigation that Smirnov was helping. The “kleptocracy” probe into Zlochevsky, coincidentally or not, was closed by the FBI Washington Subject Workplace in December 2019, the identical month the FBI took possession of Hunter’s laptop computer pc containing all kinds of incriminating proof about Burisma’s relationship with the Bidens.
In January 2020, with the Democratic presidential marketing campaign in full swing, then-Pittsburgh US Legal professional Scott Brady was tasked by then-Legal professional Common Invoice Barr to vet the torrent of allegations about Biden corruption that had been pouring into the DOJ, together with from then-President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
Brady discovered the transient point out of Hunter and Burisma within the Smirnov handler’s FD-1023 from 2017.
Smirnov was reinterviewed by the FBI for a brand new FD-1023 and elaborated on his dialog with Zlochevsky, including the bombshell allegation of the $10 million bribe.
Brady judged the allegations sufficiently credible to ship the Smirnov file for additional evaluation to Delaware US Legal professional David Weiss, who was answerable for the five-year investigation into Hunter over potential tax, money-laundering and foreign-agent violations.
However Weiss hid the Smirnov file and by no means talked about the allegations to IRS brokers conducting the investigation, Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler.
When the IRS brokers blew the whistle to Congress in 2023 in regards to the DOJ’s obstruction, gradual strolling and political favoritism to Joe and Hunter, Shapley testified that the Smirnov file would have “possible been materials to the continued legal investigation of Hunter Biden . . .
“On account of the data being hid by prosecutors from the IRS [and] FBI investigators assigned to this investigation, we had been unable to observe alleged legal exercise as would usually be accomplished.”
It was solely when an FBI whistleblower gave a replica of the Smirnov FD-1023 to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in 2023 that the allegations got here to gentle.
After the IRS whistleblowers got here ahead, a sweetheart deal Weiss had stitched up with Hunter fell aside, and Legal professional Common Merrick Garland elevated Weiss to particular counsel investigating Hunter.
This meant Weiss could be investigating his personal conduct.
Seven months later, particular counsel Weiss indicted Smirnov.
In a pretrial movement, Smirnov’s legal professionals anticipate prosecution efforts to “soiled him up” as a “Russian spy,” “unpatriotic” and a “double agent.”
It’s a doubtful declare contemplating that Smirnov was paid by the FBI to spy on Russians as not too long ago as 2023.
Smirnov’s arrest in February got here at a handy time for the Bidens and efficiently blunted the assault by Home Republicans hoping to question Joe.
Hunter gleefully cited Smirnov when he testified to the impeachment committee earlier this 12 months claiming “Smirnov . . . has made you dupes in finishing up a Russian disinformation marketing campaign waged towards my father.”
Dem’s false declare
The declare was enthusiastically echoed by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who falsely claimed that Smirnov was the impeachment inquiry’s “star witness” and used him to besmirch the damning proof the inquiry had unearthed of Joe’s involvement in his household’s corrupt schemes as having “a really sturdy whiff of a Russian intelligence operation.” That outdated chestnut.
Smirnov’s Las Vegas legal professionals have subpoenaed Hunter’s former companion Devon Archer as a witness, suggesting the Bidens’ overseas influence-peddling schemes will play a job of their protection.
Attorneys David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld declare Smirnov, who suffers from the attention illness glaucoma, has been subjected to merciless punishment in jail, with authorities refusing to offer him the eyedrops he wants to save lots of his sight.
They’re getting ready to accuse the DOJ and FBI of conducting an illegal “politically motivated” prosecution of their shopper to guard the Bidens, based on their pretrial motions.
Count on the FBI and Justice Division to be as a lot on trial as Smirnov in Los Angeles District Court docket Decide Otis Wright’s courtroom in January.
