FBI informant charged with giving false information about Hunter Biden in 2020

Special Counsel David Weiss has charged an FBI informant with giving false information after he alleged that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden were paid millions in exchange for their help firing the Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings, according to court documents unsealed Thursday.

Alexander Smirnov, 43, is charged with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record during FBI interviews.

Prosecutors say Smirnov was arrested at the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada Wednesday after a federal grand jury returned an indictment. He was scheduled to appear in federal court in the District of Nevada later Thursday.

According to the indictment, Smirnov gave "false derogatory information" to the FBI despite "repeated admonishments that he must provide truthful information and that he must not fabricate evidence."

The indictment says Smirnov told an FBI agent in March 2017 that he had a phone call with Burisma’s owner concerning the firm potentially acquiring a U.S. company and making an initial public offering (IPO) on a U.S.-based stock exchange.

In reporting this conversation to the FBI agent, Smirnov said Hunter Biden was a board member of Burisma, though this was publicly known.

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In June 2020, Smirnov is accused of having told the FBI, for the first time, about two meetings he had four to five years prior, in which executives associated with Burisma supposedly admitted that they hired Hunter Biden to "protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems."

During this meeting, the indictment alleges that Smirnov said the executives paid $5 million to each of the Bidens