Special Counsel David Weiss has charged an FBI informant with giving false information about the Bidens, according to recently unsealed court documents.
Alexander Smirnov is charged with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record during FBI interviews.
Fox News reports:
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, however this was publicly known.
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 while Joe Biden was still in office. The indictment alleges that Smirnov falsely claimed the Bidens were paid so that Hunter Biden, with his dad's help, could take care of a criminal investigation being conducted by the then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General, Viktor Shokin, into Burisma.
The indictment alleges that Smirnov transformed his “routine and unextraordinary” business contacts with Burisma in 2017 and later bribery allegations against Joe Biden after expressing bias against him and his presidential candidacy.
If convicted, Smirnov faces a maximum of 25 years in prison.
Following the indictment, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) called on House Republicans to quash their impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
“In a detailed indictment, Special Counsel David Weiss — who was appointed by former President Donald Trump — has demonstrated how key evidence at the heart of House Republicans' impeachment inquiry is based on a lie,” Raskin said. “Special Counsel Weiss's investigation is just the most recent to debunk the Ukraine-Burisma conspiracy theory at the heart of this fraudulent impeachment inquiry.”
“It is an undeniable fact that Republicans' allegations against President Biden have always been a tissue of lies built on conspiracy theories, and I formally call on Speaker Johnson, Chairman Comer, and House Republicans to stop promoting this nonsense and end their doomed impeachment inquiry,” he added.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) shot back at Raskin, calling him “a broken record having called for an end to our investigation since the day it started.”
“He isn't credible,” Comer said. “The American people demand the truth and accountability for any wrongdoing. We will continue to follow the facts to propose legislation to reform federal ethics laws and to determine whether articles of impeachment are warranted.”
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