American justice announced, Thursday, February 15, the indictment of a former FBI informant accused of having fabricated false accusations of corruption against Hunter Biden, the son of the American president. These allegations were then used by the right to try to impeach Joe Biden.
Alexander Smirnov, a former federal police informant, was arrested Thursday in Las Vegas, according to a press release from the special prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden. This 43-year-old man is suspected of having lied, accusing Joe and Hunter Biden of having each received five million dollars in bribes to allow a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, to escape prosecution.
The ex-informant “provided false, derogatory information to the FBI about” of Joe and Hunter Biden, according to the indictment. An offense for which he faces twenty-five years of imprisonment.
This new twist weakens the impeachment investigation led by Republicans in Congress against Joe Biden, a few months before a probable new face-to-face between the Democrat and Donald Trump in the race for the White House.
A problem of chronology
The right accuses Joe Biden, so far without conclusive proof, of having used his influence when he was Barack Obama’s vice-president (2009-2017) to allow his son Hunter to conduct questionable deals in Ukraine and in China.
Mr. Smirnov’s story had leaked into the public sphere and become a central piece of fueling these suspicions. But this is a fabricated story, according to the indictment, which highlights a chronological problem.
In 2020, the informant assured an FBI agent that he had a meeting with Burisma officials “in 2015 and/or 2016, during the Obama/Biden administration”. The members of this Ukrainian gas company then confided that they had hired Hunter Biden on their board of directors to “to protect, through his father, from all kinds of problems”, according to the informant. A service for which “they had specifically paid $5 million” each to Joe Biden and his son, Mr. Smirnov had claimed.
Hunter Biden, privileged target of the Republicans
This scenario seemed to resonate with the 2016 dismissal of a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma. A decision behind which the Republicans see the hand of Mr. Biden. But the investigation revealed that Mr. Smirnov had only been in contact with Burisma in 2017, once Donald Trump came to power. At that time, Joe Biden “had no way of influencing American policy”underlines the indictment.
The informant “transformed its routine and ordinary business contacts with Burisma in 2017 (…) in corruption charges » against Joe Biden, the document continues. And he waited until 2020 to do it, “after taking sides against (…) his candidacy “ to the White House.
A businessman now converted to painting, Hunter Biden is a favorite target of Republicans in the United States, who fueled suspicions about his business affairs in Ukraine and China during the Obama era. But the ongoing judicial investigation into the president’s son has so far failed to substantiate these accusations.
It especially highlighted his problems with addiction to drugs and alcohol – which he claims to have overcome – and led to two indictments against him: one for tax evasion, and the other for illegal detention of firearm.