A former FBI informant who fabricated statements to the bureau that in part spurred a GOP congressional investigation into the Biden family has been indicted on tax fraud charges.
Alexander Smirnov, as a confidential informant, had relayed to the FBI that the head of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma told him he had paid both President Biden and his son Hunter Biden $5 million.
The claims were false but nonetheless became central to a GOP probe of the Bidens and increased scrutiny of special counsel David Weiss, who later filed tax charges against Hunter Biden.
With the new indictment, Weiss has now brought tax charges against Smirnov, including two counts of tax evasion and eight counts relating to making false statements in a return.
He is accused of concealing millions in income earned between 2020 and 2022.
“Mr. Smirnov intends to vigorously fight these allegations with the same intensity as he has fought the original indictment,” Smirnov’s attorneys, David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, said in a statement.
Smirnov was first indicted in February, with the Department of Justice writing that he made up the allegations due to his opposition to President Biden’s candidacy.
“As alleged in the indictment, the events that Smirnov first reported to the FBI Agent in June 2020 were fabrications,” the Justice Department wrote in a press release announcing the grand jury indictment.
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