Special Counsel David Weiss, appointed by the Department of Justice (DOJ), recently charged a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant who reported that President Joe Biden received bribes from the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma.
Notably, the president’s son, Hunter Biden, served on Burisma’s board of directors, leaving the company in 2019.
The informant, Alexander Smirnov, is the confidential human source (CHS) who claimed the president was bribed by Burisma. Such allegations were cited in the FD-1023 document released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IO) in 2023.
BREAKING: Biden DOJ arrests former FBI informant who said Biden took bribes from Ukrainian energy company
Alexander Smirnov, 43, was arrested on Thursday at the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.https://t.co/YHpXEWCqll
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) February 16, 2024
CNN reported that Smirnov was arrested and detained by authorities at the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Smirnov’s indictment alleges that he lied when he reported that Burisma founder and CEO Mykola Zlochevsky forcibly provided the president and his son with a $5 million bribe each.
Smirnov claimed that such a bribe occurred during Biden’s tenure as vice president under the Obama administration. The indictment dismisses such claims.
“In truth and fact, the Defendant had contact with executives from Burisma in 2017, after the end of the Obama-Biden Administration and after the then Ukrainian Prosecutor General had been fired in February 2016, in other words, when [Joe Biden] had no ability to influence U.S. policy and when the Prosecutor General was no longer in office,” the indictment states.
“In short, the Defendant transformed his routine and unextraordinary business contacts with Burisma in 2017 and later into bribery allegations against [Joe Biden], the presumptive nominee of one of the two major political parties for President, after expressing bias against [Joe Biden] and his candidacy,” it adds.
The FD-1023 document shared by Grassley in 2023 alleged that Zlochevsky had 17 recorded conversations, of which 15 were between the president and his son. Such tapes were reportedly kept as an insurance policy.
Initially, the FBI refused to provide the form to the House Oversight Committee. When the agency finally did, it tried to hide the existence of the alleged recordings. The committee eventually threatened the bureau, forcing it to release the document.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) issued a scathing rebuke of the FBI at the time.
“FBI officials and Director Wray refused to release the [FD-1023] form publicly because they claimed it would jeopardize the safety of a confidential human source who they claimed was invaluable to the FBI,” Comer said.
