FBI informant charged with lying about Joe and Hunter Biden’s ties to Ukrainian energy company

WASHINGTON (AP) — An FBI informant has been charged with lying to authorities about a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company, a claim that is central to the Republican impeachment inquiry in Congress.

Alexander Smirnov falsely reported in June 2020 that executives associated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden $5 million each in 2015 or 2016, prosecutors said Thursday.

Smirnov said a Burisma executive had claimed to have hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems,” prosecutors said.

Smirnov, 43, was indicted Wednesday on charges of making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record. No attorney was immediately listed for him in court records. He was expected to make a first court appearance in Las Vegas, where he was arrested Wednesday after arriving from overseas, prosecutors said.

The informant’s claims have been central to the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family, and helped spark what is now a House impeachment inquiry into Biden.

Prosecutors say that Smirnov had contact with Burisma executives, but it was routine and actually took place took place in 2017, after President Barack Obama and Biden had left office — when Biden would have had no ability to influence U.S. policy.