Surprise! Key witness reveals he lied about Biden corruption

The former FBI informant who accused President Joe Biden and his son Hunter of taking millions of dollars in bribes from Ukrainian energy company Burisma has admitted the whole story was a hoax.

In a plea agreement, Alexander Smirnov admitted to completely fabricating the conspiracy that became central to a Republican effort to impeach the sitting president. Smirnov agreed to plead guilty to four felony charges, which include one count of obstruction of justice and three counts of tax evasion, in exchange for the closure of two pending criminal cases against him, according to legal documents.

In June 2020, Smirnov falsely reported to the FBI that Burisma executives had paid Biden and his son millions of dollars. The false allegation was part of a larger series of unsubstantiated claims accusing Biden of misusing his position as vice president (at the time) to obstruct a corruption investigation into Burisma, on which Hunter sat on the board. The fraudulent narrative also sparked an October 2020 election surprise over Hunter Biden’s laptop, which Trump allies Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon insisted contained evidence that Biden and a Burisma adviser had held a “meeting.” (The New York Post, which ran the original story on its front page, later said the contents of the laptop were mixed with fake material and that most of the data could not be verified.)

Smirnov could face anywhere from two to six years behind bars for making up the story, though Donald Trump could potentially commute his sentence or outright pardon the conservative witness when he returns to the White House.

In February, the Justice Department revealed that Smirnov admitted to prosecutors that “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved” in developing the Hunter Biden narrative.

In the subsequent fallout over the DOJ indictment, Smirnov told investigators he was in contact with “four different (top) Russian officials,” two of whom were “the heads of the entities they represent.”

Republicans had spent months building hype around Smirnov as a witness, isolating his claim that Biden pocketed millions of dollars from the Ukrainian company as the centerpiece of their investigation. But in the end, Smirnov’s false narrative—and its ability to trap and sway overzealous and power-hungry American politicians—served as just another example of how effectively the Russian government can infiltrate and undermine American elections.

“It was directed at the presumptive nominee of one of the two major political parties in the United States. The effects of Smirnov’s false statements and fabricated information continue to be felt to this day,” prosecutors wrote earlier this year.