According to the indictment, Smirnov began serving as an FBI informant in 2010. He “offered false disparaging information to the FBI” against Joe and Hunter Biden after Joe Biden’s election as president in 2020, according to NBC News.
Smirnov allegedly informed the FBI that he communicated with the owner of the Ukrainian energy business Burisma, according to court documents that CNN was able to access. The topic of discussion was its intention to purchase a US-based business.
According to The Associated Press, prosecutors said that Smirnov misled the FBI about the company’s affiliate paying Bidens $5 million per in 2015 and 2016. It is further said that he stated that Hunter Biden was employed by the corporation to “protect us, via his dad, from all sorts of problems.”
According to CNN, the indictment claims that “in truth and fact, the Defendant had contact with executives from Burisma in 2017,” following the end of the Obama-Biden Administration and the dismissal of the then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General in February 2016. This means that at that time, Joe Biden was unable to influence U.S. policy and the Prosecutor General was no longer in office.
“To put it briefly, the Defendant’s regular and ordinary business dealings with Burisma in 2017 evolved into accusations of bribery against [Joe Biden], the presumed nominee of one of the two major political parties for president, after [Joe Biden] expressed prejudice against [Joe Biden and his candidacy,” CNN reports.
According to the AP, special counsel David Wiess filed the accusations against Smirnov with the Justice Department. In a another case involving tax and gun infractions, Wiess has accused Hunter Biden.