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Special prosecutor David Weiss has accused a former FBI informant of lying about the involvement of President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in business dealings with Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, CNN reports.
Alexander Smirnov, 43, is facing charges that he lied to the FBI by creating false information. He was arrested Thursday at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas after arriving in the US from abroad and will make his initial appearance in federal court Thursday afternoon.
The charge against Smirnov strikes at a key aspect of Republican claims that Joe Biden was benefiting financially from his son's business dealings in Ukraine.
According to court records, Smirnov told an FBI agent that he had spoken with the owner of Burisma about the company's efforts to acquire a company in the United States.
As part of his report to the FBI, Smirnov also noted that someone referred to as "Businessperson 1" was on Burisma's board and was also the son of an individual referred to as "Public Official 1," the indictment alleges. Although the indictment does not identify these individuals, the sources identified “Public Official 1” as Joe Biden and “Business Person 1” as Hunter Biden.
During Joe Biden's presidential campaign, Smirnov allegedly filed reports with the FBI about two meetings with Burisma executives from 2015 and 2016, during which the executives admitted to hiring Hunter Biden to "protect them, through his father, from all kinds of problems. Smirnov also allegedly reported that executives paid $5 million each to Joe and Hunter Biden while Joe Biden was vice president so that Hunter would "take care of all those matters through his father," referring to a criminal investigation that was being carried out by the then Ukrainian general prosecutor in Burisma.
"In truth and in fact, the defendant had contact with Burisma executives in 2017, after the end of the Obama-Biden administration's presidency and after the then Ukrainian Attorney General was fired in February 2016, in other words, when ( Joe Biden) had no ability to influence US policy and when the Attorney General was no longer in office," the indictment states.
"In short, the defendant transformed his routine and extraordinary business contacts with Burisma in 2017 and later into bribery charges against (Joe Biden), the presumptive candidate of one of the two major political parties for President, after expressed bias against (Joe Biden) and his candidacy," the accusation states.
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