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| EFE |
The report from the special prosecutor handling the case, David Weiss, stated on Tuesday that Alex Smirnov, as he himself emphasized, has ties to foreign intelligence services, including the Russians.
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The informant told authorities about having meetings with these contacts, including one in November 2023, where a source provided him with information about Russian military operations in a third country, unspecified.
Smirnov was arrested on February 14 in Nevada upon his return from an international flight. He planned to embark on a several-month trip to different countries two days later, during which, as he described it, he would meet with representatives of various intelligence agencies and governments.
During his interrogation on February 14, he confessed that individuals associated with Russian intelligence contributed to spreading the story about the Bidens.
Smirnov had told FBI agents that U.S. President Joe Biden and his son Hunter received $5 million each from the Burisma company between 2015 and 2016, which was untrue, as detailed in the indictment filed in a California court last week.
Hunter Biden was part of the board of Burisma Holdings from 2014 to 2019.
He falsely claimed to the FBI that Burisma employees told him they hired Hunter Biden because he would "protect them, through his father, from all kinds of problems."
Republicans argue, based on testimonies like his, that Biden's family, especially his son Hunter, received over $15 million from companies and foreign governments in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Romania, and China between 2014 and 2019. Their associates allegedly received another $9 million.
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Smirnov, who worked as an FBI informant since 2010, faces two criminal charges, one for making false statements to a government agent and another for falsifying documents in a federal investigation.
One of the Russian contacts Smirnov talked about was described by him as the son of a former high-ranking Russian government official, but also as someone who supposedly controls two groups of people responsible for plotting assassinations in a third country, as a Russian representative abroad, and as someone with connections to Russian intelligence.
Weiss warned the scheduled audience on Tuesday about his access to $6 million in funds that would allow him to live comfortably abroad for the rest of his life. Even if he surrendered his U.S. and Israeli passports, nothing would prevent him from obtaining a new Israeli passport, and his contacts in foreign intelligence agencies could also assist him.
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