2024-02-16 02:27:20

(Los Angeles) American justice announced Thursday the indictment of a former FBI informant, prosecuted for having lied and fabricated false accusations of corruption once morest Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, allegations which were then recovered by the right to try to impeach the president.

Published yesterday at 9:27 p.m.

Romain FONSEGRIVES Agence France-Presse

Alexander Smirnov, a former federal police informant, was arrested Thursday in Las Vegas, according to a statement from the special prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden.

This 43-year-old man is suspected of having lied, accusing Joe and Hunter Biden of having each received five million dollars in bribes to allow a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, to escape prosecution.

The ex-informant “provided false, derogatory information to the FBI regarding” Joe and Hunter Biden, according to the indictment. An offense for which he faces 25 years of imprisonment.

This new twist weakens the impeachment investigation led by Republicans in Congress once morest Joe Biden, a few months before a probable new face-to-face between the Democrat and Donald Trump for the White House.

The right accuses Joe Biden, so far without conclusive proof, of having used his influence when he was Barack Obama’s vice-president (2009-2017) to allow his son Hunter to conduct questionable deals in Ukraine and in China.

Mr. Smirnov’s story had leaked into the public sphere and become a central piece in fueling these suspicions. But this is a completely fabricated story, according to the indictment.

Timeline problem

According to the investigation, the pipe does not fit because of a chronological problem.

In 2020, the informant assured an FBI agent that he had a meeting with Burisma officials “in 2015 and/or 2016, during the Obama/Biden administration.”

The members of this Ukrainian gas company then confided that they had hired Hunter Biden on their board of directors to “protect themselves, through his father, from all kinds of problems”, according to the informant. A service for which “they had specifically paid $5 million” each to Joe Biden and his son.

This scenario seemed to resonate with the 2016 dismissal of a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma. A decision behind which the Republicans see the hand of Mr. Biden.

But the investigation revealed that Mr. Smirnov had only been in contact with Burisma in 2017, once Donald Trump came to power. At that time, Joe Biden “had no way of influencing American politics”, underlines the indictment.

The informant “transformed his routine and ordinary business contacts with Burisma in 2017 […] in corruption charges” once morest Joe Biden, the document continues. And he waited until 2020 to do it, “following taking sides once morest […] his candidacy” for the White House.

A businessman now converted to painting, Hunter Biden is a favorite target of Republicans in the United States, who fueled suspicions regarding his business affairs in Ukraine and China during the Obama era.

But the ongoing judicial investigation into the president’s son has so far failed to substantiate these accusations.

It especially highlighted his problems with drug and alcohol addiction – which he claims to have overcome – and led to two indictments once morest him: one for tax evasion, and the other for illegal possession of a weapon. fire.

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