The former FBI informant accused of making false claims that sparked the GOP impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden was indicted last week on federal charges accusing him of hiding millions of dollars of income when doing his taxes.
Alexander Smirnov is charged with three counts of evasion of assessment and three counts of false or fraudulent tax return after he allegedly received more than $2 million in income from multiple sources between 2020 and 2022, according to the indictment obtained by HuffPost.
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Prosecutors alleged in the document that he used this income to fund a lavish lifestyle for himself and a woman referred to as a domestic partner. Part of Smirnov’s purchases included a Las Vegas condominium, a Bentley, and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of clothes, jewelry and accessories bought at high-end retailers in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
Smirnov allegedly concealed the millions of dollars he received by creating and filing false income forms in his and his partner’s names, according to the indictment.
The former informant was charged earlier this year with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record after federal prosecutors accused him of lying to the FBI, according to a previous indictment.
Smirnov had claimed that an executive of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, relayed information to him about payments made to Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, around 2015.
The claims became central to Joe Biden’s impeachment inquiry in Congress in September of last year. However, according to the indictment, when Smirnov was interviewed by FBI agents that same month, he changed his story and promoted a new false narrative after he said he met with Russian officials. Smirnov has pleaded not guilty, and that case also remains pending.
In a statement shared with HuffPost, Smirnov’s attorney said he intends to “vigorously fight these allegations with the same intensity as he
has fought the original indictment.”
