LAS VEGAS — An informant for the FBI who was charged with providing the bureau with false information about President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden’s involvement with a Ukrainian energy company was taken into custody Thursday, his defense attorneys say.
Alexander Smirnov, 43, had been released Tuesday on multiple conditions including wearing a GPS monitoring device and then giving up his two passports, CNN reported. Smirnov was indicted on two counts of allegedly feeding false information as part of a 37-page indictment.
The indictment claims that Smirnov had been working as an informant for the FBI since 2010. According to NBC News, he “provided false derogatory information to the FBI” about both the president and his son after Joe Biden became president in 2020. Prosecutors claimed that Smirnov falsely told the FBI that the company’s associate had paid the Bidens $5 million each in 2015 and 2016, according to The Associated Press. He also allegedly said that the company had hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”
However, his attorneys said that he was arrested for the second time by federal authorities, NBC News reported.
“Mr. Smirnov was rearrested on an arrest warrant issued from the same court where he was planning on voluntarily appearing when required,” they said in a statement obtained by NBC News.
His arrest was reportedly on a new warrant for the same charges as before, according to CNN.
“Despite Judge Albregts’s prior ruling, denial of the stay request, and Mr. Smirnov’s prior release from custody, on the morning of February 22, 2024, Mr. Smirnov was arrested for a second time – on the same charges and based on the same indictment set forth … while at the undersigned counsel’s law office for meetings with counsel,” his lawyers wrote in a court filing obtained by CNN.
A spokesman for Justice Department special counsel David Weiss confirmed to the AP that Smirnov was arrested again but provided no further information.
Gary Schofield, the chief marshal in Las Vegas, said Smirnov is with the U.S. Marshals Office in Nevada.
Las Vegas is where Smirnov lives and where he was arrested the first time after he returned from a trip outside of the country, the AP reported.
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