Trial of ex-FBI informant indicted for lying about Bidens delayed amid new tax evasion charges

A California man who prosecutors alleged lied to federal agents and pushed fake criminal allegations against President Biden and his son Hunter now faces new charges of tax evasion from special counsel David Weiss, according to court records. 

Alexander Smirnov was an FBI informant for about a decade, providing information to federal investigators in what his defense attorneys claimed in court filings demonstrated an “undivided, years-long loyalty to the United States.” 

But Weiss — the Trump-appointed Delaware U.S. attorney who was kept on during the Biden administration and later elevated to the role of special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland to continue the Hunter Biden probes — alleged in a February 2024 indictment that Smirnov illegally made false claims to FBI handlers about Hunter and Mr. Biden that dated back to 2020.  

Smirnov was accused of lying to investigators when he told them the two Bidens had each accepted $5 million from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The claims “were false, as the Defendant knew,” according to the charging documents filed against him. 

Smirnov, who court records say was born in Ukraine, pleaded not guilty to the charges and in court filings, his defense team has accused prosecutors of charging their client “as a result of the rejection of Hunter Biden’s plea resolutions.” He remains in pretrial detention pending trial. 

On Nov. 21, just weeks before he was set to go to trial on Dec. 3, federal prosecutors in Weiss’ office filed a little-noticed indictment in a separate case against Smirnov, alleging he had illegally concealed from the IRS millions of dollars in income between 2020 and 2022. 

Court records alleged Smirnov spent unreported income on a Las Vegas apartment, a Bentley and payments on credit card debt. Prosecutors did not name the alleged source of the funds, but the dates and amounts of his payments to him from a single company identified in their filing as “Company 1” coincide with payments they alleged Smirnov received from the Economic Transformation Technologies Corporation, which was named in court records filed in Smirnov’s other case. The new charges do not indicate any wrongdoing by Economic Transformation Technologies Corporation. Other income came from an unnamed individual, the new indictment said. 

“In order to conceal the millions of dollars he received in income in 2020, 2021 and 2022, the Defendant created and filed false Forms 1040, U.S. Individual Income Tax Returns, for himself and in Domestic Partner’s name that included false and fictitious income and expenses,” the 27-page indictment filed last week said. 

According to newly published court records, the judge overseeing Weiss’ first case against Smirnov — District Court Judge Otis Wright — held a status conference on Tuesday and delayed his upcoming trial on the false statements charges until January. 

Responding to the new tax charges, David Chesnoff, Smirnov’s attorney, told CBS News, “Mr. Smirnov intends to vigorously defend this case as he is vigorously defending the first case.”

A spokesperson for Weiss declined to comment when contacted by CBS News.

Prosecutors alleged earlier this year that Smirnov’s false claims against the Bidens were memorialized in an FBI document known as an FD 1023. Congressional Republicans previously pointed to that document’s allegations of bribery as evidence of misdeeds and fought with the FBI to publicly release the document, which investigators now say contained fake allegations.   

Smirnov’s attorneys have argued in court records that the case “smacks of political bias.” But prosecutors pushed back, writing this month that Smirnov, “has never provided any discovery to the government or evidence to this Court supporting his baseless claims—indeed, there is no such evidence because the claims are meritless.”

In court records filed earlier this year, the special counsel said Smirnov told the FBI about contacts with foreign intelligence officials, “including Russian intelligence agencies, and has had such contacts recently.” Defense attorneys in court filings of their own called allegations of Russian ties baseless. 

Apart from the specific charges at issue, law enforcement experts told CBS News earlier this year that the mounting questions about Smirnov’s truthfulness should trigger an audit of every case in which he was involved. A CBS News investigation published earlier this year revealed that serious doubts about Smirnov’s credibility were raised almost a decade ago.

The FBI declined to comment on the results of the CBS News investigation earlier this year. 

Weiss secured a conviction against Hunter Biden in Delaware on illegal gun charges and a guilty plea from the president’s son in a second case in California in which Hunter Biden admitted to tax fraud. He is set to be sentenced in both cases later this month. 

The trial conviction and guilty plea were the results of a protracted legal battle between Weiss’s office and Hunter Biden’s legal team after an initial plea and diversion agreement fell apart and ultimately were rejected by a federal judge in 2023. 

The special counsel has faced criticism from members of Congress and whistleblowers over his handling of the Hunter Biden probe. 

contributed to this report.