LOS ANGELES (CN) — The FBI informant indicted on charges of giving the bureau false information about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter which was subsequently used by Republican lawmakers and pundits to try to discredit the administration lost his bid to stay out of jail.
U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II, at a hearing Monday morning in downtown Los Angeles, remanded Alexander Smirnov to jail to await his trial.
"There's nothing garden variety about his case," Wright said in rejecting the arguments of Smirnov's attorney that he wasn't a flight risk.
Smirnov, 43, was arrested this month in Las Vegas, where he lives, after he returned from an overseas trip. A U.S. magistrate judge in Nevada allowed him out of jail on his own recognizance, prompting federal prosecutors working for special counsel David Weiss to ask the judge in LA, where the grand jury indictment was brought, to step in. Wright then issued an arrest warrant to bring Smirnov before him.
At Monday's hearing, Smirnov's attorney David Chesnoff told Wright his client would face a longer prison term for jumping bail than any sentence he might receive if convicted on the charges that he provided false information to his FBI handler.
In addition, Chesnoff argued, Smirnov is accused of nonviolent crimes and doesn't have a criminal history, which normally would entitle a defendant to remain out of jail until convicted.
"He's not different," Chesnoff said. "He's the same as any other defendant that comes before you."
Smirnov told the judge he was pleading not guilty to both counts he's been charged with.
The Justice Department maintains that Smirnov is a flight risk because of extensive and recent contacts with foreign intelligence services and especially with Russian officials. He also failed, prosecutors said, to disclose when he was interviewed by pretrial services in Las Vegas that he had access to about $6 million in liquid funds.
Smirnov is accused of telling his FBI handler in 2020, after Joe Biden had become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, that an Ukrainian energy conglomerate paid both Joe and Hunter Biden a $5 million bribe when Joe Biden was vice president under Barack Obama in exchange for their help resolving a domestic investigation of the company. That turned out to be made-up story to influence the presidential election.
Moreover, in 2023 Smirnov again tried to get the FBI to look in purported visits of Hunter Biden to a Kyiv hotel that was spying hub for Russian intelligence. This too was a lie, according to the prosecution, because Hunter Biden has never visited Kyiv even though he served on the board of directors of the Ukrainian conglomerate.
"In September he was peddling new lies," Assistant U.S. Attorney Leo Wise told the judge Monday. "New disinformation that he has admitted came from Russian intelligence sources."
The judge agreed with the government that there were no conditions that would satisfy his concern that Smirnov wouldn't flee if allowed to remain out of jail.
"I'm concerned about what appears to be a habit of making false statements," Wright said.
Hunter Biden's legal woes have been fodder for Republicans trying to get Donald Trump reelected this year.
Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware, was appointed last year to lead the Justice Department's case against the president's son after a plea deal fell apart. Hunter Biden has since been indicted on U.S. gun law violations in Delaware and on tax evasion charges in California, where he lives.
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