According to attorneys for Alexander Smirnov, he was arrested for the second time on Thursday. The ex-FBI informant was re-arrested after a judge in Las Vegas ordered his release from pretrial 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,” his attorney David Chesnoff wrote.
Court documents state that the Central District of California issued the warrant.
We need to get more transparency from the Department of Justice than they’ve been willing to give us to date. I think the Biden impeachment inquiry will have to rely on deciphering which arm of the DOJ was accurately assessing the travel records of Alexander Smirnov.
When… pic.twitter.com/Mexi4TjjRi
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) February 23, 2024
Prosecutors in the case had argued that Smirnov had “extensive” ties to Russian intelligence and was a flight risk.
“It should further be noted that the fact that the Defendant was attending a legal consultation meeting at his attorneys’ office contradicts the notion that he is a risk of flight,” Chesnoff wrote.
Smirnov, an American and Israeli dual citizen, was first arrested on Feb. 14 and was indicted by special counsel David Weiss for making a false statement and creating a false record for information he gave to the FBI in an FBI FD-1023 document about President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
According to Smirnov, executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma disclosed that Hunter Biden became part of the board “to protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.” He also claimed that they paid $5 million to both Hunter and Joe Biden to “take care of all those issues through his dad.”
All of this supposedly occurred from 2015 to 2016, when Joe Biden was vice president.
Smirnov’s attorneys have asked U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II to have a hearing date immediately due to their client’s recent arrest.
With Smirnov’s arrest, many on the left have claimed that Republicans have lost their star witness and their chances of impeaching the president. Rep. James Comer (R-TN), the House Oversight Committee chairman, stated that the inquiry is not based on Smirnov’s allegations.
“To be clear, the impeachment inquiry is not reliant on the FBI’s FD-1023. It is based on a large record of evidence, including bank records and witness testimony, revealing that Joe Biden knew of and participated in his family’s business dealings,” he said last week.
