A former FBI agent who was previously accused of lying about President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, has been indicted on tax evasion charges.
The former agent, Alexander Smirnov, is alleged to have evaded paying income taxes of more than $2 million that he received from multiple sources between 2020 and 2022, according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday in a California federal court. He is said to have purchased “a $1.4 million Las Vegas condominium, a Bentley, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of clothes, jewelry, and accessories for himself and Domestic Partner purchased at high-end retailers in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.”
The indictment alleges that when Smirnov looked to the assistance of a professional tax return preparer who refused to sign his returns, he told them they “should not inquire about how he earned his income.”
Prosecutors also said on a credit card application in June 2022 he listed only $60,000 in total annual income and $250,000 in gross business income, but he was receiving more than $2 million from revenue streams.
Smirnov’s attorneys, David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, said in a statement Smirnov “intends to vigorously fight these allegations with the same intensity as he has fought the original indictment.”
These charges against Smirnov, who was previously an informant for the FBI since 2010, were brought by special counsel David Weiss, who investigated the Hunter Biden case that resulted in convictions on gun charges in June and tax charges in September.
Smirnov was set to face trial beginning next week in Los Angeles on charges he created “fabrications” about the president and his son accepting $5 million in bribes from a Ukrainian energy company.
House Republicans repeatedly tried to use his fabricated information in their yearslong effort to impeach the president. Before Smirnov’s indictment, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) said his claims were “the heart” of Republicans’ impeachment inquiry against the president.
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He pleaded not guilty to those charges. However, that trial date has been moved to January.
Smirnov has been in detainment since his arrest in February due to the belief that he poses a risk of fleeing the country due to his vast contacts abroad, who allegedly include known senior intelligence agents in Russia.