By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. special counsel leading a criminal probe into Joe Biden’s son said a former FBI informant was charged with lying about the president and Hunter Biden’s involvement in business dealings with Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.
In a statement on Thursday, Special Counsel David Weiss said a federal grand jury had indicted Alexander Smirnov, 43, on charges of making a “false statement” and “creating a false and fictitious record” in relation to an FBI probe. Smirnov faced a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison if convicted.
Burisma and Hunter Biden’s role at the company have been heavily scrutinized following unproven claims from Republican former President Donald Trump and others that Democrat Joe Biden improperly tried to help his son’s business interests in Ukraine. The White House has denied the claims.
Smirnov was arrested on Wednesday at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada, after his arrival in the U.S. from overseas, Weiss said. It was not immediately clear whether Smirnov had an attorney.
The indictment unsealed on Thursday appeared to deal a blow to the Republican accusations that the U.S. president profited from his son’s business in Ukraine.
Hunter Biden sat on the board of Burisma from 2014 to 2019, during part of which time his father was U.S. vice president under former President Barack Obama.
Smirnov had claimed he spoke to the owner to Burisma in 2017 about the energy’s company’s efforts to buy a U.S. firm.
In 2020, the indictment says Smirnov made false statements recounting two meetings from 2015 or 2016 in which executives associated with Burisma told him they had hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”
The indictment adds Smirnow also falsely claimed Burisma executives had specifically paid $5 million each to Joe Biden and Hunter Biden when the former was vice president so that his son “will take care of all those issues through his dad.”
Reference was made to a criminal investigation being conducted at the time by the then-Ukrainian prosecutor general into Burisma.
The Ukrainian energy company also played a central role in Trump’s 2019 impeachment over his alleged efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and help him win re-election. A Republican-majority Senate later acquitted Trump.
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