Hunter Biden’s lawyers accused special counsel David Weiss on Tuesday of using a since-discredited bribery allegation from an FBI informant to blow up his plea deal last year.
In a court filing Tuesday, attorneys for the president’s son asked a judge to force Weiss’ team to turn over additional information about the plea deal that went awry, and to provide materials about their discussions regarding a tip from by Alexander Smirnov, a 43-year-old former informant who was indicted for lying to the FBI about the Bidens’ alleged business dealings.
Smirnov is scheduled to appear in a Nevada federal court Tuesday afternoon.
Weiss’ team wrote last week in Smirnov’s indictment last week that he falsely told his FBI handler in 2020 that President Joe Biden and his son each took $5 million in bribes from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The FBI investigated Smirnov’s allegations at the time, his indictment says, and recommended the probe into his claims be closed in August of that year.
Prosecutors continued their investigation of Smirnov’s claims into 2023, the indictment says.
“The discussion about the scope of the immunity agreement appears shaped by the prosecution’s investigation of the Smirnov allegations, which it began looking into just days before the July 26, 2023 hearing,” Hunter Biden’s lawyers alleged in their filing, referring to their client’s botched plea deal.
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