By Ken Ritter and Rio Yamat | Associated Press
LAS VEGAS — A former FBI informant accused of lying about multimillion-dollar bribery allegations against President Joe Biden and his son Hunter and purportedly having links to Russian intelligence was again taken into custody Thursday, two days after a judge said he could be freed ahead of trial, his attorneys said in court documents.
The arrest during a meeting Thursday morning with his lawyers came after prosecutors appealed a ruling allowing 43-year-old Alexander Smirnov, who holds dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship, to be released with a GPS monitor ahead of trial on charges alleging he lied to the FBI.
He was taken into custody on a warrant for the same charges issued in California, where the case was originally filed, his lawyers said. Several sealed entries were listed in the court docket, but no additional details about his return to custody were immediately available.
A spokesman for Justice Department special counsel David Weiss confirmed Smirnov had been arrested again, but did not have additional comment. He is in custody of U.S. Marshals in Nevada, said Gary Schofield, the chief marshal in Las Vegas.
Smirnov is charged with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record. He was arrested last week in Las Vegas, where he now lives, and a judge allowed him to be released with a GPS monitor on Tuesday.
Smirnov was arrested Thursday morning at their law offices in downtown Las Vegas on the same charges, attorneys David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld said. They requested an immediate hearing on his detention.
Prosecutors say Smirnov falsely told his handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid President Biden and Hunter Biden $5 million each around 2015. The claim became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry of President Biden in Congress.
Smirnov has not entered a plea to the charges, but his lawyers have said their client is presumed innocent and…
Read the full article here
