In the recent words of Indy, "the hopes and dreams of the Fox clones" were dashed again. Smirnov was prosecuted by David Weiss, who also brought gun and tax charges against Hunter Biden.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former FBI informant who fabricated a story about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter accepting bribes that became central to Republicans’ impeachment effort was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison.
Alexander Smirnov pleaded guilty last month in Los Angeles federal court to tax evasion and lying to the FBI about the phony bribery scheme in what prosecutors say was an effort to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Smirnov, a dual U.S. and Israeli citizen, falsely claimed to his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid then-Vice President Biden and his son $5 million each around 2015.
Fox News Silent on Bogus Hunter Biden Witness It Hyped Constantly
Frequent viewers of conservative media are well acquainted with Smirnov. Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity have said that his allegations are key to what they describe as the "Biden crime family" — the narrative that Hunter Biden accepted millions of dollars in bribes from the energy company Burisma to give to his father in exchange for then-VP Biden making a Ukrainian investigation into Burisma go away.
According to the watchdog group Media Matters, Hannity alone featured 85 segments in 2023 on the allegations. (Republican politicians also trusted the source: Last July, Representative James Comer and Senator Chuck Grassley released an FBI record detailing the unsubstantiated allegations, describing Smirnov as a "trusted FBI informant implicating then-Vice President Biden in a criminal bribery scheme.")