Former FBI informant who feds say lied to investigators about the Bidens due back in court
CBSN
Washington — Federal prosecutors in a court hearing on Monday in Los Angeles will once again try to make the case that an ex-FBI informant who is accused of lying to investigators about President Biden and his son Hunter's business dealings should be detained pending trial.
Alexander Smirnov was charged with two counts that amounted to allegedly making up fake stories about the Bidens — namely that they were each paid $5 million by a Ukrainian energy company — and passing that false information along to his FBI handlers for further investigation in 2020. Special counsel David Weiss — the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for Delaware named special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland to continue his investigation into Hunter Biden — sought the indictment against him earlier this month.
Last week, Smirnov, 43, was briefly released from federal custody after a magistrate judge in Las Vegas said that certain conditions would permit his secure pretrial freedom despite his alleged ties to foreign intelligence services that made him a flight risk. But on Thursday, Smirnov was taken back into federal custody and ordered to appear before the federal judge in Los Angeles who will oversee his case following a request from prosecutors to reconsider the release order.
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