Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) sought Tuesday to clarify his role in investigating the disputed Biden bribery allegations brought to the FBI by indicted former informant Alexander Smirnov.
Grassley delivered a speech on the Senate floor and addressed his pressure on the FBI to investigate the allegations provided by Smirnov in June 2020, when he was a confidential human source (CHS) for the bureau.
“It’s all pretty simple. I didn’t promote or vouch for the allegations in the 1023 as the truth, like some confused Democrats and partisan media have falsely said,” Grassley said, referring to the FBI FD-1023 document chronicling Smirnov’s allegations. Grassley released the FBI document in July after receiving it from whistleblowers inside the Justice Department.
A federal grand jury indicted Smirnov earlier this month for giving the FBI false statements about the Bidens allegedly receiving $10 million worth of bribes from Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky. His indictment resulted from special counsel David Weiss’s ongoing criminal investigation into Hunter Biden.
Weiss and his team of prosecutors said in a detention memo last week Smirnov has connections to Russian intelligence officials and allegedly received information about Hunter Biden from them. A dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, Smirnov possesses $6 million of available funds and allegedly lied to pretrial services about the amount of money available to him.
“Some confused Democrats and partisan media have returned to their favorite line: falsely saying that our effort to get the FBI to do their job is somehow peddling Russian disinformation. It’s kind of like a nervous tick to all of them,” Grassley said.
“The whistleblowers within the Justice Department who came to me said the FBI had this document, the 1023, in their possession now three years ago,” Grassley added. “Whistleblowers said the FBI considered its confidential human source to be credible.”
Grassley did not know Smirnov’s name until he was arrested and said the FBI used its “credibility assessment” of him to withhold the FD-1023 document from Congress. Smirnov’s federal indictment in California says he was an informant for the bureau dating back to 2010 and received permission to conduct illegal activity for investigative purposes on multiple occasions.
The FBI did not interview Smirnov about the Biden bribery allegations until September 2023, months after Grassley publicized the FBI document containing Smirnov’s claims.
“Clearly, the FBI finally acted because of our release of the document. In other words, we embarrassed them,” Grassley said.
“So, the 1023 sat with the FBI collecting dust until we, in Congress, acted. My releasing the 1023 got the FBI to do its job that they should have been doing three years before.”
Smirnov will be jailed awaiting trial after U.S. District Judge Otis Wright of California overruled a personal-recognizance bond issued by a magistrate judge in Nevada, where Smirnov was initially detained and released.
Hunter Biden’s attorneys have used Smirnov’s indictment to undermine the credibility of Weiss’s criminal investigation. Biden is facing three federal gun charges in Delaware and nine federal tax charges in California stemming from Weiss’ probe. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and seeks to have them dismissed.
Smirnov’s indictment was mentioned by Hunter Biden Wednesday morning during his closed-door testimony for the impeachment inquiry into President Biden. The younger Biden criticized House Republicans for launching the inquiry and specifically cited Smirnov’s case as a reason to be skeptical of the inquiry.
Burisma paid Hunter Biden millions of dollars as a board member of the company from 2014–2019, according to bank records and his tax indictment. His salary dropped significantly after Joe Biden’s vice presidency ended.
House Republicans are also focusing on his business dealings with individuals and entities in China, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Romania.