Jerry Nadler Says Prosecutor May Have Laundered Disinformation from Smirnov in Congressional Testimony

Representative Jerry Nadler is calling for the Justice Department to investigate a former federal prosecutor who he says may have deliberately attempted to “launder foreign disinformation” during Congressional testimony about since-discredited allegations of bribery against President Joe Biden and his son that the FBI obtained from a source with Russian ties.

The FBI received the bogus allegations from Alexander Smirnov, a former informant who was indicted last week and accused of giving false statements to authorities. Former U.S. Attorney for Pittsburgh Scott Brady testified to the House Judiciary Committee in October about how the allegations were brought to his attention, according to a newly published transcript.

In a letter on Thursday to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Inspector General Michael Horowitz, Nadler, a New York Democrat, wrote that it “seems unlikely” that Brady verified the information obtained from Smirnov as he testified he did. Nadler also suggested Brady “verified” the bribery allegations, although Brady testified that he believed they should be investigated further based on his initial vetting.

Through his testimony, “Mr. Brady appears to have been part of a deliberate attempt to launder foreign disinformation through the Department of Justice,” Nadler wrote.

Federal prosecutors said in a detention memo earlier this week that Smirnov has ties to Russian intelligence officials and received information from Russia about Biden’s son Hunter.

Smirnov was initially detained in Nevada and granted temporary release by a magistrate judge after he was indicted and accused of giving false statements about Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly taking bribes from a Ukrainian oligarch. However, a judge in California ordered Smirnov be arrested again and sent to California after an appeal from the team of David Weiss, the special counsel on the Hunter Biden criminal investigation.

Smirnov told the FBI in spring 2020 that Hunter and Joe Biden received $10 million worth of bribes from Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings. The FBI memorialized the information in an FD-1023, a form used by the bureau to report information brought forward by sources.

Then-Attorney General Bill Barr gave Brady an assignment in January 2020 to vet all available information related to Ukraine and the Bidens. In the process of vetting information, Brady discovered a March 2017 FD-1023 from Smirnov generated around the time of an FBI probe into Zlochevsky. Smirnov’s indictment confirms the existence of the prior FD-1023 document.

When the previous FD-1023 was identified, Brady asked the FBI to re-interview Smirnov, the confidential human source, about Hunter Biden and Burisma. The bureau was concerned about the highly-sensitive information and protecting their source.

“I think there was concern by the FBI about the sensitive nature of both the information and also the fact that this was an important confidential human source who had provided information to them in the past, that had been used in other investigations,” Brady testified.

An interview with Smirnov resulted in the June 2020 FD-1023 with the bribery allegations. Brady told lawmakers he believed the allegations warranted further investigation and described his difficulties in getting Weiss’ office briefed on the document.

“What we were able to identify, we found that it was consistent,” Brady said. “And so we felt that there were sufficient indicia of credibility in this 1023 to pass it on to an office that had a predicated grand jury investigation.”

He briefed multiple U.S. Attorney’s offices including the District of Delaware headed by Weiss. He specifically briefed Delaware Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf on the FD-1023 document in October 2020.

However, the Smirnov indictment suggests the FBI’s Pittsburgh office closed the matter in August 2020, without definitively asserting it as fact.

Smirnov had been an informant for federal law enforcement dating back to 2010, according to his indictment in California by a federal grand jury.

Hunter Biden is a former board member of Burisma and made millions from his time at the firm, according to bank records and his federal tax indictment in California. He pleaded not guilty to the charges in January and seeks to have them dismissed.

House Republicans are probing Hunter Biden’s lucrative foreign business dealings with individuals and entities in Ukraine, China, Romania, Russia and Kazakhstan for the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.