Hunter Biden's lawyers argued Tuesday that the indictment of an FBI informant has delegitimized the federal charges against the president's son.
As The Washington Post points out, the charges against Alexander Smirnov are in relation to lies he told about Hunter's business dealings, not the criminal tax and gun charges facing the president's son.
But in Tuesday's filing, Hunter's legal team said, “It now seems clear that the Smirnov allegations infected this case."
The filing went on, saying prosecutors followed Smirnov “down his rabbit hole of lies.”
"Over the past year, an FBI document recounting Smirnov’s 2020 claims became a kind of cause célèbre among Republicans, who argued that the FBI had received and ignored incriminating evidence in their probe of Hunter Biden," The Washington Post's Devlin Barrett wrote.
"FBI officials were repeatedly forced to answer questions about Smirnov’s claims from Republican lawmakers who said they were conducting their own investigation of alleged corruption by the Bidens. Law enforcement officials also faced accusations from conservatives that the FBI itself may be corrupt."
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Despite Barrett's suggesting that Smirnov's arrest was the result of new revelations in the case, people familiar with the investigation say Smirnov first made false allegations to the FBI in 2020, which were looked into and ultimately dropped after they were discovered to be unfounded.
"Nevertheless, his account was passed along to investigators in Delaware who were involved in the Hunter Biden investigation — a move which years later led to the charges against Smirnov," The Post report stated.
Hunter's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said Smirnov's false claims likely contributed to prosecutors scrapping a proposed plea deal for his client that would have resulted in no jail time.
According to Justice Department officials, Smirnov was arrested at a Las Vegas airport after he flew in from overseas.