Legal expert stunned by 'remarkable accusation' against re-arrested anti-Biden 'informant'

Almost never does a federal judge accuse outright the defense of aiding their client to flee the country.

And yet, that's what U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II deduced.

The once star witness for the Republican-fueled impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden was jailed soon after he had been granted bail by a judge.

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Alexander Smirnov, the ex-FBI informant charged with inventing a multimillion-dollar pay-for-play scheme fed by Russian intelligence and tied to President Joe Biden and his family was rearrested and will await his bail hearing behind bars after Wright, the federal judge, determined his defense attorneys may have been trying to “facilitate his absconding from the United States.”

Elie Honig on CNN's "Out Front" was stunned by the move.

"The whole situation is really quite astonishing, he said. I've been in the situation that prosecutors and the FBI found themselves in here where you believe that a defendant is likely to flee or to commit new crimes — you ask the judge to lock that person up pending trial, and sometimes you lose."

The Israel-American dual citizen had been freed from custody and fitted with an electronic GPS monitoring bracelet by a judge in Nevada earlier this week, only to be then quickly re-arrested when the FBI sought another warrant from Judge Wright in California to bring him in, citing his almost imminent flight.

"But what the FBI and DOJ did here is they lost the original, a magistrate judge released this person and then the FBI and DOJ went to the assigned district judge and said, we need a new warrant," said Honig.

They booked Smirnov again and that's where Wright's accusation aimed at Smirnov's attorneys originated.

"It's an extreme measure" said Honig. "It shows me the extent to which the FBI is concerned this person might flee as to the judge's comments."

What surprised him most was the federal judge spelled out publicly that "he believes the defense lawyers intended to help this person flee."

And while the proof wasn't specified Honig noted that it's "a pretty remarkable accusation by the judge."

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