FBI informant Alexander Smirnov charged with lying about $10MILLION bribery scheme involving Bidens WILL appear in court today as judge considers whether he will remain behind bars over flight risk fears

The former FBI informant is accused of lying about $10 million dollar bribery scheme Involving President Joe Biden’s family will appear in a federal court in California on Monday.

A judge will determine whether 43-year-old Alexander Smirnov should remain behind bars while he awaits trial.

Special Counsel David Weiss’ office is urging U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II to keep Smirnov in prison, arguing that the man who claims ties to Russian intelligence is likely to flee the country.

Another judge released Smirnov from jail last week for electronic GPS monitoring, but Wright ordered the man to be arrested again after prosecutors asked to reconsider Smirnov’s detention.

Wright said in a written order that Smirnov’s lawyers’ efforts to free him would “likely facilitate his absconding from the United States.”

In an emergency filing with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Smirnov’s attorneys said Wright did not have the authority to re-arrest Smirnov.

The defense also criticized what it described as “biased and prejudiced statements” from Wright, insinuating that Smirnov’s lawyers acted inappropriately in advocating for his release.

Smirnov is accused of by falsely telling his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid President Biden and Hunter Biden $5 million each around 2015. The claim became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry of President Biden in Congress.

In urging the judge to keep Smirnov locked up, prosecutors said the man had reported to the FBI that he was in contact with Russian intelligence officials.

Prosecutors wrote in court filings last week that Smirnov told investigators after his initial arrest that officials linked to Russian intelligence were involved in feeding him a story about Hunter Biden.

Smirnov, who has dual Israeli-American citizenship, is being charged by the same Justice Department special prosecutor who filed a separate complaint gun and tax charges against Hunter Biden.

Smirnov has not entered a plea to the charges, but his lawyers have said they look forward to defending him at trial.

Defense lawyers, in pushing for his release, have said he has no criminal history and has strong ties to the United States, including a longtime partner who lives in Las Vegas.

In his ruling last week on Smirnov’s release on GPS monitoring, U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel Albregts in Las Vegas said he was concerned about his access to what prosecutors estimated at $6 million in funds, but noted that federal guidelines require him to ‘impose the least restrictive conditions’. ‘ prior to his trial.

Smirnov had been an informant for more than a decade when he made the explosive allegations about the Bidens in June 2020 after “expressing prejudice” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, prosecutors said.

According to court documents, Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Burisma as of 2017.

No evidence has emerged that Joe Biden has acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current role or previous position as vice president.

Although his identity was not publicly known before the indictment, Smirnov’s claims have played a major role in Republican efforts in Congress to investigate the president and his family. House impeachment inquiry against Biden.

Republicans investigating the Bidens demanded that the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the unverified allegations, though they acknowledged they could not confirm whether they were true.

Smirnov was known as a “stand-up, good neighbor,” to those who knew him and his longtime girlfriend Diana Lavrenyuk, 58, who lived in a $3.2 million home in the California mission town of San Juan Capistrano.

“We went out to eat, shared meals, shared a glass of wine. I liked him a lot, and Diana. They were both very nice,” Mike Pastore, a 75-year-old mortgage broker who lives across the street from the terracotta-tiled four-bed house where Smirnov has lived for the past five years, told DailyMail.com.

“He was a stand-up, good neighbor. He loved being in America; both did it.

Smirnov, a fellow Israeli-American citizen, now faces a 25-year prison sentence for allegedly fabricating the claims about Biden, and is accused of “high-level” and “extremely recent” ties to senior Russian intelligence officials — including the head of a assassination squad.

But in San Juan Capistrano, he kept a low profile as he acted as a paid informant for federal law enforcement for 13 years and assisted in numerous criminal and counterintelligence investigations, prosecutors said.

Only small hints of his double life slipped through to the neighbors, during conversations over dinner at a local steakhouse or a backyard barbecue.

‘He said he had connections with important people. In one conversation he mentioned that he had met with the defense minister in Afghanistan,” a neighbor, who wished to remain anonymous, told DailyMail.com. “And he had connections to important people in the US.”

Pastore said, “I know he was involved in the government. I know he originally came from the Eastern Bloc. Although I don’t think he actually said that.

‘Every now and then we talked about geopolitical matters, and he was well informed. It was an interesting conversation with him… He has traveled a lot.”

The neighbors said that the more they discovered about Smirnov, the more of a mystery he became.

“He had a very unconventional lifestyle,” said a resident of the affluent Southern California cul-de-sac, which borders a creek, an equestrian center and a golf club. ‘He seemed strange to me.

‘This is a very safe neighborhood. But when he moved here, he put up more cameras than I think there are in the entire neighborhood. So he was very safety conscious.

“The way he lived his lifestyle made me think he lived here to stay under the radar.”

Pastore said Smirnov told him he owned the $3.2 million, 3,810-square-foot home on their hillside street.

But after selling it last May and telling Pastore he was moving to Las Vegas with Lavrenyuk, the new owners revealed the property was not registered in Smirnov’s name.

“It was clear he was in good financial shape, even though his name wasn’t on the deed to the house,” said a neighbor. ‘He spent a lot of time and money renovating it.

“He had this house, a house in Las Vegas, he said, and also properties in other countries.

“He had some connections to Israel and the Eastern Bloc – or so he said.”

Property records show that the house was purchased in 2018 by Nikolay Lavenyuk, the son of Smirnov’s long-term partner. Pastore said Nikolay lived on the East Coast. Smirnov was not mentioned in the purchase or sale documents.

Pastore told DailyMail.com that Smirnov and Lavrenyuk appeared to have been a couple for a long time.

‘I had the impression that they had been together for a long time. He had a painting of her hanging in the hallway of their house. The painting was 4 by 3 feet, oil on canvas. It was a beautiful photo, and he loved her dearly,” he said.

‘I can’t even believe this happened. His involvement with Burisma is something of a pretty high level. It’s intriguing. But he never shared that with me.

“I’m blown away.”

Smirnov also kept a low profile online. No photos of him have surfaced yet, aside from a photo of him leaving the Lloyd George federal courthouse in Las Vegas with his face covered on Tuesday.

He was accompanied from the court by his cousin, Linor Shefer, who works for a real estate developer that does business with Donald Trump.

Shefer, a 38-year-old Israeli-American, was a former contestant on the Israeli version of reality show Big Brother and won the 2014 beauty pageant ‘Miss Jewish Star’ in Moscow.

According to her LinkedIn page, she has been an ‘Inhouse Consultant’ for Dezer Development in Miami, Florida since 2022.

Dezer worked with Trump’s organization to develop the $600 million Trump Grande Ocean Resort and Residences and the $900 million Trump Towers. The company is run by Gil Dezer and founded by his Israeli-American billionaire father Michael, who is a Trump donor.

Smirnov’s lawyers told the court at his hearing Tuesday that their client had a close personal relationship with his cousin Shefer, arguing this reduced his risk of absconding.