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“$5 million each”: the FBI informant’s bribery story

Alexander Smirnov, the FD-1023 form and how a tip collapsed

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How a tip became “proof”
After the plea

How a tip became “proof”

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The form, the man and the collapse.

An FD-1023 is the form an FBI agent fills in to record what an informant says. The one Grassley released records Alexander Smirnov, an informant for a decade, telling his handler in June 2020 that Zlochevsky had told him he had been forced to pay $5 million to Hunter Biden and $5 million to Joe Biden, and that it would take investigators ten years to uncover the payments. Republicans called it evidence of bribery. [1]

Prosecutors in Weiss’s office checked. They charged that Smirnov’s contacts with Burisma began in 2017, after Biden had left office, and that he had invented the meetings he described, out of what they called bias against Biden. [2]

He pleaded guilty in December 2024 and was sentenced in January 2025 to six years. [3][4]

What we can’t tell you. The FBI form recorded an allegation; it was never an FBI finding.

The sources

Sen. Chuck Grassley, 20 July 2023: Grassley obtains and releases FBI record alleging VP Biden foreign bribery scheme ↗
Publishes the redacted FD-1023 of 30 June 2020, the informant report later traced to Alexander Smirnov.
United States v. Alexander Smirnov: indictment, February 2024 ↗
Original indictment sets out alleged fabrication and chronology; an indictment alone is an accusation. Later plea, sentence and appellate disposition are separately identified.
AP: Smirnov pleads guilty, December 16, 2024 ↗
Wire reporting of the plea hearing, read with the subsequent judicial order and appellate memorandum. No assertion here that Russian contacts by themselves prove every claim about foreign direction.
United States v. Smirnov: April 30, 2025 release order, court-text mirror ↗
Mirror of district-court order recounting accepted pleas and January 8 sentence and denying release pending appeal. Judicial text, not the mirror’s AI summaries, is used.

After the plea

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The furlough, the appeal and the politics.

In November 2025 Smirnov’s lawyer confirmed he had been released on a medical furlough, which is not a pardon or a commutation. On 22 September 2026 the Ninth Circuit dismissed his challenge over custody credit and affirmed the rest of the sentencing ruling. [1][2]

The House Republicans’ August 2024 impeachment report, issued after his indictment, did not rely on the Smirnov story, but it had driven the investigation in 2023. [3]

What we can’t tell you. The appeal ruling is a short non-precedential memorandum.

The sources

New York Post via AOL: Smirnov attorney confirms medical furlough, November 7, 2025 ↗
Reporting quotes defense lawyer David Chesnoff about medical treatment. A furlough is not a pardon or a vacated conviction; this report does not establish his exact location on the edition date.
Ninth Circuit: United States v. Smirnov, September 22, 2026 ↗
Official three-page, nonprecedential appellate memorandum in consolidated appeals 25-400 and 25-408: dismissed in part and affirmed in part. It addresses custody-credit and plea-agreement arguments, not a new trial of the bribery allegations.
House Republican impeachment inquiry report, August 19, 2024 ↗
Original majority investigators’ argument; conclusions about a conspiracy are attributed, not adopted as judicial findings.

WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT THIS FILE

The claims, rated.

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DOCUMENTED Ukraine, Burisma & Shokin