The FBI “confidential human source” who in 2020 and 2023 alleged that President Biden and Hunter Biden each received a $5 million bribe from executives at a Ukrainian energy company has been indicted by Special Counsel David Weiss — the same man currently prosecuting the first son. 

Mr. Weiss’s office says in its indictment — which was handed down at the Central District of California — that the confidential human source, now unmasked as Alexander Smirnov, made complete “fabrications” when he said the two Biden took bribes. He did so, Mr. Weiss says, in part because he is a supporter of the previous president, Donald Trump.

“Despite repeated admonishments that he must provide truthful information to the FBI and that he must not fabricate evidence, the Defendant provided false derogatory information to the FBI about Public Official One, an elected official in the Obama-Biden Administration who left office in January 2017, and Businessperson One, the son of Public Official One, in 2020, after Public Official One became a candidate for President of the United States of America,” Mr. Weiss’s office writes. 

Not much is known about Mr. Smirnov, a Los Angeles resident who was arrested on Wednesday at Las Vegas while getting off an international flight. He was an FBI confidential human source for several years, providing information to the bureau through an FBI handler. He had been a source since at least 2010. 

If convicted on all counts, Mr. Smirnov could face up to 25 years in prison.

The first conversation about Burisma, the Ukrainian energy concern that was paying the first son $80,000 a month, between Mr. Smirnov and the FBI handler — whose name is redacted in the indictment — happened in March 2017, shortly after the elder Mr. Biden left the vice presidency. At that time, Mr. Smirnov, who had ties to the company, made no mention of the first son or his father allegedly receiving money from Burisma.

Mr. Smirnov contacted his handler only to describe a phone call he had with the owner of the company, Mykola Zlochevsky, during which the two men discussed an initial public offering. There was no mention of the Bidens on that phone call, Mr. Weiss’s office writes in the indictment. 

It wasn’t until June 2020, when the elder Mr. Biden was the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president, that Mr. Smirnov contacted his handler about the alleged bribe payments. 

“Three years later, in June 2020, the Defendant reported, for the first time, two meetings in 2015 and/or 2016, during the Obama- Biden Administration, in which he claimed executives associated with Burisma, including [Mr. Zlochevsky], admitted to him that they hired [the younger Mr. Biden] to ‘protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems,’” the indictment states. 

Mr. Smirnov then told his handler about two other phone calls that occurred during the Obama administration in which Mr. Zlochevsky claimed to have been pressured by the two Bidens for a $10 million bribe — $5 million to the first son and another $5 million to the then-vice president.

“As alleged herein, the events the Defendant first reported to the Handler in June 2020 were fabrications,” prosecutors say. “In truth and fact, the Defendant had contact with executives from Burisma in 2017, after the end of the Obama-Biden Administration.”

The indictment includes screenshots from messages between Mr. Smirnov and the FBI handler. The first mention by Mr. Smirnov of the president’s alleged involvement in his son’s business dealings was in May 2020, when he texted the handler that a news report about Burisma “smells bad” for the then-presidential candidate.

Mr. Smirnov texted the handler that same day: “Biden going to jail,” followed by a number of smiley face symbols. 

Mr. Smirnov then made it clear that he preferred Mr. Trump over the Democratic candidate. “Dems tried to impeach Trump for same,” Mr. Smirnov wrote. “Even less.”

Not only did Mr. Smirnov have no contact with Burisma officials during the Obama administration, which is when this alleged bribe was allegedly paid, but he himself tried to go into business with the company, according to Mr. Weiss’s office. 

In 2017, Mr. Smirnov worked with two associates to try to pitch Burisma executives on investing in a cryptocurrency exchange, as well as American initial public offerings.