>>1368170Smirnov could face anywhere between two to six years behind bars for fabricating the story, though Donald Trump could potentially commute his sentence or outright pardon the conservative witness once he returns to the White House.
In February, the Justice Department revealed that Smirnov admitted to prosecutors that “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved” in developing the Hunter Biden narrative.
In the ensuing fallout over the DOJ indictment, Smirnov told investigators he was in contact with “four different [top] Russian officials,” two of whom were the “heads of the entities they represent.”
Republicans had spent months building up the hype around Smirnov as a witness, isolating his allegation that Biden had pocketed millions of dollars from the Ukrainian company as the centerpiece of their probe. But in the end, Smirnov’s faux narrative—and its ability to capture and sway overzealous and power-hungry U.S. politicians—served as just another example of how effectively the Russian government can infiltrate and undermine U.S. elections.
