The US Department of Justice on Thursday announced the indictment of a former FBI informant who was prosecuted for lying and fabricating corruption allegations against Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, charges that were later revived by the right to try to impeach the president, AFP and Agerpres said.

Oleksandr Smirnov, a former federal police informant, was arrested Thursday in Las Vegas, according to a statement from the special counsel investigating Hunter Biden.

This 43-year-old man is suspected of lying, accusing Joe and Hunter Biden of receiving five million dollars in bribes each so that the Ukrainian gas company Burisma could avoid criminal prosecution.

According to the indictment, the former informant “provided false incriminating information to the FBI about” Joe and Hunter Biden. A crime for which he faces 25 years in prison.

The new twist weakens the Republican-led congressional impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, months before a likely new race for the White House between the Democrat and Donald Trump.

The right accuses Joe Biden, so far without convincing evidence, of using his influence as Barack Obama’s vice president (2009-2017) to allow his son Hunter to run controversial businesses in Ukraine and China.

Smirnov’s story leaked into the public sphere and became a central topic for fueling these suspicions. But this is a completely fabricated story, according to the indictment.

According to the investigation, the tip provided by the informant did not match due to a problem with the chronology.

In 2020, an informant told an FBI agent that he had a meeting with Burisma representatives “in 2015 and/or 2016, during the Obama/Biden administration.”

Members of that Ukrainian gas company would then admit to them that they hired Hunter Biden to their board of directors to “protect themselves through their father from any problems,” according to the informant. A service for which Joe Biden and his son were “specially paid $5 million each”.

This scenario seemed to fit the 2016 firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma. A decision in which Republicans see Biden’s hand.

But the investigation showed that Smirnov contacted Burisma only in 2017, when Donald Trump came to power. At that time, Joe Biden “had no means of influencing American politics,” the indictment emphasized.

The whistleblower “turned his routine and ordinary business dealings with Burisma since 2017 (…) into allegations of corruption” against Joe Biden, the document further states. And he waited until 2020 to do so, “after he protested (…) his candidacy” for the White House.

Businessman-turned-artist Hunter Biden is a favorite target of Republicans in the United States, fueling suspicions about his dealings in Ukraine and China under Obama.

But the ongoing judicial investigation into the president’s son has so far not confirmed these allegations.

The investigation, in particular, highlighted his problems with drug and alcohol addiction, which he claims to have overcome, and led to two charges against him: one for tax evasion and another for illegal possession of a firearm.