A former FBI informant who prosecutors say fabricated a phony story of President Biden and his son Hunter Biden accepting $10 million in bribes from the Ukrainian gas company Burisma was sentenced Wednesday to six years in federal prison. 

Alexander Smirnov, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, has been behind bars since he was arrested last February on charges of making false statements to the FBI. 

The indictment came in connection with special counsel David Weiss’ investigation into Hunter Biden. Weiss later indicted Hunter on tax and gun-related charges, but President Biden granted him a sweeping pardon in December before his son was to be sentenced. 

The Justice Department tacked on additional tax charges against Smirnov in November, alleging he concealed millions of dollars of income he earned between 2020 and 2022, and Smirnov pleaded guilty in December to sidestep his looming trial.  

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Smirnov was accused of falsely telling his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid then-Vice President Biden and his son $5 million each around 2015. Smirnov’s explosive claim in 2020 came after he expressed “bias” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, according to prosecutors. The indictment says investigators found Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Burisma starting in 2017 — after Biden’s term as vice president.

Prosecutors noted that Smirnov’s claim “set off a firestorm in Congress” when it resurfaced years later as part of the House impeachment inquiry into President Biden. The Biden administration dismissed the House impeachment effort as a “stunt.”

Former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, left, walks out of his lawyer’s office in downtown Las Vegas after being released from federal custody Feb. 20, 2024.  (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, File)

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Before Smirnov’s arrest, Republicans had demanded the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the unverified allegations, though they acknowledged they couldn’t confirm if they were true.

“In committing his crimes he betrayed the United States, a country that showed him nothing but generosity, including conferring on him the greatest honor it can bestow, citizenship,” Weiss’ team wrote in court papers. “He repaid the trust the United States placed in him to be a law-abiding naturalized citizen and, more specifically, that one of its premier law enforcement agencies placed in him to tell the truth as a confidential human source, by attempting to interfere in a Presidential election.”

President Joe Biden, wearing a Team USA jacket and walking with his son Hunter Biden, heads toward Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, July 26, 2024.  (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Prosecutors agreed to pursue no more than six years against Smirnov as part of his plea deal. In court papers, the Justice Department described Smirnov as a “liar and a tax cheat” who “betrayed the United States,” adding that his bogus corruption claims against the Biden family were “among the most serious kinds of election interference one can imagine.” 

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In seeking a lighter sentence, Smirnov’s lawyers wrote that both Hunter Biden and President-elect Trump, who was charged in two since-dropped federal cases by Special Counsel Jack Smith, “have walked free and clear of any meaningful punishment.”

His lawyers had asked for a four-year prison term, arguing that their client “has learned a very grave lesson,” had no prior criminal record and was suffering from severe glaucoma in both eyes. Smirnov’s sentencing Wednesday in Los Angeles federal court concluded the final aspects of Weiss’s probe, and the special counsel is expected to submit a report to Attorney General Merrick Garland in accordance with federal regulations. Garland can decide whether to release it to the public. 

Smirnov will get credit for the time he has served behind bars since February. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

California is about to ease into the 2026 race for governor, and if you can pick any of the current candidates from a police lineup, either you work in Sacramento, have an unhealthy obsession with state politics, or both.

That’s not to impute criminality on the part of any of those running to succeed the term-limited Gavin Newsom. (Not that a rap sheet is necessarily a detriment these days. Just look at our president-elect.)

Rather, those bidding to become California’s 41st governor aren’t exactly a collection of name-in-lights celebrities. If they formed a support group, they could call it Candidates Anonymous.

For the record, those officially running are Toni Atkins, a former Assembly speaker and Senate president pro tem; Stephen Cloobeck, a Southern California philanthropist and businessman; Eleni Kounalakis, the state’s lieutenant governor; Tony Thurmond, California’s superintendent of public instruction; Antonio Villaraigosa, a former Los Angeles mayor; and Betty Yee, a former state controller.

There is talk of others possibly entering the contest. Atty. Gen Rob Bonta is often mentioned. Former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter has acknowledged eyeing the race. Vice President Kamala Harris, foremost among the possibilities, has done nothing publicly to either stoke or squelch speculation she might hop in after leaving office later this month.

But even Harris and Porter, as well known as they are, lack anywhere near the candlepower of the two most famous bold-faced names who were elected California governor, Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Or even remotely disqualifying.

In fact, contrary to California’s glitzy image, Reagan and Schwarzenegger are the odd men out in a long line of drab, largely ho-hum candidates who have been elected to the state’s top office. Think George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson and Gray Davis, whose public personas might best be rendered in broad strokes of beige, taupe and, yes, gray.

Even Jerry Brown seemed staid by the time of his return gubernatorial engagement, 36 years after he first took the oath of office. (There were no African safaris with Linda Ronstadt or quixotic tilts at the White House in his second go-round.)

“There’s a perception that somehow Californians are entranced with movie stars and TV stars, and to some degree that’s true,” said Garry South, a Democratic strategist who twice helped elect Davis governor. “But I don’t think that view really reflects accurately the way California voters feel about politicians.”

The state electorate, it turns out, is a whole lot more pragmatic than the autograph-hounding, Hollywood-worshipping stereotype would suggest.

Gale Kaufman, another veteran Democratic strategist, has sat through countless focus groups. She said whenever voters are presented the name of someone famous — speculation about this or that celebrity running for governor being a staple of California campaigns — “they immediately take it to the next phase and say, ‘Well, what would they do as governor?’”

Which suggests voters aren’t nearly as titillated by all that sparkle and shine as the political mentioners would like to think.

Schwarzenegger, it should be said, was elected in 2003 under extraordinary circumstances, a drastically truncated campaign that lasted only a little over eight weeks. The fleeting time frame gave the movie super-duperstar a unique opportunity to leverage his fame and name recognition to replace Davis — who was recalled by voters on the same day — in a single fell swoop.

It’s also worth noting that Schwarzenegger was not entirely a political novice.

His association with the Kennedy clan, through marriage to Maria Shriver, his chairmanship of the Council on Physical Fitness and Sports under President George H.W. Bush and, especially, his sponsorship the year prior of a successful statewide ballot measure promoting after-school youth programs gave Schwarzenegger a patina of political know-how that helped legitimize his candidacy.

Reagan, who was essentially washed up as an actor by the time he ran for governor, had an even longer and more thorough political resume than Schwarzenegger by the time he launched his 1966 campaign. Even then, Reagan was helped greatly by the restive climate stemming from the Watts riots, widespread campus unrest and voter fatigue shrouding the incumbent, Jerry Brown’s father, Edmund G. “Pat” Brown.

Campaign experience counts a great deal in California, a vast, unruly state with more than 22 million registered voters, notwithstanding the success of those two actor-turned-politicians. Other than Schwarzenegger, every candidate that followed Reagan had successfully run for statewide office at least once before being elected governor.

“It’s easy for people on the outside to think we’re celebrity-focused because of what they see from Hollywood and movies and television,” said Mark Baldassare, who has spent decades surveying voter opinions and now directs surveys for the Public Policy Institute of California. “But the reality is it’s a big state to govern, and it’s hard to win elections unless you’ve been in them before.”

No one, least of all your friendly political columnist, has any clue what will happen in 2026.

It wouldn’t be a bit surprising if California voters opted for someone without the Hollywood looks, the flash or conspicuous national ambitions of the current governor — just as the leaden Deukmejian followed the flamboyant Brown, and the buttoned-down Brown succeeded the megawatt Schwarzenegger.

None of the candidates currently running are going to set the tabloids alight or break any box office records.

That may be one of the best things they have going for them.