Ex-FBI informant charged with lying about Bidens will appear in court as judge weighs his detention

A judge will decide whether to keep a former FBI informant in custody as he awaits trial on Monday when he appears in a federal court in California.

The informant is accused of creating a multimillion-dollar bribery plot involving President Joe Biden’s family.

Alexander Smirnov, who claims to have connections to Russian intelligence, is likely to leave the country, according to the special counsel David Weiss’s office, which is pleading with US District Judge Otis Wright II to keep Smirnov in custody.

Smirnov was freed from jail last week under electronic GPS monitoring by a separate court, but Wright issued an order for the man’s re-arrest after prosecutors requested that Smirnov’s incarceration be reevaluated. Wright said in a written order that Smirnov’s lawyers’ efforts to free him was “likely to facilitate his absconding from the United States.”

In an emergency petition with the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, Smirnov’s lawyers said Wright did not have the authority to order Smirnov to be re-arrested. The defense also criticized what it described as “biased and prejudicial statements” from Wright insinuating that Smirnov’s lawyers were acting improperly by advocating for his release.