He rubbed elbows with Russian elites, spoke of an unique invite aboard an oligarch’s mega-yacht and cozied as much as international intelligence businesses.
As a valued FBI informant for the final 13 years, Alexander Smirnov hopscotched the globe to comb up info on highly effective figures and illicit actions. Federal brokers even approved him to interrupt the legislation whereas doing so.
For a lot of this time, Smirnov, 43, additionally lived a quiet, seemingly unremarkable life within the suburbs of Los Angeles with a long-term girlfriend 15 years his senior, calling Calabasas, Woodland Hills and Orange County dwelling.
“They have been very, very secretive,” a former landlord stated. “They packed actually, actually fast and left. It was bizarre.”
Smirnov’s tenure as a confidential supply for the FBI resulted in spectacular style this month, with a grand jury in L.A. charging him with obstructing justice and mendacity to federal brokers.
The lies, in keeping with prosecutors, included an explosive allegation that has been central to Republican efforts to question President Biden and bolster Donald Trump’s marketing campaign to return to energy — that Biden and son Hunter every accepted $5 million in bribes from the Ukrainian power firm Burisma.
The falsehoods that Smirnov shared together with his FBI handler in 2020, coupled together with his in depth ties to Kremlin intelligence businesses, have fed into prosecutors’ portrayal of him as a strolling vector of Russian disinformation.
It’s unclear how Smirnov went from being a renter within the San Fernando Valley awash in bank card debt to orbiting the highly effective in Ukraine, Russia and elsewhere with tens of millions of {dollars} in his financial institution accounts.
Federal brokers arrested Smirnov Feb. 15 at Harry Reid Worldwide Airport in Las Vegas as he was getting back from abroad. He had deliberate to embark on a months-long worldwide tour and meet with intelligence contacts earlier than the prison fees thwarted him.
After being launched from custody Tuesday, he was rearrested two days later beneath a brand new warrant from U.S. District Choose Otis D. Wright II, the Los Angeles jurist overseeing the case. Wright urged that protection attorneys wished him free “prone to facilitate his absconding from the US.”
Smirnov’s protection crew, headed by veteran Las Vegas legal professional David Z. Chesnoff, filed an emergency petition final week with the U.S. ninth Circuit Courtroom of Appeals, arguing that Wright had no authority to order Smirnov’s rearrest and switch to L.A. The protection crew additionally sought to have the case reassigned to a different choose, accusing Wright of “biased and prejudicial statements.”
Late Sunday, the ninth Circuit denied Smirnov’s petition in full, clearing the way in which for a listening to Monday morning for Wright to judge whether or not Smirnov, who has not but entered a plea, ought to stay in custody. Chesnoff declined to remark.
Of their try to carry Smirnov behind bars earlier than trial, federal officers have revealed an uncommon diploma of element about his covert work, murky wealth and shadowy existence. What emerges from filings, public data and interviews are the contours of a life layered with duplicity and thriller.
His lies, in addition to his contacts with Russian intelligence, have continued in current months, prosecutors allege, together with a false account of Hunter Biden’s dealings on the Premier Palace Resort in Kyiv, regardless of the youthful Biden by no means having stepped foot in Ukraine.
“What this exhibits is that the misinformation he’s spreading just isn’t confined to 2020. He’s actively peddling new lies that might influence U.S. elections after assembly with Russian intelligence officers in November,” prosecutors stated in court docket papers.
Smirnov grew up in Ukraine and holds twin citizenship within the U.S. and in Israel, the place his mother and father and sister reside. He referred to as Israel dwelling till 2006 and has lived in America for about 18 years, in keeping with Chesnoff. His covert work could have began as early as 2002, when he claimed to be concerned in recruiting Russian and international consular officers, apparently as sources, in keeping with what he instructed his FBI handler years later.
Courtroom data present that Smirnov married a Wisconsin lady who instructed The Instances she had not spoken to “that man” in years. By the point their 2010 divorce was finalized, he was in a Woodland Hills rental, the primary in a string of residences throughout the Southland.
Becoming a member of him in Southern California was the Ukrainian-born Diana Lavrenyuk, who additionally divorced her partner in 2010 in Wisconsin and headed west, data present.
For a time, Smirnov and Lavrenyuk lived in Calabasas, in keeping with court docket data, renting a single-family dwelling in a modest suburban neighborhood with fastidiously tended lawns and brick mailboxes.
“They have been good renters — they paid on time,” their landlord stated in a short interview. Their departure from the four-bedroom dwelling seems to have coincided with mounting bank card debt and American Categorical’ intensifying efforts to gather.
In 2013, American Categorical sued Lavrenyuk and Smirnov, her for greater than $35,000 and him for about $125,000 on his two playing cards. Lavrenyuk’s invoice was paid off by 2018. For Smirnov, American Categorical seems to have secured a court docket order to levy his financial institution accounts for funds.
In some unspecified time in the future, Smirnov grew to become a U.S. citizen. There’s no document of him or Lavrenyuk voting in Los Angeles County. His earliest voter registration obtained by The Instances was in 2019, when he signed as much as vote in Orange County and listed his residence as a Laguna Hills rental. He didn’t affiliate with a political celebration.
Smirnov additionally listed the Laguna Hills rental because the tackle for his enterprise, an funding agency. However the house owner, Kevin Rahimi, instructed The Instances he didn’t know of Smirnov and had leased the house to a different man and his household. That man is linked in public data to Smirnov, declaring himself in 2011 because the director and first officer of a retail gross sales firm that Smirnov registered a yr earlier.
Subsequent door to the Rahimi home, Heather Ruttan remembered her erstwhile neighbors as quiet and preserving to themselves. Her youthful kids play within the cul-de-sac, so she is aware of what’s happening within the neighborhood, she stated.
“Nothing stands out about them,” she stated.
Lavrenyuk, in the meantime, registered to vote in 2014 utilizing a Costa Mesa dwelling tackle and round 2019 utilizing the tackle of a San Juan Capistrano residence that her son had bought a yr earlier and bought final yr for $3 million.
Between 2013 and 2020, court docket data counsel a change in fortune for Smirnov.
Citing financial institution data, prosecutors say he now has entry to greater than $6 million, on the identical time that he doesn’t personal property within the U.S. or have a job right here.
Officers have questioned the provenance of his wealth.
“He claims to have a ‘safety enterprise,’” prosecutors wrote in court docket papers, however they added that his financial institution data battle with the existence of a “safety enterprise.” Banking data cited in court docket paperwork present giant wire transfers “from what look like enterprise capital corporations and people.”
One switch highlighted by prosecutors was $600,000 from Financial Transformation Applied sciences Corp. in 2020. The Texas firm, often called ETT, payments itself as having “constructed and harnessed a portfolio of disruptive applied sciences” in healthcare, synthetic intelligence and actual property, amongst different sectors. A spokesman for ETT didn’t reply to questions on what prompted the money switch to Smirnov.
Prosecutors say that Smirnov downplayed the extent of his monetary sources. After his arrest, he instructed court docket officers that he had solely $1,500 in money and $5,000 in his checking account. However prosecutors stated his accounts complete greater than $2.9 million, together with a enterprise account within the title of “Avalon Group Inc.,” which was used to fund his and Lavrenyuk’s life-style. Between February 2020 and the tip of 2022, he withdrew greater than $1.7 million in cashier’s checks payable to Lavrenyuk, in keeping with prosecutors.
Throughout a court docket listening to in Las Vegas, Chesnoff countered that Smirnov was not mendacity about his monetary sources however stated Smirnov’s English was “not the most effective” and that he was requested solely about his private financial institution accounts, not any enterprise accounts.
By Feb. 1, Lavrenyuk had collected greater than $3.8 million in a Wells Fargo account, in keeping with prosecutors.
Prosecutors stated that after the “substantial transfers” to Lavrenyuk, she paid off the costs on his bank cards, which have been his “major means” of paying private bills.
Round 2022, Lavrenyuk and Smirnov headed to Las Vegas. There, utilizing cash he transferred to her, Lavrenyuk bought a condominium in a high-rise for just below $1 million in money, in keeping with court docket and property data.
Smirnov’s work for the FBI as a confidential supply started round October 2010. The company’s huge community of informants assist procure inside details about prison exercise, generally at extraordinary danger. The FBI usually spends tens of tens of millions of {dollars} a yr to compensate its informants, however officers haven’t stated whether or not Smirnov was paid for any of his work.
Smirnov’s handler was based mostly on the Seattle subject workplace, and in court docket papers, the pair have been described as having an especially shut relationship: speaking nearly every day for a decade, with Smirnov describing his handler “as household,” in keeping with prosecutors.
“It was so private,” Chesnoff stated throughout a court docket listening to final week, “… that he wouldn’t even name him on his FBI cellphone; he would name him on his private cellphone.”
What instances or prosecutions Smirnov was concerned in is unclear, however his work seems to have been in depth. He was reminded 20 instances from 2010 onward to supply truthful info to the FBI, in keeping with the indictment. When he was approved to interrupt the legislation as a part of his informant work, he was admonished on 5 events to not hinder justice, together with by fabricating proof, mendacity or tampering with witnesses, the indictment states.
The fees towards him heart on what he instructed his handler beginning in March 2017 about Burisma. Smirnov stated then that he had had a name with the proprietor of the Ukrainian conglomerate and that the proprietor was fascinated with buying a U.S. firm. Smirnov famous, seemingly as an apart, that Hunter Biden was on Burisma’s board, which had been broadly reported. On the time, Joe Biden’s time period as vp had already ended.
In June 2020, prosecutors stated, Smirnov reported “for the primary time” two conferences in 2015 or 2016 through which he claimed that Burisma executives confessed to hiring Hunter Biden to “defend us, via his dad, from every kind of issues” and that they’d paid $5 million every to Hunter Biden and his father in order that the previous “will maintain all these points via his dad,” or assist quash a prison inquiry. Smirnov additionally claimed he had had two cellphone calls with a Burisma government who claimed to have been compelled to pay the Bidens.
“Briefly, Smirnov remodeled his routine and unextraordinary enterprise contacts with Burisma in 2017 and later into bribery allegations,” prosecutors stated.
The individuals who participated within the conferences and cellphone calls that Smirnov described “will refute that there was ever any dialogue of [Joe Biden] or [Hunter Biden],” prosecutors additionally stated.
Why the FBI re-interviewed Smirnov in 2020 has change into some extent of focus, significantly for prime Democrats.
Scott Brady, the previous U.S. legal professional in Pittsburgh, testified within the fall of final yr that his investigation associated to Hunter Biden and Ukraine was achieved on the behest of former Atty. Gen. William Barr and his deputy, and that he was instructed to contact Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani.
After Giuliani was interviewed, Brady testified that he requested the FBI to look company recordsdata for “situations of Burisma or Hunter Biden,” which yielded the 2017 memo of Smirnov discussing Burisma’s enterprise pursuits. One sentence of that memo referred to “a short, non-relevant dialogue” about Hunter Biden.
Brady testified that the “one sentence” reference to Hunter Biden serving on the board of Burisma prompted him to induce the FBI to re-interview the confidential supply. Brady stated there was a “backwards and forwards” with the FBI about talking to Smirnov, however the re-interview finally proceeded.
After studying what Smirnov stated in regards to the Bidens, Brady testified that his crew used “open-source materials” and details about Smirnov’s travels to corroborate a number of the claims. Brady agreed that the supply was “extremely credible” and stated there have been “enough indicia of credibility” to cross alongside the account to federal prosecutors.
On Friday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) referred to as on Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland to look at the circumstances across the push for the interview, suggesting it may have been “a part of a deliberate try and launder international disinformation via the Division of Justice.”
“Given what we now find out about Mr. Smirnov, it appears unlikely that Mr. Brady really verified any of the data Mr. Smirnov supplied to the FBI,” Nadler stated.
In court docket final week, federal prosecutors stated that the U.S. legal professional’s workplace in Delaware, which has led the prosecution of Hunter Biden, was requested to analyze Smirnov’s 2020 claims in July 2023. That time-frame corresponds to when Republican lawmakers took the uncommon step of publicly revealing the inner FBI memoranda of Smirnov’s bribery declare. The partially redacted doc fanned a torrent of Republican criticism of the Biden household.
Prosecutors stated final week in court docket that they confirmed
solely within the fall of 2023 that Smirnov was mendacity, after assembly with him in September.
Since Smirnov’s arrest Feb. 15, federal officers and his attorneys have engaged in a tug of struggle over whether or not he ought to be locked up or allowed to stay free earlier than a trial.
Prosecutors have identified that Smirnov has “common and up to date” contacts with abroad intelligence. “He can use these contacts with international intelligence companies to flee and to resettle abroad,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Leo Smart stated, including that the tens of millions of {dollars} at his disposal may assist.
To bolster their argument, prosecutors have revealed in depth excerpts of what Smirnov relayed to his handler in current months.
In January 2023, Smirnov spoke of studying from a Russian intelligence officer the placement of one other Russian intelligence officer and that individual’s first title. He later shared a Russian businessman’s plans for a birthday celebration aboard a yacht the place two oligarchs in attendance have been identified to have ties to a senior Russian intelligence official.
Later, Smirnov stated he deliberate to attend an unidentified individual’s birthday celebration within the Center East, which would come with time aboard a mega-yacht owned by a high-ranking member of Russia’s largest metal and mining firm. He named highly effective Russian figures who would most likely be in attendance.
In October, Smirnov stated he had conversations with a senior Russian official who mentioned his “seeming management” of two groups of Russian operatives tasked with assassinating an unidentified chief of one other nation. He later recounted attending a gathering the place “a high-ranking member of a Russian International Intelligence Service” was amongst these discussing doable resolutions to the struggle in Ukraine.
“They’ve managed to place out to the complete world his cooperation with none concern for his security,” Chesnoff argued in court docket. Nonetheless, the protection has stated Smirnov is in much less hazard out of federal custody.
Chesnoff has pointed to Smirnov’s lengthy document of residing within the U.S. and his ties to Lavrenyuk, her son and different household, together with his cousin, Linor Shefer, an Israeli-American actuality TV star who was Moscow’s Miss Jewish Star in 2014.
Shefer wrote a letter to Wright, the choose, pleading for her cousin’s launch.
“He’s a law-abiding American citizen who pays his taxes,” Shefer wrote. “I imagine he would by no means flee to a different nation or state.”
Countering the prosecution’s arguments that Smirnov’s in depth ties to international intelligence and his journey historical past make him a flight danger, Chesnoff argued in court docket that a lot of it “was at their behest.”
“So it’s type of like a catch-22. We’re going to allow you to go there. We’re going to ship you there. We’re going to make use of you for our functions, which is what they did,” Chesnoff stated. “And now they flip round and inform Your Honor, ‘See, he travels in all places.’”
Instances workers author Richard Winton contributed to this report.
