Alexander Smirnov Admits Russian Spies Passed on Lies about Hunter Biden

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The detention memo for Alexander Smirnov is here. David Weiss’ team says Smirnov can’t be released because he had plans for a months long trip starting on February 16, he has $6 million in the bank, and he has ties to spies from multiple countries.

Apparently, after he was arrested last week, he admitted that some of the claims about Hunter Biden he repeated came from Russian spies.

During his custodial interview on February 14, Smirnov admitted that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story about Businessperson 1.

[snip]

While Smirnov has no ties to the community in Las Vegas, what he does have is extensive foreign ties, including, most troublingly and by his own account, contact with foreign intelligence services, including Russian intelligence agencies, and has had such contacts recently. Smirnov could use these contacts to resettle outside the United States.

As noted, law enforcement knows about Smirnov’s contact with officials affiliated with Russian intelligence because Smirnov himself reported on a number of those contacts to his FBI Handler.

Update: David Weiss and his team are dangerous incompetents. The Nevada judge released Smirnov with a GPS monitor. It’s the right decision, but insane from a national security perspective.

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66 replies
  1. EW Moderation Team says:

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  2. vigetnovus says:

    Well, this could be an intelligence bonanza too. If the FBI has any evidence that Smirnov was playing double agent with them, I wonder if 18 USC 951 could be on the table as well. Certainly the obstruction charge with its 20 year maximum dangling over Smirnov might be an inducement to start talking about the RIS.

  3. Rugger_9 says:

    Well, this is the kind of ‘new information’ that should preclude Weiss from walling off any of Abbe Lowell’s discovery motions or suppression motions. After all, the government itself wasn’t done digging (even after Wise said all Brady material was turned over last year), and the fact that we now know that it was maskirova that Smirnov peddled against HB should be grounds to throw out everything that touched Smirnov in any way at all. False information provided by lying riff-raff doesn’t do well in front of a jury.

    Not much of a case remains if that happens.

  4. BobBobCon says:

    I know the indicted fugutive Gal Luft had a lot of ties to China, but his background in energy issues makes me wonder if there are similar Russia angles as far as his connections to Comer as a supposed Biden whistleblower.

    It’s really incredible to me that the press looked at Luft’s indictment last year and then shrugged and kept going full speed ahead.

      • BobBobCon says:

        And it’s not just stupid from a pure journalism perspective, it’s stupid from a clicks and ratings perspective. Propping up a mushmouthed loser like Comer with endless hypothetical reasons why he might change course is confusing and boring.

        Showing him as the incompetent that he is, making him twist in the wind, and tainting powerful politicians along the way gets people interested in the scandal. But the heart of the bothsides press is ultimately contempt for their audiences.

  5. earlofhuntingdon says:

    I wonder how Nakedcapitalism and area substacker will respond to this. Never mind. I don’t care. Unsurprisingly, NC is still in denial and peddling Russian propaganda from John Helmer and Scott Ritter. FFS.

    • Bobby Gladd says:

      Naked Capitalism makes me totally crazy on the topic of Russia and Ukraine. I go there for my daily dose of erudite cynicism. I have yet to be disappointed.

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        Nakedcapitalism is down the Russian rabbit hole. Commentators who aren’t with the program are quickly moderated into Siberia.

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          My college tutor frequently reminded me, usually after midnight, when the glasses were empty, “All things in moderation, including moderation.” But it was never the answer to a test question.

        • pH unbalanced says:

          One of my father’s favorite quotes:

          “Virtue lies in moderation, even to the moderation of virtue itself.”

        • gruntfuttock says:

          “You should make a point of trying everything once, except incest and morris dancing”

          (Often attributed to Sir Thomas Beecham although an internet search suggests that to be doubtful.)

        • Narpington says:

          I like Beecham’s comparison of the sound of the harpsichord to two skeletons copulating on a tin roof.

  6. BreslauTX says:

    Whatever “Mud” that was going to be splashed back on Barr, Weiss etc must be extremely bad for them to now be going this hard against Smirnov. I used to think that nobody could top Durham in being clumsy with an investigation. Yet, Weiss is showing signs of being on the Durham level or even worse.

    I do hope that Abbe Lowell is able to liberate that information.

    • SonofaWW2Marine says:

      Slightly off-topic, but perhaps some comic relief in these sad times: BreslauTX, your concern about Weiss’s latest investigative mis-step reminded me of a favorite Dwight Eisenhower quotation, from a diary entry about a US Senator: “In his case, there seems to be no final answer to the question, ‘How stupid can you get?'”

    • earthworm says:

      yes, to the above.
      the small commenter slice at EW benefits enormously from this blog’s work. In comments here the frustration boils over frequently, which makes us here appreciate all the more just how disciplined mentally Dr Wheeler is in her dissections and live appearances.
      OT: at what point does it become appropriate, if ever, to ask out loud here at EW: is _onald _rump a burrowed bear? Nikki Haley is coming closer with her recent taunts/taints.

  8. freebird says:

    This detention memorandum is bizarre. Hunter Biden never went to Ukraine and the FBI knew this? The Republicans are tied up in knots because Smirnov only met with Burisma after Biden left office making it ridiculous to bribe Biden after he left office and had no power. This destroys their entire story.

    Trump got himself impeached based on Smirnov’s lies.

    • ShadeSeeker says:

      “Trump got himself impeached based on Smirnov’s lies.”
      The deliciousness of the irony..

      [Thanks for updating your username to meet the site’s standard for uniqueness with an 8-letter minimum. /~Rayne]

  9. BreslauTX says:

    Does anybody know how the

    * Cooperation
    * Assistance
    * Chain of Command

    works between the FBI and DOJ?

    Is somebody in the FBI going to recognize that they need to go back and doublecheck all of their own work on the Hunter Biden story because Weiss and Co at DOJ are struggling?

    • jecojeco says:

      The US democracy is in a very bad place if one of our major nat’l political parties is in collusion with Russia, our main adversary, to seize political power. If it isn’t just trump but significant portions of the GOP and the current GOP is totally under trump’s control and effectively sabotaging US policy.Grassle, Johnson, Marge, Perry from PA. The GOP defended trump’s failed coup in congress and now calls those convicts “political prisoners”. What could please Putin more than calls for secession & civil war from GOPers.

      Putin gets eastern europe and the US gets Christo-fascism

      • Frank Anon says:

        What is behind the shift? When does a Chuck Grassley make the turn from garden-variety conservative to fellow-traveler? I tend to think it bubbles up from the christo-fascists, who are ideologically nimble but extremely power hungry and possessed of funds, votes and momentum to share with the less ideologically and intellectually gifted to offer power for power’s sake. They seem to represent the bench that reflexively supports Trump. What horrifies me is that those whose only goal is power appear anecdotally to know exactly what they are doing, who they are hurting, and what the end result is likely to be.

    • BobBobCon says:

      Supposed reporters like Erik Wemple insist on an impossibly narrow legal lens to discount the possibility of collusion. Meanwhile hacks like Wemple also insist on a definition of mental fitness that is impossibly vague in order to promote attacks on Joe Biden.

      Watch for even more extreme double standards going forward to explain how this actually (somehow) proves there is no collusion.

  11. Joseph Welch says:

    Smirnov passed his false story along to the FBI in June 2020.
    The NYPost article about Hunter Biden’s laptop didn’t come out until October 2020.
    So how in June 2020 did Smirnov get the idea to call Joe Biden the “Big Guy”?

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  12. Edward_02SEP2018_0855h says:

    What is the identity of “Country C” where the Russian assassination squad is operating (pp. 19-20, 8.a.i and ii)? Ukraine is mentioned by name in the same passage, so it is not there. EDIT: Country C also mentioned in 9.a.iii and iv as site of Russian Intelligence infested hotel that may have produced kompromat on US political candidates.

    Also curious about the language barrier mentioned on p. 18 (3.a.i), which is not Russian, even though the exchange is occurring between one or more Russian officials.

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    • PW_20FEB2024_1042h says:

      Israel.

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    • EuroTark says:

      Re: language barrier on page 18, this reads more like the source using vague and obfuscating language (“I know a guy”) than speaking a different language.

      The COUNTRY C discussed on pp19-20 seems to be one that has active ongoing measures against Russia. I’d hazard a guess at a former Soviet-republic like Kazakhstan or Azerbaijan.

    • Savage Librarian says:

      My WAG for Country C is Estonia. Since at least 2007, Russia has carried out cyber attacks there because Estonia removed Russian monuments. There are some fantastic, bad ass women in Estonia. I’m guessing the bugged hotel is in Tallinn.

      “Estonia thwarts ‘shadow war’ attack, Prime Minister Kaja Kallas tells CNN” – 2/20/24

      “Intelligence analysts say that a variety of Russian agencies, including the FSB and the SVR (its foreign intelligence service), are involved in hybrid operations throughout eastern Europe.”

      “Estonia has been a particular target because of its substantial Russian-speaking minority – nearly 25% of the population.”

      https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/20/europe/russia-shadow-war-attack-estonia-kallas-intl/index.html

      • Rayne says:

        That seems like a pretty good guess to me. Estonia is among the savviest countries when it comes to understanding and fighting back Russia’s non-kinetic attacks.

        • EuroTark says:

          While I have no doubts that there are ongoing non-kinetic attacks against Estonia, I don’t think they are a very good fit for what’s described about Country C here. Some of the other references imply a military attack, and Estonia is a full member of NATO. This brings my thoughts closer to the Caucasus, where Russia has previously attacked Georgia (w/assist from splinter republics like South-Ossetia). Azerbaijan seems a more likely target for entrapping and/or wiretrapping US citizens though, since they have been angling westwards in later years. (See: Eurovision (2012) and Formula 1 (2016-2026+)).

    • aleksey_CHANGE-REQD says:

      COUNTRY C has to be Ukraine, HOTEL 1 mentioned in 9.a.iv is the Premier Palace in Kyiv (see pp. 23-24). Also see 10.a.vi about the favour Smirnov asked in January 2022 about not harming an associate from COUNTRY C “during any Russian incursion” that would occur weeks later.

      Also interesting to read that Smirnov appears to have worked for COUNTRY D/Israeli intelligence at one point (10.a.i-ii).

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    • happolati says:

      COUNTRY C has to be Ukraine because the HOTEL 1 mentioned in 9.a.vi is the Premier Palace hotel in Kyiv (pp. 23-24). Also see 10.a.iv about Smirnov asking the Russians not to harm an associate from COUNTRY C during “any Russian incursion”. This was just weeks before the invasion.

      Another interesting detail in 10.a.i-ii is that Smirnov apparently worked for COUNTRY D intelligence in or around 2002 and was involved in recruiting and running at least two sources, both diplomats. According to the memo, he lived in Israel at that point (p. 15).

      (Repost of sorts because my username was too short… sorry mods)

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  14. Overt_Act says:

    The DOJ seems to be really struggling with the Hunter Biden case so perhaps they could use some help. I have a friend with a table saw and scrap wood. I could have him cut some up and collect the sawdust, then send it to the DOJ so they have an actual sample. I don’t have any cocaine for comparison, but having some not-cocaine might get them going in the right direction.
    Would it be better to send it to Garland or just to the office in California where the case is being tried? I worry that the various parts of the organization are so out of contact that the sample might get lost, or that sending some to DC and California might be too confusing for then.

  15. Spank Flaps says:

    Sorry for slight off topic, but Politico and Dave Troy’s reporting on Mike Turner’s “loose lips” on Russian space nukes, is beginning to look like another GRU op, to shut down the back channels which were negotiating to stop Russia testing the weapon.
    Imagine if the GOP were collaborating with the KGB during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

    • wetzel-rhymes-with says:

      Dave Troy is good at what’s going on with state-of-the-art fascist propaganda. I had wanted to comment on his Twitter, but Dave Troy doesn’t follow me, and only people whom he follows comment with him. It would be bots and trolls otherwise. Twitter is a Skinner Box and I’m in a punishment mode too with the application of lack of engagement and loneliness there, though I scroll to forget I’m unhappy. The vocabulary to describe fascism is really hard, I think, like Hannah Arendt had an existentialist language for her time to try to understand fascism, and Umberto Eco used the structure of linguistic sign. I believe the explanations have to be sociological or like Arendt’s involving Being as such or the structure of significations like in Eco because I think fascism is part of the social construction.

      Diversity in culture is inevitable, but what happens to the world when sameness is inevitable? René Girard’s ideas give a picture on fascist propaganda as the resolution of mimetic crisis through sacrificial mechanisms. Are there theoretical frameworks for production? Mike Flynn? FSB? The Pentagon? Fascist propaganda isn’t only the jingoism and effigy, the cocaine in the photographs of Noriega’s closet was actually tamale flour (sawdust?) but the war that is never in the news, like the war on terror, is also a kind of expression the American media is devoted to. A war like Afghanistan that never stops is just a matter of degree, which is why Biden “took the political hit”. He is a good king on that, like fucking George Washington, who ceremonially stepped down.

      I don’t think fascist propaganda in America often was fascist intentionally until Newt Gingrich’s GOPAC Memo, so the generation of fascist propaganda can be institutionalized. I think when the generation of fascist propaganda is institutionalized and real violence is the origin, or atrocity is an intentional spectacle like Ukraine, what terrorists like Hamas do, or Gaza, or when genocide is propaganda, you are on the edge of terror, which I think is a social state like the senescence of a tumor. That is a systems theory analogy where society is like a mechanism for human happiness. It is a deep hole for your people or nation to be trapped down in terror like the Russians. FSB has an institutional memory where the mechanisms for terror requires periodic purges. I believe Putin is remaking the Russian subject as endless war in Ukraine under systematic policing. He has not gotten the social conditions in Russia to where disappearance becomes the symbol of death yet, so he hasn’t remade totalitarianism. Since the beginning of the Ukraine War, I’ve been trying find argument to claim that genocide is the eschatological constitution of the terror state which you can only prove on Twitter by participating. I think Stalin found a socially engineered overlap with mimetic crisis and absence of the difference between truth and fiction when society is generating fascist propaganda for itself. I think something like these theoretical underpinnings as an intentional social production have become he basis for GOP political messaging through the confluence of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s active measures.

      [Moderator’s note: At 524 words this comment is excessively long. This is not the first time you’ve been asked to tighten your prose on comments which do not introduce new material. The next overlong comment may not clear for publication. /~Rayne]

      • wetzel-rhymes-with says:

        I appreciate letting this through, Rayne. Some things are a strain to argue. I appreciate your kindness to me. This is my last long comment here, and I didn’t mean to make this a discussion of the phenomenology of fascist propaganda, though I don’t feel it is off topic because it goes towards how there can be both Hunter Biden’s scandalous laptop and the scandal of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

        Dave Troy doesn’t come up so often. I’m sorry this isn’t new “material” but I never considered the commonalities of Hannah Arendt and Girard or considered why the American media could be so attached to a war they never covered. I appreciate your patience. I’m taking a break from commenting for my mental health (and maybe everyone else’s) and to take care of responsibilities, anyway. I’m trying to finish a country song, “My Dog Is Too Good Looking To Be My Wingman”

        • Ginevra diBenci says:

          wetzel, I hope your break was not in any way occasioned by my request for paragraph breaks. I so value your comments and will await your future contributions eagerly.

          And I love the song title. You’ve got me conjuring a melody in my own head, so I really anticipate the song debut sometime soon.

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        America has had fascist propaganda since the 1920s. Some of America’s wealthiest people liked it. The GOP only mainstreamed it recently.

      • Ginevra diBenci says:

        wetzel, paragraph breaks? Please?

        I’m glad you brought up the Noriega “cocaine.” And Newt, who’s just reared his ugly head again. But it’s too hard to respond to these strong points when they’re buried in undifferentiated prose. You’re tempting your reader to scroll on down to the next comment.

        I struggle with similar impulses. I get it. You can do it; you have done it elsewhere. You owe it to your ideas to give them a better showcase.

  16. flounder says:

    I don’t understand how this guy lies during intake, says he only has $2000, gets a public defender, gets caught actually having $5 million in the back in his and his girlfriend’s bank accounts, then is released pre-trial? Major red flag here. And is this perjury another charge he will get our does he get this lie for free?

    • Rayne says:

      Can we please preface this kind of speculation with a bit more of a caveat, that the link is content by a DKos community member not reviewed by the site?

      It could be wholly accurate but we are DEEP into territory where influence ops will spin wildly to salvage their attacks on Hunter Biden and his father.

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