The Smirnov Indictment

Part 1 - Overview and mid-Sept 2017 Kyiv Meeting

On February 14, 2023, Alexander Smirnov, a long-time FBI “confidential human source”, was indicted by Biden “special counsel” David Weiss on four (sub)counts of lying to the FBI and for having “knowingly cause[d]” false entries in a FD-1023: link.

The indictment contains two parallel narratives of Smirnov’s contact with Burisma and Burisma executives:

• in one narrative, Smirnov had a series of uneventful contacts and business meetings with Burisma beginning in early 2017 and ending in early 2018, evidenced by emails and travel records

• in the parallel narrative of the highly publicized 2020 FD1023 released by Senator Grassley on July 23, 2023 (link), Smirnov had claimed to have had eventful contacts with Burisma in late 2015 and 2016 at which Burisma officials had told lurid stories of Biden corruption; followed three years later by a 2019 telephone call with top Burisma official Zlochevsky with more lurid stories.

  • The indictment alleged that none of these contacts in 2015, 2016 or 2019 actually happened and that the lurid corruption claims were therefore disinformation;

  • The indictment also claimed that Smirnov’s alleged fabrications were the product of extreme animus against the Bidens, citing, as supposed proof, a series of May 19, 2020 texts (in extremely large font for emphasis) in which Smirnov reported corruption allegations against the Bidens.

But when one looks closely at the details, some big questions emerge - first as mere questions and then as challenges as to whether Weiss’ entire theory is an artifact of a totally screwed up chronology in the 2020 FD2023.

• there is convincing evidence (from the parties to the meeting and location and language of the meeting) that one of the key meetings attributed in the FD1023 to late 2015 is a doppelganger for a firmly documented meeting in mid-September 2017. Even if (and especially if) Smirnov wanted to lie about the substance of the meeting, why would he lie about the date (and even year) of the meeting? Establishing that people were in the same room at the same time has been the first principle of dissemblers.

• it appears likely to me that Smirnov provided a relative chronology of three consecutive events: his meeting in Kyiv with Associate 2 and Burisma officials, a meeting in Vienna a couple of months later with Zlochevsky which occurred around the time of a Joe Biden speech about the firing of Shokin. The FD1023 and Indictment connected the Biden speech about firing Shokin to Biden’s December 7, 2015 speech at the Ukrainian Rada and dated the Kyiv and Vienna meetings accordingly. However, Biden (notoriously) made a much more highly publicized speech about firing Shokin on January 23, 2018 at the Council of Foreign Relations (link) - an event that was not mentioned by Weiss. If Smirnov’s relative chronology is connected to Biden’s January 23, 2018 speech, then all the events match with the documented chronology.

• by coincidence or not (and I think not), the date of January 23, 2018 actually occurs in the Weiss Indictment in a different context: on the day of Biden’s notorious speech, Smirnov and Associate 2 (a crypto businessman) were in London near Knightsbridge, when Smirnov claimed (presumably according to Associate 2) to have received a call from Zlochevsky. In the parallel narrative, Weiss claims that Smirnov lied about receiving a call from Zlochevsky in 2019 when he was in London near Knightsbridge.

• Weiss failed to disclose critical context for Smirnov’s May 19, 2020 texts about Biden corruption, texts supposedly showing animus. On that date, Ukrainian parliamentarian Andrii Derkach and prominent Ukrainian prosecutor Konstantin Kulyk had held a press conference (in Ukrainian) at which they had released troubling tapes of Biden-Poroshenko conversations and made sensational allegations of Biden corruption. Smirnov was reporting up-to-the-minute news to his handler.

In this article, I’ll look at several of the key details in the above outline and will try to elucidate further as I have time.

Fixed Point 1: Burisma meeting in Kyiv, mid-September 2017

A critical issue in the proposed interpretation is the proposal that the description of the meeting in Kyiv dated by the FD1023 and Indictment to “late 2015/2016” matches the description of the documented meeting in Kyiv in mid-September 2017 that included Smirnov’s Associate 2 (“an American who owned a cryptocurrency business”.

Paragraph 31 of the Indictment (based on documents and presumably the evidence of Associate 2) stated that the meeting was also attended by “Burisma officials”, including Zlochevsky’s daughter (Burisma Official 3), that the meeting was “in Russian” (which Associate 2 did not understand) and that their attempt to pitch crypto business was unsuccessful, as Burisma’s interest was in an oil and gas producer. Paragraph 31k noted that Associate 2 had also “attended the [doppelganger] first meeting” between Smirnov and Burisma executives.

A crypto business conference was concurrently taking place in Kyiv between September 16-19, 2017, featuring several prominent crypto businessmen. One can reasonably conclude that Associate 2 (and Smirnov) attended this conference and that their trip to Kyiv was motivated, at least in part, by this crypto conference.

The 2020 FD1023 (see two versions below) also contained a description of a meeting in Kyiv (dated by the FD1023 to “late 2015 or 2016”) involving Associate 2 (an USPER who does not speak Russian), Zlochevsky’s daughter (Burisma Official 3) and her husband, Burisma’s CFO and Vadim Pozharskyi (Burisma Official 2). The meeting was in Russian.

Associate 2’s travel records (paragraph 31o) showed that September 2017 was his first trip outside North America since 2011 (and he therefore could not have attended the supposed “2015” meeting. Nor would there have been any reason for a crypto businessman to travel to Ukraine for the supposed 2015 meeting with Burisma.

Weiss’ description of attendees at the (documented) 2017 meeting is troublingly incomplete: “representatives of Burisma, including the daughter of Burisma’s owner”. Did the Burisma representatives known to Weiss to be at the meeting include Pozharskyi, Burisma’s CFO, Zlochevsky’s son-in-law - further matching the doppelganger “2015” meeting to the known 2017 meeting?

In particular, it seems highly implausible that Pozharskyi (attested by Smirnov at the doppelganger meeting) would not have been at the documented September 2017 meeting.

Nor does it seem implausible that Pozharskyi could have made the following comments, attributed in the FD1023 to the doppelganger “2015” meeting, at the actual mid-September 2017 meeting.

The Weiss Indictment (based presumably on an interview with Associate 2) says that, after the September 2017 meeting on the drive to the hotel, Smirnov “did not describe to Associate 2 “any discussion of [Hunter Biden] or [Joe Biden]”. This may or may not be true, but obviously does not preclude possibility that the discussion (in Russian) reported by Smirnov.

The first count of the Indictment (para 57a) alleged that Smirnov lied about meeting with Pozharskyi “in late 2015/2016” and that at that meeting, Pozharskyi told him that Burisma hired Hunter Biden “to protect us, through his dad”.

There was no 2015-2016 meeting in Kyiv involving Smirnov, Associate 2 and Pozharskyi. But there was a September 2017 meeting in Kyiv involving Smirnov, Associate 2, at which Pozharskyi was almost certainly present (though this was not disclosed by Weiss.) It’s entirely plausible that Pozharskyi made these claims at the September 2017 meeting, which was in Russian and not understood by Associate 2.

The Second Kyiv Meeting with Burisma and Associate 2

The Indictment (para 31q) also reported that Smirnov and Associate 2 met with Burisma in Kyiv to promote their crypto scheme in late January 2018. This trip was also unsuccessful. On this occasion, the meeting was with Pozharskyi (Burisma Official 2) and was in English. There is no indication that Biden was discussed at this meeting.

When Smirnov was eventually questioned by Weiss et al, Smirnov confirmed his recollection that Associate 2 was present for two meetings with Burisma (which matches the documents) and stated that there were “maybe two to five meetings”:

To be continued.