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F.B.I. Shed Informants Linked to Russian Influence Operations

After a secret review several years ago, the bureau cut off confidential sources thought to be connected to Russian disinformation.

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Soldiers in dark clothes with Russian flags on their arms stand in formation in front of large military vehicles and the Kremlin during a military parade.

Russian soldiers during a military parade in Moscow this month. The F.B.I. tries to maintain a difficult balance in spy operations: The more access informants have to valuable intelligence, the higher the risk that they could be compromised.Credit…Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

The F.B.I. cut ties to at least a handful of informants and issued warnings about dozens of others after an internal review prompted by concerns that they were linked to Russian disinformation, current and former U.S. officials said.

The review was carried out in 2020 and 2021 by a small group within the bureau’s counterintelligence division, with the findings then passed along to field offices, which handle informants.

It led to the severing of sources — some of whom had offered information about Russia-aligned oligarchs, political leaders and other influential figures — at a moment when the bureau was asking agents to produce more information from and about those same networks. The review was conducted during and after the 2020 election, when concerns about Russian meddling were running high, and at a time when the United States was closely monitoring whether Russia would invade Ukraine.

The episode highlighted a tricky balance: The more access informants have to valuable intelligence, the higher the risk that they could knowingly or unknowingly be used to channel disinformation. This is particularly true with regard to post-Soviet countries, where shifting alliances among oligarchs, politicians and intelligence services have far-reaching consequences that can be difficult for Western governments to discern.

Even in an age of high-tech intelligence gathering and surveillance, human sources continue to play an important role in law enforcement and national security, giving agents the chance to gather insights and perspective that cannot always be gleaned from communications intercepts, for example.

The New York Times has independently confirmed, but is not disclosing, the identities of several of the F.B.I. informants who provided information about Russia and Ukraine and who were cut off around the time of the review by the bureau’s counterintelligence division, including one informant that predated the review.

The F.B.I. had been aware of Russian disinformation efforts and eventually became concerned that the campaign extended to informants being used by the F.B.I.Credit…Michael A. McCoy for The New York Times

Johnathan C. Buma, an F.B.I. agent who oversaw at least four of the informants who were dropped, suggested in a written statement provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee last year that law enforcement should embrace the murkiness that comes with operating in the shadows.

“Typical disinformation operations are based on partial truths, and the only way to determine the veracity of the allegations is to conduct an independent investigation to attempt corroboration,” Mr. Buma wrote in explaining his opposition to the terminations.

His statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is led by Democrats, as well as a statement Mr. Buma submitted earlier to a special subcommittee of the Republican-controlled House, came after he filed a whistle-blower complaint accusing the F.B.I. of suppressing intelligence from his sources and retaliating against him.

The F.B.I. is investigating Mr. Buma’s dealings with an informant he worked with after the bureau cut off those identified in the counterintelligence review, a person familiar with the matter said.

The F.B.I. had been aware of Russian disinformation efforts for years, and eventually became concerned that the campaign extended to its own informants.

In particular, the F.B.I. watched as informants across the bureau’s different divisions began peddling new information that was politically explosive. It included reports regarding President Biden’s family and former President Donald J. Trump, as well as other inflammatory topics, according to former and current U.S. officials and an ex-informant for the counterintelligence division.

The types of concerns that prompted the review spilled into public view in February, when prosecutors indicted a longtime informant on Russia and Ukraine matters, Alexander Smirnov, for lying to the F.B.I.

Prosecutors accused him of fabricating claims about bribes paid to the Bidens by a Ukrainian energy company whose board included the president’s son, Hunter Biden. Prosecutors said Mr. Smirnov had passed along information about Hunter Biden — though they did not provide specifics — from Russian intelligence.

Mr. Smirnov was flagged as part of the F.B.I. review but he was not shut down, because information he was providing was being used in other investigations, the former and current U.S. officials said.

Alexander Smirnov, center, left a courthouse in Las Vegas in February.Credit…Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal, via Associated Press

Around the time of the review, the F.B.I. circulated internal memos to agents hinting at competing imperatives. On the one hand, agents were instructed to gather more intelligence from informants about Russian efforts to meddle in U.S. politics, and to retaliate against the United States for its support of Ukraine.

On the other, they were urged to be on the lookout for disinformation, misinformation or influence operations from foreign governments that took aim at American politics, according to the memos, which were obtained by The Times.

The memos, each of which was labeled “collection priorities message,” listed the identification numbers and handling agents of informants who could be of assistance on such matters. The memos do not mention the terminations, or any concerns about specific informants.

A former official said that dozens of F.B.I. agents in field offices were warned to handle their informants, known as confidential human sources, with extra care because the Russians might have been aware of their contact with the United States. Under bureau policy, the decision to end relationships with informants rests with the F.B.I. field offices and not headquarters.

A U.S. official described this effort as an “awareness campaign” inside the F.B.I.

The bureau’s sources are often encouraged to maintain associations with criminal figures or foreign intelligence services. The idea is for them to report back on those associates; in the process, though, they can become conduits used by those associates to inject false information — intentionally or unknowingly — into the realms of U.S. law enforcement or intelligence.

Some terminations in early 2022 were classified as precautionary and not for cause, according to Mr. Buma’s statement and one of his former informants. That suggests there was no specific evidence that those informants had willfully tried to channel Russian disinformation into federal law enforcement, but rather that there was concern that they might have done so unwittingly, or merely been associated with people believed to be pushing disinformation, or politically motivated information.

Information provided by one of Mr. Buma’s terminated informants, an American businessman with deep connections overseas, was used by the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, according to Mr. Buma’s statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Other information from the businessman was used to revoke the U.S. visa of a Ukrainian-Russian oligarch and to support the decision to impose sanctions on a Ukrainian oligarch who had been a key backer of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, according to Mr. Buma’s statement. And it was used to identify two corrupt federal law enforcement agents.

Among the associations that appear to have raised red flags within the F.B.I. was the businessman’s recruitment of two Ukrainians who would themselves become F.B.I. informants. One of the Ukrainians was a former K.G.B. agent who had become a Ukrainian intelligence operative, who developed high-level Ukrainian government contacts through his leadership of a foundation dedicated to tracking kleptocracy, according to Mr. Buma’s statement. It identified the other as a researcher for the foundation who had a background in economics.

In January 2019, according to interviews and Mr. Buma’s statement, the two Ukrainians traveled to the Los Angeles area for meetings during which they provided information to representatives from the F.B.I. and other agencies about oligarchs, money laundering and Ukrainian and American political figures.

Among their claims was one that Hunter Biden had failed to disclose lobbying he did for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, and had failed to pay taxes on income from the company. Mr. Biden was not charged with lobbying violations. He was charged last year with failure to file tax returns covering millions of dollars in income from Burisma and other foreign businesses. It is not clear whether information from the two Ukrainian informants played any role in the investigation.

Hunter Biden was charged last year with failure to file tax returns covering millions of dollars in income from Burisma.Credit…Kenny Holston/The New York Times

The F.B.I. first pressed to cut off the businessman after he and the two Ukrainians attended a conservative gala in May 2019. At the event, the Ukrainians presented a thumb drive containing allegations about Mr. Biden and other Democrats to an aide traveling with Mike Pompeo, then the secretary of state, according to internal F.B.I. reports and an article published in Business Insider.

Mr. Buma successfully resisted efforts to terminate the American businessman.

Mr. Buma argued that the informant was granting the F.B.I. a critical view into a murky world that was increasingly important to U.S. national security as Russia built up its efforts to influence American politics and exert control over Ukraine, according to interviews and the statement Mr. Buma provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Buma had been trained by the bureau to speak Russian. Part of his job was identifying and recruiting informants with access to Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, politicians and their networks.

The American businessman became “one of the F.B.I.’s top C.H.S.s whose reporting had been extensively corroborated through predicated investigations, with numerous well-documented high-impact successes related to countering foreign influence and public corruption on both sides of the political spectrum,” Mr. Buma wrote in his statement to the Senate, referring to confidential human sources.

Yet, in the weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the bureau again expressed concerns about the businessman and other sources connected to him.

In a meeting in February 2022, an official with the bureau’s Foreign Influence Task Force told Mr. Buma that he was “not the only field agent whom they were asking to close their sources related to Russia/Ukraine matters just as the war erupted,” Mr. Buma wrote in his statement to the Senate. “When I questioned the wisdom of their request, the supervising analyst claimed their recommendation relied on highly classified information from the National Security Agency.”

The informants were closed out, as were others linked to the businessman, including, Mr. Buma recalled in his statement, “many other productive sources in that category who took years for me to develop.”

An apartment building destroyed by bombs in Kharkiv, Ukraine, last month. In the weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the F.B.I.’s foreign influence task force renewed its effort to close out several sources.Credit…Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Mr. Buma suggested in his statement that the closures were an effort to shut down investigations that might implicate Trump allies, including Rudolph W. Giuliani. Mr. Buma had collected information from the businessman about Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to damage the Bidens by highlighting their work in Ukraine.

The F.B.I. declined to comment on Mr. Buma’s claims.

Mr. Buma privately discussed his allegations last summer with Republican staff members for the House subcommittee and with aides to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who chairs the oversight subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

There is no evidence that either congressional committee is investigating his claims. A spokesman for the House subcommittee declined to comment, while representatives for the Senate Judiciary Committee and Mr. Whitehouse did not respond.

Months later, Mr. Buma’s home was searched for classified information by the F.B.I. Mr. Buma has been suspended from the bureau, but he has not been criminally charged.

Scott Horton, a lawyer for Mr. Buma, cast the investigation as “revenge” against his client for having suggested that the F.B.I.’s handling of confidential sources was affected by political bias against the Bidens and in favor of Mr. Trump’s allies.

Mr. Horton said he had met with Hunter Biden’s lawyers to discuss how Mr. Buma’s story might be of assistance. Another lawyer for Mr. Buma, Mark Geragos, is also representing Mr. Biden.

Kenneth P. Vogel is based in Washington and investigates the intersection of money, politics and influence. More about Kenneth P. Vogel

Adam Goldman writes about the F.B.I. and national security. He has been a journalist for more than two decades. More about Adam Goldman

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 12 of the New York edition with the headline: F.B.I. Shed Informants Tied to Russian Schemes. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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Russian, U.S. Defense Chiefs Discussed Lowering Escalation In Call, Moscow Says

U.S. President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy (right) during the NATO summit on July 11. Biden introduced Zelenskiy as "President Putin" before quickly correcting himself.

U.S. President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy (right) during the NATO summit on July 11. Biden introduced Zelenskiy as “President Putin” before quickly correcting himself.

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking in a highly anticipated news conference following the conclusion of the NATO summit in Washington on July 11, stressed his efforts building partnerships to oppose Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and said he would “keep NATO strong.”

“For those who thought NATO’s time had passed, they got a rude awakening when [Russian President Vladimir] Putin invaded Ukraine,” Biden said.

In an eight-minute opening address that often took on the appearance of a campaign speech at a time when his pursuit of a second presidential term is being openly questioned, Biden lauded his early action in alerting the world that Russia was about to invade its neighbor and in building a coalition of partners to oppose it.

Biden said that Putin thought that Ukraine would fall “in less than a week,” but that the country “still stands.” He also said that he would do everything to “end the war now.”

The press appearance was seen as a pivotal moment in Biden’s attempts to overcome his disastrous performance during his debate two weeks ago against Donald Trump, his presumptive Republican opponent in the November presidential election.

The 81-year-old Biden’s tired appearance and verbal missteps during the June 27 debate fueled doubts about his ability to beat Trump or to serve a full second term should he win. Calls have grown among Democratic supporters and elected officials for Biden to end his campaign, although high-ranking party figures have continued to support his bid to win a second term in office.

Going into what some described as a make-or-break press appearance following the NATO summit, Biden was already facing criticism for mistakenly referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “President Putin.”

Early on in the press conference, Biden made another gaffe when he mistakenly referred to Trump as his “vice president.”

When pressed by reporters during a 50-minute question-and-answer session about his fitness for another term, Biden made his case for continuing his campaign, saying neurological exams showed that he was “in good shape” and insisting that he was the “best qualified to govern” the United States.

In the aftermath of a NATO summit in which the alliance boosted its support for Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself against Russia and referred to China as a “decisive enabler” of Moscow’s war effort, Biden said that in the event of future negotiations with Russian President Putin or Chinese President Xi Jinping, he was “ready to deal with them now, and in three years.”

However, he added, that he was not ready to talk to Putin “unless Putin is ready to change his behavior.”

“The idea that we’re going to be able to fundamentally change Russia in the near term is not likely,” Biden said. “But one thing is for certain, if we allow Russia to succeed in Ukraine, they’re not stopping at Ukraine.”

Biden said, however, that the United States would take a cautious approach on the issue of allowing Ukraine to launch deep strikes into Russian territory.

“We’re making on a day-to-day basis on what they should and shouldn’t do, how far they should go in,” Biden said. “That’s a logical thing to do.”

The comments came after Ukrainian President Zelenskiy pressed NATO leaders to lift all restrictions against Kyiv using their donated weaponry to launch long-range strikes onto Russian territory if they want to see Ukraine defeat Russia’s invading forces.

“If he [Zelenskiy] had the capacity to strike Moscow, strike the Kremlin, would that make sense? It wouldn’t,” Biden said.

The United States in early May gave Kyiv the green light to use U.S. weapons to strike just over the border on Russian territory to help Ukraine beat back a major Russian offensive near Kharkiv.

Biden, in a meeting with Zelenskiy earlier in the day, said he was pleased to announce the allocation of new aid to Ukraine to help it defeat Russia.

“We will stay with you, period,” Biden said ahead of bilateral talks.

The United States later announced it would be sending $225 million worth of military equipment to Ukraine, the eight tranche since the passage of a $61 billion aid package in April. The latest tranche includes a Patriot missile battery, anti-aircraft systems and munitions, as well as artillery ammunition and rockets.

During his press appearance following the end of the NATO summit, Biden positioned himself as a protector of the alliance, while casting Trump as a danger.

Biden accused Trump, who during his presidency from 2017 to 2021 often criticized NATO members and suggested he might pull the United States out of the alliance, as having “no commitment to NATO.”

“He’s made it clear that he would feel no obligation to honor Article 5,” Biden said of Trump, referring to the NATO defense pact that requires the alliance to respond in the event any individual member state is attacked.

Biden also claimed that during the NATO summit, other leaders had told him that another Trump presidency would be a “disaster.”

“I’ve not had any of my European allies come up here and say ‘Joe, don’t run,'” Biden told reporters. “What I hear them say is ‘You’ve gotta win. You can’t let this guy [Trump] come forward, he’d be a disaster.'”

After Biden’s gaffe in which he introduced Ukrainian President Zelenskiy as “President Putin” before quickly correcting himself, some NATO leaders came to his defense.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that Biden was “in charge” during the two-day summit, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that “slips of tongue happen.”

During the question-and-answer session, however, at least one reporter suggested that NATO officials had said off the record that Biden’s “decline had become noticeable.”

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@sentdefender: RT by @mikenov: U.S. Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin held a Phone Call today with Russian Minister of Defense, Andrey Belousov in the Second Discussion between the Two Officials in less than Three Weeks about the Lowering of Escalations, with the Call today said to have been requested by the…

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