There is a new staffer from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency seeking access to sensitive data at the IRS — and his family has ties to a sanctioned Russian oligarch.
The Washington Post recently reported that two DOGE representatives, Gavin Kliger and Sam Corcos, have been at the IRS seeking private taxpayer information in unprecedented ways that would violate current IRS privacy law.
Corcos demanded “detailed taxpayer and vendor information” when he arrived at IRS headquarters late last week, according to the Post. IT workers at the agency initially refused, based on Corcos’ lack of background and tax checks. By the end of the day, Kliger and Corcos were discussing the idea of an “omnibus” agreement that would allow agencies across the government to access taxpayer data and use it to hunt for instances of fraud.
Acting IRS commissioner Melanie Krause has signaled openness to DOGE’s demands, according to reports.
The IRS typically closely guards taxpayer data, with federal law prohibiting the agency from sharing it with other agencies. Violations of taxpayer privacy law carry both civil and criminal liability.
Since Donald Trump took office, Musk and DOGE have moved to fire tens of thousands of federal workers while demanding sweeping access to sensitive personal data and government systems. Musk’s blitz through federal agencies has largely been led by inexperienced staffers with ties to Silicon Valley or Musk’s businesses — many of them young, like Kliger.
The Post didn’t provide additional information about Corcos’ background or identity, but he is the CEO of a health-care tech company and has multiple ties to Musk’s company SpaceX.
The New York Times reported that Corcos is the CEO of the health care start-up Levels. A career federal employee confirmed Corcos’ identity to Rolling Stone, and says Corcos has been embedded at the Treasury Department.
Corcos, 36, founded Levels in 2019 with a former SpaceX lead engineer and Dr. Casey Means. Means is a holistic doctor with ties to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Corcos’ brother interned at SpaceX, according to his social media accounts.
Levels received seed and Series A funding from Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm led by Trump donor Marc Andreessen. Levels describes itself as “metabolic health company using [continuing glucose monitors] to help people make healthier choices.”
Corcos’ wife, Varvara Russkova Corcos, spent three years at the VC firm GVA Capital, which was previously exposed as a vehicle for one of the richest oligarchs in Russia, Suleyman Kerimov, to funnel his money into various American companies.
An investigation by the San Francisco Standard detailed the elaborate web of shell companies used by GVA to distribute $28 million of Kerimov’s money into Bay Area investments in 2015 and 2016, revealed in court filings and offshore company databases.
Kerimov’s money flowed into various companies via GVA Capital from a Delaware trust called Heritage Trust. The U.S. Treasury Department blocked the trust and made its funds inaccessible in 2022, saying it was created to obscure Kerimov’s interests in U.S.-based assets.
Heritage Trust was also how Kerimov invested in SpaceX in 2017, holding what was then 1 percent of the company, and he continued to hold the stake even after he was first sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2018, according to a recent report by Bloomberg News.
By 2022, when the U.S. Treasury Department blocked the $1 billion Heritage Trust, the SpaceX holding had “already been disposed of,” Bloomberg reported.
Russkova Corcos was one of three “venture partners” listed on GVA’s archived website, and she worked with the firm from 2016 to 2019, according to her LinkedIn. Corcos and Russkova married some time after 2020.
One of the founders of GVA Capital, which was registered in the Cayman Islands, was Pavel Cherkashin. In an interview with the San Francisco Standard, Cherkashin said he “enjoyed working with” Kerimov and had no hesitations about doing so, noting that Kerimov “wasn’t sanctioned at that time.”
The DOGE staffer’s wife, Russkova Corcos, was also involved in another GVA-funded crypto venture with Cherkashin. That venture began in 2017 and beta launched in 2018, according to an archived version of its website.
Kerimov is worth an estimated $10.9 billion, and represents the Republic of Dagestan in the Federation Council of Russia. He is considered close to Vladimir Putin, according to the European Union, which described his ties to Putin in its decision to sanction him.
Kerimov received “large sums of money from Sergei Roldugin, who is the caretaker of Vladimir Putin’s wealth,” the Official Journal of the European Union said in 2022. Kerimov attended a February 2022 meeting of oligarchs at the Kremlin with Putin to discuss the effects of Western sanctions, according to the European Union.
Some of Kerimov’s immediate family members were also sanctioned by the Treasury in 2022, and a $300 million yacht that the U.S. claims secretly belongs to Kerimov was seized in Fiji in 2022. Kerimov started intermittently turning off his yacht tracking in the weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine.
The same month that the U.S. first sanctioned Kerimov, April 2018, the names of most of GVA’s principals and venture partners, including Russkova Corcos, were wiped from the GVA website, according to archived snapshots of the site.
Russkova Corcos is a Moscow native who developed two startups that she sought American funding for, in Boston and then San Francisco, one that used Russian aviation technology, before partnering with GVA in 2016. She now lists herself as an angel investor, working with a San Francisco-based company called Atta Ventures “investing in health tech, fintech and future of work.”
There is no evidence that Russkova Corcos committed any wrongdoing while working with GVA Capital.
Citigroup is being investigated by the Justice Department, the FBI, and the IRS for its handling of Heritage Trust’s assets, according to a report in Bloomberg late last year.
“The federal government has an enormous amount of information about every human in the country. Part of the social contract between the government and the people is that that information will be safeguarded,” says Kel McClanahan, the Executive Director of National Security Counselors, a public interest law firm that specializes in national security and privacy issues. McClanahan (who’s represented Rolling Stone previously) is representing federal employees in a class action suit against Trump’s Office of Personnel Management that alleges the agency illegally used an insecure server in mass emails to government staffers.
Corcos and Russkova Corcos did not respond to Rolling Stone’s requests for comment, nor did spokespeople for the White House, Treasury, and IRS.
In recent years, Russkova Corcos has posted critically about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and in support of late Russian dissident Alexei Navalany on Facebook.
Last month, the Trump administration disbanded the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force. This week, Trump announced his administration is gutting an anti-money laundering law requiring shell companies to disclose their owners and beneficiaries. This move will likely complicate efforts to trace money trails in U.S. business by foreign investors.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
