Sam Corcos, the Treasury Division’s new chief info officer, is married to an investor with ties to Russian oligarchs, whereas funding healthcare ventures that might signify a critical battle of curiosity
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An anti-DOGE protest outdoors the US Treasury constructing in February(Hossein Fatemi / Center East Photographs / Center East Photographs by way of AFP)
A DOGE affiliate who was embedded on the Division of Treasury now has a high job on the company—however his household’s enterprise ties might signify a serious battle of curiosity, The Nation has realized. Sam Corcos based a start-up well being know-how firm with Casey Means, whom President Trump just lately tapped as his nominee for surgeon basic, and now Corcos has been appointed interim chief info officer at Treasury. But Corcos has probably did not disclose his spouse’s personal in depth monetary ties to the healthcare business—in addition to her enterprise dealings with a minimum of one Russian oligarch underneath investigation from American intelligence brokers.
A extremely positioned supply, who requested anonymity out of concern {of professional} reprisals, stated that there have been discussions contained in the company about naming Corcos to the place completely later this 12 months.
In February, Corcos stuffed out a compulsory new entrant public monetary disclosure report that requires new authorities hires to reveal a partner’s belongings and revenue over $1,000. Corcos left the part for his spouse, Varvara Russkova Corcos, clean, however Russkova Corcos has spent the previous couple of years presenting herself because the managing associate of a enterprise capital agency that invests in well being know-how firms. She continues to maintain that job title on her LinkedIn profile and was commenting as an lively investor on LinkedIn as just lately as one month in the past. Two weeks in the past, Corcos filed an modification to his disclosure, including an funding his spouse holds for a well being start-up that’s funded by the Division of Protection.
Russkova Corcos beforehand labored for a sanctioned Russian oligarch named Suleyman Kerimov, and after Treasury officers blocked the belief funding his investments due to his shut ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, she went on to create her personal enterprise capital agency. Instantly earlier than she fashioned that firm, she was managing one other Kremlin-linked Russian know-how investor’s household workplace. That concern additionally scouted funding alternatives in well being know-how.
That Russian investor, Serg Bell, previously referred to as Serguei Beloussov, was underneath investigation by US intelligence as just lately as 2022, in accordance with a report in The Washington Put up. (Bell didn’t reply to an e mail asking him about Russkova Corcos.)
It’s not possible to know whether or not Russkova Corcos has extra unreported present revenue or belongings that Corcos didn’t disclose. However it’s clear that her healthcare pursuits, along with the unknown nature of her investments and her ties to a number of Russian buyers sanctioned or investigated by US companies elevate a possible purple flag.
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Kel McClanahan, the manager director of Nationwide Safety Counselors, who represents shoppers now suing DOGE, argues that Corcos’s elevation doesn’t go the scent take a look at, even in a Trump administration that’s already steeped in corrupt conflicts of curiosity. “It’s clearly an enormous battle of curiosity for somebody with such vital financial ties to a hostile overseas nation to be any degree of officer within the Treasury Division,” McClanahan stated.
Russkova Corcos stated in an e-mailed assertion: “Earlier than my husband entered authorities service, I exited all of my positions within the enterprise agency to keep away from any potential conflicts and to adjust to relevant ethics necessities. We just lately realized that one small, residual place had been inadvertently omitted from the unique disclosure. As quickly as we turned conscious of the oversight, we filed an amended 278e to appropriate the document. Transparency and compliance are crucial to us, and we’ve labored intently with ethics officers to make sure every part is so as.”
Corcos has not responded to requests for remark. E-mails to the Treasury Division, DOGE and the White Home weren’t returned.
The modification to Corcos’s disclosure lists Russkova Corcos’s holdings in a medical system firm known as Sana Well being. The corporate’s web site says, “The Division of Protection has granted Sana Well being a $3.4 million grant to conduct a pivotal examine on PTSD by means of the primary quarter of 2026.”
Corcos detailed that his spouse has realized a carried-interest return of 20 % of the income on a $150,000 funding within the firm from a special-purpose car fund, indicating she was seemingly a fund supervisor for a number of buyers within the firm.
Corcos was named as one of many Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) representatives on the IRS and on the Treasury in early March, and promptly accessed an unlimited trove of delicate non-public taxpayer info. Corcos additionally reportedly used his DOGE credential to plan to enlist a third-party vendor to launch a “hackathon” on the IRS to achieve entry to taxpayer information.
Corcos’s personal firm, Ranges Well being, the analytic platforms he based with surgeon basic nominee Casey Means, seeks to develop well being profiles primarily based on person metabolic information: “With greater than 700 million glucose information factors and a whole bunch of hundreds of meals logs, Ranges leverages its large information set to offer customized insights to members, backed by our panel of skilled advisors,” a 2024 press launch from the corporate detailed. Josh Clemente, a former engineer at Elon Musk’s SpaceX agency, can also be a Ranges founder.
Ranges acquired seed and Collection A funding from Andreessen Horowitz, a enterprise capital agency led by Marc Andreessen, a key MAGA ally in Silicon Valley. Ranges has to this point raised $55 million from its preliminary public funding rounds, however lots of the firm’s buyers are unknown.
Russkova Corcos started searching for Silicon Valley funding for Russian start-ups way back to 2010. By 2012, she was working for a Russian firm known as CardioWave financed by the Russian Enterprise Firm, as she recounted in an article she wrote for a Russian tech web site. She relocated to Boston from Moscow not lengthy after the agency gained the MassChallenge start-up accelerator competitors, in accordance with her résumé.
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The Russian Enterprise Firm would later be sanctioned by the US Treasury in 2022, and was one in all a number of Russian know-how initiatives that American intelligence tracked that 12 months to find out whether or not it was was a part of a covert operation to help Russia in creating quantum and AI tech by funding a community of American start-ups, in accordance with The Washington Put up’s investigation.
Russkova Corcos then went on to work for Kerimov, changing into a enterprise associate to a Silicon Valley enterprise capital agency, GVA Capital. A later investigation discovered that GVA was transferring Kerimov’s cash into San Francisco–space companies from a secretive DC belief. In April 2018, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on Kerimov; Russkova Corcos remained a GVA Capital associate till December 2018.
Kerimov has shut ties to Putin—the European Union has stated Kerimov, value virtually $10 billion, is a part of Putin’s inside circle. The federal regulators who’d blocked Kerimov from tendering additional investments in the US have been primarily based on the Treasury Division, the place Russkova Corcos’s husband is now a high official. Final 12 months, the Justice Division, the FBI, and the IRS positioned Citigroup underneath investigation for its dealing with of Kerimov’s belongings.
Whereas working with Kerimov, Russkova Corcos centered “on the confluence of AI, healthcare, and blockchain know-how,” in accordance with a 2019 interview.
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Simply three months after Russkova Corcos left GVA Capital, she started working for one more suspected Kremlin-linked businessman, Serguei Beloussov, as funding director for his Luxembourg-based household workplace, Arici Lux Sarl. Beloussov, now primarily based in Singapore, modified his title to Serg Bell in 2021.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russian funding in Silicon Valley turned extra controversial. Masha Bucher, one other one in all Bell’s enterprise capitalist protégées primarily based in the US, started to distance herself from the Russian buyers she had earlier touted. Bucher was well-known in Russia as a youthful devotee to Putin, even showing in a documentary kissing him, in accordance with studies.
Russkova Corcos’s LinkedIn profile says she was at Arici from 2019 till December 2020. In a biography for a June 2020 podcast she participated in, she described the funding work she did for Bell:
The household workplace is represented globally, investing primarily within the US/UK/EU. Investing in AI, well being tech and sport tech. An skilled in enterprise improvement, beforehand a start-up founder (medical system). Enthusiastic about shifting well being care from sick care to precise healthcare and wellness, with the assistance of linked units, exact diagnostics and predictive analytics.
Her LinkedIn profile additionally lists positions at two different Bell-founded corporations: director of life science at Acronis and director of enterprise improvement at Schaffhausen Institute of Know-how, now Constructor Institute, between June 2019 and December 2020.
Russkova Corcos was shut sufficient to Bell to be described in a UK lawsuit as working as Bell’s direct consultant to funding companions, dealing with his e-mail correspondence in April 2019..
Along with founding Acronis, Bell has additionally launched a enterprise capital agency, Runa Capital. Putin’s digital improvement envoy, Dmitry Peskov, has harassed Bell’s strategic significance for Russian pursuits. “Acronis groups, even in non-public, do loads for the nation,” Peskov stated in 2019. “The function, for instance, of Serguei Beloussov, the chief of the Acronis crew, in launching a big state-owned quantum computing system in Russia is just not very public now, however it can’t be overestimated.”
In a June 2020 podcast, Russkova Corcos defined her work main Bell’s household workplace investments. “We concentrate on well being tech,” she stated, including that she can also be “driving help of life science effort(s) for start-ups” for Acronis. She additionally mentions “a private funding” she had in an organization related to one Acronis partnered with. Bell has denied that he maintains shut ties to the Kremlin.
Three months after leaving her three positions at Bell’s firms, in accordance with her résumé, Russkova Corcos started selling her personal new VC agency and herself as an investor in healthcare know-how.
The web footprint for that VC firm, ATTA Ventures, is minimal. There isn’t a American company registration by that title, nor any with Russkova Corcos’s maiden or married names. The agency has not disclosed any investments or buyers publicly.
A former worker of ATTA Ventures advised The Nation that Russkova Corcos labored with buyers she pulled from her community, principally from Asia and the United Arab Emirates, though their actual identities have been “secret.”
Russkova Corcos continues to touch upon LinkedIn as an lively investor; the web site for ATTA Ventures stays dwell, though not up to date because it launched in 2021, and her ATTA Ventures e-mail deal with stays lively.
If Corcos have been to grow to be an everyday authorities worker, the traditional protocol can be for Treasury’s ethics counsel to evaluation his and his partner’s monetary holdings for any conflicts of curiosity. However Trump’s administration has dismantled many fundamental protections towards overseas affect—one in all US Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi’s first strikes was to disband the FBI process pressure that countered the affect of hostile overseas governments in American politics. So a DOGE official who has already commandeered huge tranches of delicate Treasury information might be on target to have the federal forms fully disregard an array of compromising monetary information inside his family.
Jacqueline Candy
Jacqueline Candy is an impartial investigative journalist whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Guardian, Politico, and The Intercept.
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