Posted on 11/17/2021 8:01:58 AM PST by Kaslin
Emails obtained via an open records request provide a picture of the politics behind the players who formulated and fed the Alfa Bank theory via Michael Sussmann to the FBI.
While Dagon may have been an expert in the data crunching, emails recently obtained by The Federalist from Georgia Tech reveal Dagon was something more—he was an anti-Trump, Russia-collusion conspiracy theorist.
Dagon’s name first became connected with the Alfa Bank story when Special Counsel John Durham indicted Michael Sussmann two months ago, charging the Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer with lying to FBI General Counsel James Baker.
According to the indictment, when Sussmann met with Baker on September 19, 2016, and provided the top FBI lawyer with “white papers” and data files purporting to establish a secret communications channel between the Trump organization and the now famous Russia-connected Alfa Bank, Sussmann falsely claimed he was not there on behalf of a client. In truth, though, Sussmann was working both for the Clinton campaign and an unnamed “U.S. technology industry executive,” the indictment charged.
The 27-page speaking indictment then detailed the origins of the Alfa Bank story. In July 2016, a computer researcher, using the moniker “Tea Leaves” and referred to in the Sussmann indictment as “Originator-1,” “had assembled purported DNS data reflecting apparent DNS lookups between Russian Bank-1 and an email domain, ‘mail1.trump-email.com.” “Tea Leaves,” a business associate of Tech-Executive 1, shared her information with Tech-Executive 1 and others, with Tech-Executive 1 alerting Sussmann to the data.
According to the indictment, Tech Executive-1 later “exploited his access to non-public data at multiple Internet companies to conduct opposition research concerning Trump,” and enlisted “the assistance of researchers at a U.S.-based university who were receiving and analyzing Internet data in connection with a pending federal government cybersecurity research contract.”
The indictment further alleged that in early August 2016, “Tech Executive-1 directed and caused employees of two companies in which he had an ownership interest,” “to search and analyze their holdings of public and non-public internet data for derogatory information on Trump.” He also “tasked originator-1 and two computer researchers (‘Researcher-1’ and ‘Research-2’) who worked at a U.S.-based university (‘University-1’) to search broadly through Internet data for any information about Trump’s potential ties to Russia.” Among the data searched, the indictment alleged, was data Tech-Executive 1 had provided to Originator-1, Researcher-1, and Researcher-2.
Tech Executive 1 had provided the researchers access to that data to allow them to establish “proof of concept” for work they were seeking to perform under a government contract, which was eventually awarded in November 2016. Some of the data the university accessed from Tech-Executive 1’s internet company during this “proof of concept” stage included data the company had access to because it was a “sub-contractor in a sensitive relationship between the U.S. government and another company.”
While the data was provided to allow the researchers to protect U.S. networks from cyberattacks, according to the indictment, Originator-1, Researcher-1, and Researcher 2 also exploited the “data to assist Tech Executive-1 in his efforts to conduct research concerning Trump’s potential ties to Russia,” including the allegations about the secret communication channel between Trump’s organizations and Alfa Bank.
Within hours of the indictment dropping in mid-September, internet sleuths began postulating on the likely names behind the numbering. By month’s end, the players went public, lawyers in hand.
The attorney for Manos Antonakakis, Mark Schamel, told The New York Times that his client, the unnamed “Researcher-1” and a computer scientist at Georgia Tech, had “provided feedback on an early draft of data that was cause for additional investigation.” Their hypothesis, “to this day, remains a plausible working theory,” Schamel, claimed.
Lawyers for Dagon confirmed to The New York Times that he was the second Georgia Tech data scientist discussed in the indictment. Dagon’s attorneys were more positive in their rejoinder, telling the Times the Alfa Bank results “have been validated and are reproducible. The findings of the researchers were true then and remain true today; reports that these findings were innocuous or a hoax are simply wrong.”
“Originator-1” is April Lorenzen, her attorney, Michael J. Connolly, confirmed. Lorenzen, the chief data scientist for Zetalytics, has “dedicated her life to the critical work of thwarting dangerous cyberattacks on our country,” Connolly intoned, adding: “Any suggestion that she engaged in wrongdoing is unequivocally false.”
And then there’s the man behind the mission: Tech Executive-1, identified as Rodney Joffe. Joffe’s lawyer, Steven A. Tyrrell, told the Times “his client had a duty to share the information with the F.B.I. and that the indictment “gratuitously presents an incomplete and misleading picture” of his role.
Emails obtained via an open records request to Georgia Tech, however, provide a picture of the politics behind the players who formulated and fed the Alfa Bank theory to Sussman, who in turn peddled it to the FBI. Some of the emails showed Joffe, Antonakakis, Dagon, and Lorenzen, or some combination of the four, merely exchanging media links of anti-Trump articles related to Trump or his team and supposed Russia connections.
But after Trump’s victory and later inauguration, the vitriol and tinfoil hattery lived loudly within emails Dagon sent.
“The Russians are killing spies with knowledge of the dossier materials,” Dagon wrote to Antonakakis in late January, linking to an Inquisitr.com article reporting of the death of a former KGB chief who allegedly helped to compile the “golden showers” dossier on Trump. Dagon then said his guess was “the purged NSC will now say that Russia has given us great intel on ISIS, and that we should lift sanctions now that Russia is helping.” “All this to protect Trump from the dossier materials,” Dagon ended his tirade.
A few minutes later, Antonakakis replied, “What the f-ck is going on? Can you please explain why GOP is not doing something?” Dagon’s response could have been a parody, but it wasn’t:
But after Trump’s victory and later inauguration, the vitriol and tinfoil hattery lived loudly within emails Dagon sent.
“The Russians are killing spies with knowledge of the dossier materials,” Dagon wrote to Antonakakis in late January, linking to an Inquisitr.com article reporting of the death of a former KGB chief who allegedly helped to compile the “golden showers” dossier on Trump. Dagon then said his guess was “the purged NSC will now say that Russia has given us great intel on ISIS, and that we should lift sanctions now that Russia is helping.” “All this to protect Trump from the dossier materials,” Dagon ended his tirade.
A few minutes later, Antonakakis replied, “What the f-ck is going on? Can you please explain why GOP is not doing something?” Dagon’s response could have been a parody, but it wasn’t:
You said it. They sure are, and not only that, they are also thief s
Bump since Durham has been in the news today
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