90 Miles From Tyranny

Wednesday, March 9, 2022

Researcher Behind Trump Alfa Bank Story Tried To Furiously Fight Off Special Counsel Investigation

New documents show the Georgia Tech researcher holds more disdain for the Special Counsel investigating the hoax than the people who got him embroiled in it.

wo days after the Clinton campaign attorney who peddled the Alfa Bank hoax to the FBI was indicted, a Georgia Tech researcher connected to the project, who admitted the team was motivated mostly by hatred of Trump, penned a secret document entitled “fallacies” to rebut the indictment’s allegations. That document and a cache of emails obtained first by The Federalist reveal that the Georgia Tech researcher holds more disdain for the Special Counsel investigating the hoax than the people who got him embroiled in it.

The documents, obtained from Georgia Tech pursuant to a Right-To-Know request, paint Manos Antonakakis, the man identified merely as Researcher-1 in the Michael Sussmann indictment, as but tangentially connected to the Alfa Bank research. Those same documents, however, reveal that Antonakakis fails to grasp how scandalous — and how dangerous to our country and her national defense — the exploitation of sensitive government and proprietary data for political purposes is.

The emails provide some of the backstory to the Special Counsel’s indictment of Michael Sussmann on one count of lying to FBI General Counsel James Baker. That indictment alleged that when Sussmann met with Baker on September 19, 2016, to provide the FBI attorney with data and “white papers” that purported to establish a secret communication channel between the Trump organization and the Russia-connected Alfa Bank, Sussmann falsely claimed he was not acting on behalf of a client, when in reality Sussmann was working both for the Clinton campaign and an unnamed “U.S. technology industry executive” since confirmed to be Rodney Joffe.

While the indictment of Sussmann came less than six months ago, the Special Counsel’s interest in the Alfa Bank hoax dates back to at least the first half of 2020, when a Department of Justice investigator contacted David Dagon, known generically in the Sussmann indictment as Researcher-2. At that time — possibly as early as March of 2020 — Dagon told the DOJ investigator that he didn’t believe Georgia Tech or the Department of Defense agency that was funding their research would allow him to talk with Durham’s team.

But in a June 29, 2020, email to Dagon, the DOJ investigator noted that neither Georgia Tech nor the DOD agency DARPA — which stands for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — objected to an interview. The email to Dagon then concluded: “As I mentioned to you previously, our investigation has found that you have knowledge relevant to it. To that end, we believe that you are a witness who can provide valuable information to advance our investigation.”

It is unclear whether Dagon responded to the Special Counsel’s request for an interview and neither Dagon nor his attorney answered a request for comment.

While the Special Counsel’s office attempted to interview Dagon as early as March of 2020, the emails obtained by The Federalist suggest that it was not until June 29, 2020, that they first contacted Antonakakis asking him to contact the DOJ about a possible interview. Antonakakis told the DOJ investigator that “at this time I am not interested in participating in...

Longtime Clinton ally and George Soros-funded Media Matters for America founder David Brock is also advising the 65 Project.

Former Senator Tom Daschle – a board member of a new dark money, left-wing group targeting conservative election integrity lawyers – took a trip to China sponsored by a key communist influence group flagged by the U.S. government for its efforts to infiltrate American politics.

The new group – 65 Project – seeks to deter right-wing lawyers from fighting on behalf of election integrity by attempting to disbar and intimidate lawyers who fought for the issue during the 2020 election. In addition to the former Democratic Senate Majority Leader from South Dakota, longtime Clinton ally and George Soros-funded Media Matters for America founder David Brock is also advising the 65 Project.

The National Pulse can reveal that Daschle took a trip to China sponsored by the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), a state-sponsored propaganda effort that seeks to “influence foreign governments and other actors to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing’s preferred policies,” according to the U.S. government.

CUSEF functions as part China’s “United Front,” which the federal government identifies as Beijing’s covert operation “to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party.” The U.S. State Department also compares the United Front to the Chinese regime’s “magic weapon” to advance its preferred policies by infiltrating American politics, media, and academia.

Despite these ties, Daschle joined a China-bound delegation comprised of scholars from the Washington, D.C.-based Center for American Progress (CAP) sponsored by CUSEF.

CAP, a think tank heavily influential under President Barack Obama, noted it was “sending a distinguished group of experts and officials to Beijing on a fact-finding mission to meet with ministers and high-level officials from the Chinese government”:

CAP President and CEO John Podesta led the delegation, which included Senator Thomas Daschle (D-SD), Ambassador Wendy Sherman, CAP Senior Vice President for National Security and International Policy Rudy deLeon, SEIU President Andy Stern, MIT Professor John Deutch, Chairman of Pritzker Realty Group Penny Pritzker, Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti, Blue Engine Message and Media President Erik Smith, and Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission member Byron Georgiou. President of Fontheim International, LLC Claude Fontheim and CAP staffers Julian Wong, Sarah Miller, and Winny Chen were also in attendance to provide support for the trip.

“The delegation met with officials and held a series of in-depth discussion sessions with renowned Chinese academics, businesspersons, religious leaders, and policy advisors on issues at the forefront U.S.-China relations, including climate change, economics, and...

Visage à trois #106

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

A Saudi man accused of being the would-be 20th hijacker in the 9/11 attacks was released from Guantanamo Bay and sent back to his home country for psychiatric treatment, the Department of Defense said Monday.

Mohammad Ahmad al-Qahtani, 46, was flown to Saudi Arabia after the Biden administration dropped a legal fight initiated under former President Donald Trump contesting the prisoner’s repatriation.

A review board including military and intelligence officials concluded that al-Qahtani could be safely released from the US base in Cuba after spending 20 years in custody there.

According to medical examinations and records obtained by his lawyers, al-Qahtani has suffered from mental illness, including schizophrenia, since childhood.

Mohammad Ahmad al-Qahtani was suspected of attempting to join the 9/11 hijackers, but was turned away from entering the US in August 2001.

Defense officials say al-Qahtani was trained by al-Quaeda and tried to join the hijackers and take part in the terror attacks. In August 2001, he was turned away from the US at the Orlando airport by immigration officers who were suspicious of his travel.

The lead Sept. 11 hijacker, Mohammed Atta, planned to pick al-Qahtani up to take part in the plot, according to previously released documents.

US forces subsequently captured Al-Qahtani in Afghanistan and sent him to Guantanamo in 2002.

At the the detention center, which Biden has said he intends to close, al-Qahtani was subjected to brutal interrogations that the Pentagon legal official in charge of war crimes commissions said amounted to torture.

The treatment included beatings, exposure to extreme temperatures and noise, sleep deprivation and extended solitary confinement.

As a result of the findings, the Bush administration dropped plans to put al-Qahtani on trial.

In 2002, an FBI official witnessed al-Qahtani speaking to non-existent people, hearing voices and crouching in a corner of his cell while covering himself with a...

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #281

This Isn’t Obama’s Iran Deal. It’s Much, Much Worse.

U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley, at left, in Manama, Bahrain, on Nov. 19, 2021

The last thing the world needs is another nuclear-armed dictatorship flush with cash and attacking its neighbors. But that’s what President Biden and his Iran envoy Robert Malley are creating in the deal they are about to close in Vienna, according to career State Department sources.

Anyone seeking to gauge the imminent outcome of the international talks over Iran’s nuclear program being held in Vienna should take a look at reports from late January that three top U.S. diplomats had quit—largely in protest over the direction set by U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley, who serves as the U.S. government’s chief negotiator.

Having served for two years in former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Iran Action Group, I knew that this development was tantamount to a public cry for an intervention. Such resignations—not of conservative dissenters, but of career staff and President Joe Biden’s own political appointees—should have been cause for Biden or Secretary Antony Blinken to recall Malley and investigate. Their failure to do so is a sign either of a troubling lack of attention to the talks, or else the possibility that Malley—who served in the same capacity under President Barack Obama when the first Iran deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was originally negotiated and signed—has been given a free hand to negotiate whatever he wants, as long as he gets Iran to sign.

Evidence for the latter view can be gleaned from the fact that Blinken has reneged on his pledge that his Iran negotiating team would have “a diversity of views.” Instead, he has let Malley continue to concede issue after issue in Vienna. Multiple career officials view these capitulations as so detrimental to U.S. national security that they contacted me requesting that I rapidly share details of these concessions with Congress and the public in an effort to stop them.

Reports out of Vienna indicate that a deal could occur within the next few days. While some issues are still being ironed out—such as whether the United States will grant Russia immunity from any economic sanctions relating to Iran, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has publicly demanded—the details that follow have been conveyed to me as finalized. My subsequent discussions with foreign diplomats—including those directly involved and those outside but close to the negotiations—confirmed their claims. Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov, who led negotiations on behalf of Russia, has crowed that “Iran got much more than it could expect. Much more,” and bragged about how Russia teamed up with China and Iran to get dozens of wins over the United States and European negotiating positions.

The list of concessions that follows is long, detailed, disturbing, but also somewhat technical. But this much is clear to me: The deal being negotiated in Vienna is dangerous to U.S. national security, to the stability of the Middle East, and to the Iranian people who suffer most under that brutal regime. The lack of evidence to justify a removal of U.S. sanctions is illegal, and the deal that will be foisted upon the world without the support of Congress will be illegitimate. This deal will not serve U.S. interests in either the short or long term.

With Robert Malley in the lead, the United States has promised to lift sanctions on some of the regime’s worst terrorists and torturers, on leading officials who have developed Iran’s WMD infrastructure, and has agreed to lift sanctions on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) itself. In exchange, Iran will receive fewer limitations than those imposed under the JCPOA, and the restrictions on its nuclear program will expire six years sooner than under the terms of the old deal. And that’s just the beginning:

In response to non-stop damage control from the White House which is seeking to "explain away" the unprecedented surge in commodity prices which will push gasoline to a new all time nominal high as soon as tomorrow, the head of the American Petroleum Institute, the largest national trade association representing all aspects of America's natural gas and oil industry, said the Biden administration is “misusing facts” when it claims the industry has more than 9,000 federal drilling permits on which it can drill to boost supply and ease soaring energy prices.

Mike Sommers, the chief executive officer of the API who was in Houston Monday for CERAWeek by S&P Global, said the industry is using a higher percentage of federal onshore and offshore leases than at any time in the past, and it’s continuing to increase production to meet surging demand.

Forced to backpedal after a year of cramming through its "green" agenda which has led to a historic undercapitalization in oil industry spending which in turn is a major culprit behind the current inability to respond to the Russian supply shock (see "Will ESG Trigger Energy Hyperinflation"), the Biden administration has repeatedly pointed to the number of approved but untapped drilling permits on federal land when questioned about how U.S. production can rise, and what the federal government can do to help.

“There’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the administration as to how the process actually works,” Sommers said in an interview on the sidelines of the conference, Bloomberg reports.

“Just because you have a lease doesn’t mean there’s actually oil and gas in that lease, and there has to be a lot of development that occurs between the leasing and then ultimately permitting for that acreage to be productive,” he said. “I think that they’re purposefully misusing the facts here to advantage their position.”

Sommers said the Biden administration should support policies that promote U.S. oil and gas production over OPEC+, which includes Russian oil, a point even Elon Musk has made recently.