Durham alleges cyber analysts 'exploited' access to Trump White House server | TheHill
By: Ian Swanson
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
John Durham, the special counsel appointed under former President Trump to investigate the FBI's probing of Russian interference in the 2016 election, alleged in court that a tech executive "exploited" access to White House data in order to find damning information about Trump.
In a court filing submitted Friday, Durham's office said that the executive, who is referred to in legal filings only as "Tech Executive-1" but has been identified in news reports as Rodney Joffe, used his company's access to nonpublic government domain name system (DNS) data through a pending cybersecurity contract as he was analyzing supposed links between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank.
"Tech Executive-1's employer, Internet Company-1, had come to access and maintain dedicated servers for the EOP as part of a sensitive arrangement whereby it provided DNS resolution services to the EOP," Durham's office wrote, using an acronym for the White House's Executive Office of the President.
"Tech Executive-1 and his associates exploited this arrangement by mining the EOP's DNS traffic and other data for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump."
An attorney representing Joffe did not immediately respond when asked for comment.
The filing came in Durham's prosecution against Michael Sussmann, an attorney who represented Joffe and worked on behalf of the Democrats and Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, for a single count of making false statements to the FBI's general counsel.
Sussmann is accused of falsely telling the FBI's top attorney in a 2016 meeting that he was not representing any client when he presented data that researchers believed could have established a connection between Trump's business and the Moscow-based Alfa Bank.
Sussmann has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. His attorney did not immediately respond when asked for comment.
Neither Joffe nor the company from which he retired in 2021, Neustar, have been charged with any wrongdoing.
Sussmann was indicted in September, and prosecutors said at the time that the cybersecurity researcher he was representing took advantage of access to an executive branch office's servers, but the charging documents did not specify the government entity.
Durham, who was appointed by former Attorney General William Barr, alleged that Sussmann was presenting the evidence in coordination with the Clinton campaign. The FBI and former special counsel Robert Mueller investigated the purported links between Trump and the Russian bank and found there was not enough evidence to support it.
Trump, who has expressed disappointment with Durham's investigation for not sufficiently undermining the FBI's 2016 investigation into his campaign, hailed the special counsel's new revelations on Monday and criticized the lack of media attention it received over the weekend.
"It shows how totally corrupt and shameless the media is," Trump said in a statement. "Can you imagine if the roles were reversed and the Republicans, in particular President Donald Trump, got caught illegally spying into the Office of the President? All hell would break loose and the electric chair would immediately come out of retirement. The good news is, everybody is talking about not only this atrocity against our Nation, but that the press refuses to even mention the major crime that took place."
Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff, said in a tweet on Saturday, "They didn't just spy on Donald Trump's campaign. They spied on Donald Trump as sitting President of the United States. It was all even worse than we thought."
This story was updated at 1:15 p.m.
Tags
Who is online
69 visitors
Isn’t that treasonous?
Depends on what info they mined and what they did with it...
It is a breaking of a federal contract and a violation of security protocols...
Espionage then.. regardless of the info mined or what they did with it, the fact that it was White House servers “exploited” should make it a national security issue.
Nope, espionage requires it to be national secrets to a foreign power... I'm on your side brother... Whatever the intent it was evil and intended for no good...
Neither Joffe or his company were charged or are charged yet, but who knows, by 2024 Durham may still be indicting ham sandwiches.
If this ham sandwich goes to trial, Mueller or his team members will be testifying that there was no, there, there on Sussman's behalf, or Joffe's.
This is more of an uphill battle than Palin's wasted defamation trial.
Former Central Intelligence Agency Director Brennan subsequently briefed President Obama and other senior national security officials on the intelligence, including the ‘alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.’”
She needed a distraction from her email scandal, so the Russia Trump hoax got pushed center stage.
Well the scandal was so damning that the Trump WH, the RNC and the Trump children felt free to use multiple personal email
accounts, many through off shore companies that guaranteed security FROM the US government
throughout the 45th Administration without so much as a slap on the wrist.
Select Subcommittee Releases New Evidence of Trump Administration Failure to Heed Early Pandemic Warnings | House Committee on Oversight and Reform
Doesn't this mean there is info damning to Trump?
"Can you imagine if the roles were reversed and the Republicans, in particular President Donald Trump, got caught illegally spying into the Office of the President?
Look what happened to Nixon just for spying on the DNC.
Nixon wasn't charged with spying on the DNC. His charges were for much more serious crimes. You know that.
Nixon wasn't charged with spying on the DNC.
Since he didn't specifically authorize the break in. . But, as you know, the arrest of his henchmen led to a media uproar and all sorts of law enforcement investigations. And, as you know, the DNC is not the same as the White House.
These articles charged Nixon with: 1) obstruction of justice in attempting to impede the investigation of the Watergate break-in, protect those responsible, and conceal the existence of other illegal activities; 2) abuse of power by using the office of the presidency on multiple occasions, dating back to the first year of his administration (1969), to unlawfully use federal agencies, such as the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation , as well as establishing a covert White House special investigative unit , to violate the constitutional rights of citizens and interfere with lawful investigations; and 3) contempt of Congress by refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas. [3] These articles were reported to the House of Representatives for final action, with 7 of the committee's 17 Republicans joining all 21 of its Democrats in voting in favor of one or more of the articles. Two other articles were debated in committee but were rejected. Based on the strength of the evidence presented and the bipartisan support for the articles in committee, House leaders of both political parties concluded that Nixon's impeachment by the full House was a certainty if it reached the House floor for a final vote, and that his conviction in a Senate trial was a distinct possibility.
Yes, I know that the DNC is not the White House.
Just to add a bit more detail as to the reason he chose to vacate the presidency, The Senate version of the judiciary committee, when they received the preliminary report of the House committee, sent memos to the leaders of the Senate, both parties outlining what the house had voted on, the Republican leader in the Senate, sent a memo to Nixon's chief of staff that private polling of the Republicans in the Senate said he would be convicted of at the very least, the obstruction charge, and that was a for sure determination of the republican leadership....
After that the discussion in the White House became one of how do they fix the presidency without destroying the credibility of the office... Even Nixon knew he had to leave the office, He couldn't remain as president as a convicted felon.. The two weeks time was for them to figure out a legal way to get it done as it was unprecedented in the history of the office... The time lapse was agreed to by both parties in the House and the floor vote was held over for three weeks to give them the time....