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Emails Show Researchers Who Alleged Trump Links To Russian Alfa Bank Were Anti-Trump
Part 2 of 3
The Unnamed Players Go Public
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:
While the politics of some random researchers are their concern, when they allegedly assisted Joffe, as the indictment indicates, that made it everyone’s business. It was Joffe, however, who handed off the data to Fusion GPS and Sussmann, and Sussmann who allegedly lied to FBI General Counsel Baker.
Further, unlike Joffe, who worked hand-in-hand with Sussmann, according to Fusion GPS employee Laura Seago, who had worked on the Alfa project, she was not aware of anyone at Fusion GPS communicating with either Dagon or Antonakakis. And while she had heard Dagon’s name before, Seago first came across Antonakakis’s name in a newspaper article.
Antonakakis has not had any contact with Sussman, Marc Elias, or Fusion GPS, his lawyer Mark Schamel told The Federalist. “In this case,” Schamel added, “he reviewed a narrative presented to him by a well-known and respected researcher and provided his feedback, as he does for more than 100 unpublished research articles he receives every year.” Attorneys representing Lorenzen and Dagon did not return requests for comment….
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https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/17/emails-show-researchers-who-alleged-trump-links-to-russian-alfa-bank-were-anti-trump/