THREAD: Interesting (and potentially huge) discovery from Durham filings. Today's piece provides the details. Here are highlights. 1/ @FDRLSTthefederalist.com/2022/02/23/let…
2/ Durham's discussion of origins of Alfa Bank hoax and data mining differ significant from Slate's original discussion of how the tech folks discovered Trump's supposed secret communication network with the Russian bank. AND differs significantly from how The New Yorker told it
3/ The New Yorker's story was in 2018 and "Max" i.e. Joffe was the source. If you re-read Slate & The New Yorker & compare to what Durham said, the versions differ greatly.
4/ Per Slate & The New Yorker, the data mining was being done by group of tech folks w/ access to nearly all internet dns data & occurred before time frame Durham said Joffe had his company folks & Ga Tech folks mine data.
5/ So what was that "group." A likely answer: Ops-Trust. Joffe and likely Ga Tech researcher were connected to Ops-Trust, as revealed by a random email thread in Ga Tech FOIAed ones @RyanM58699717 obtained.
6/ And here, the Hat Tip goes to @RyanM58699717 for pulling emails digging in and @FOOL_NELSON for catching & seeing significance & @15poundstogo for assist w/ brainstorming. B/c all anons on Twitter who want to stay that way can't appropriately give them props but they deserve
7/ So what does it matter if it Ops-Trust folks were doing an assist with the mining? It matters greatly if Joffe also handed off government data to them or if other private data was mined by folks who weren't suppose to use it that way.
8/ And Ops-Trust had members & connections to law enforcement, including as Slate or The New Yorker put it three-letter agencies.
9/ In contrast, Durham's indictment focused on Joffe sharing info with Georgia Tech b/c of a "Proof of Concept" need. But sharing that same info (or more!) with Ops-Trust is a different creature.
10/ And what is most striking to me is how the "guardians of the internet" wanted to sell their story when they owned it in Slate & The New Yorker. WHY was that so different than how Durham put it in indictment?
11/11 I emailed one of big-wigs at Ops-Trust and got no response. And lawyers for Joffe, Tea Leaves, & Georgia Tech researchers ignored my requests for comment. So I guess we will have to wait to parse @charlie_savage spin & clean-up.
2/ ICYMI I addressed the request to strike @FDRLSTthefederalist.com/2022/02/17/spe… today and note that the standard doesn't seem met b/c no prejudice--voir dire can take care of that.
3/ Durham's team makes that point here while also noting that it didn't file in bad faith etc.
BREAKING: Michael Sussmann's attorneys file Motion to Dismiss.
2/ This was to be expected. More later as about to do a hit on election integrity.
3/ Just finished quick read, lawsplainer will be forthcoming but in short: This motion seeks dismissal by arguing the facts alleged in the indictment EVEN IF TRUE do not state a crime. In other words, Sussmann did not commit a crime by lying to FBI 's Baker.
OMgosh: "What merits coverage?" Compare Mueller Special Counsel with Durham re coverage.
2/ LOL: "Old news." Yup, just as I said: Sussmann-friendly folks fed a cleaned up version of the story the same "journalist" who wrote this clean up piece, back in September to get a head of the news. So now it is "old news."
3/ Of course, I only realized that after Durham's filing hit and we doing some research and came across Savage's previous pro bono defense work.
THREADETEE: PSA As Sussmann-friendly media tries to tell you that Durham's Friday motion was a nothingburger, you need only read @FDRLST detailed analysis of the filing, which Sussmann's legal team impliedly acquiesed in its correctness. 1/