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Since Friday, several developments have exposed more of the behind-the-scenes details of the special counsel investigation into Spygate, including the public release of the deposition of Tech Executive-1, Rodney Joffe. Joffes deposition, coupled with other details previously known, reveals several significant facts while highlighting the many questions that remain unanswered.

Heres what we learned and what investigative trails require further probing.

Earlier this month, the Russian-connected Alfa Bank filed a motion in a Florida state court seeking an extension of time to serve the numerous John Doe defendants it had sued there in June 2020. Alfa Bank had sued John Doe, et al. as stand-ins for the defendants it claimed were responsible for executing a highly sophisticated cyberattacking scheme to fabricate apparent communications between [Alfa Bank] and the Trump Organization in the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election.

After filing suit, Alfa Bank began discovery in an attempt to learn the identity of the individuals responsible for what the large, privately owned Russian bank alleged was the creation of a fake computer trail connecting it to the Trump Organization. Among others Alfa Bank sought information from was Joffe, the man identified as Tech Executive-1 in Special Counsel John Durhams indictment against former Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann.

Joffes attempts to quash Alfa Banks subpoena failed. On February 11, 2022, the tech executive alleged by Durham to have exploited sensitive data from an executive branch office of the federal government to mine for derogatory information on Trump sat for his deposition. On Friday, an internet sleuth discovered the public filing of Joffes deposition, which revealed that Joffe had finally been deposed by Alfa Bank.

In addition to revealing that Joffes deposition had taken place, the transcript from the deposition established that Durham had asked to interview Joffe more than a year earlier, but Joffe refused to speak with Durhams team. After Joffe refused to submit to a voluntary interview, the special counsels office subpoenaed him to testify before a grand jury.

Joffe told Alfa Bank lawyers that he refused to answer questions before the grand jury, exercising his Fifth Amendment rights. The former Neustar tech executive likewise asserted his Fifth Amendment rights in response to a subpoena for documents served by the special counsels office.

Friday also saw Joffes attorneys, Steven Tyrrell and Eileen Citron, file notices of appearances for Joffe as a proposed intervenor in the special counsels criminal case against Sussmann. Joffe could seek to intervene in the case to challenge a subpoena, to seek a protective ordermaybe because of purported attorney-client communications Joffe had with Sussmann or to prevent Durham from discussing his alleged role in public filingsor to otherwise protect a legal right or interest.

We should know more shortly, when Joffes attorney files the related motion to intervene. That motion is likely to come within the next week or so, given that on Friday, the court in United States v. Sussmann scheduled a hearing for March 7, 2022, to address potential conflicts of interests between Sussmann and his current attorneys, and Joffe is likely interested in ensuring Durhams team does not further implicate him in the matter.

The transcript of Joffes deposition testimony discovered on Friday consisted mainly of the former tech executive refusing to answer questions because of the special counsels pending investigation, with Joffe responding to Alfa Banks inquiries by pleading the Fifth. However, several times Joffe responded to questions about specific individuals by saying he had not heard of the person or organization.

One such exchange proved intriguing and seemingly contradictory to an email obtained pursuant to a Right-to-Know request served on Georgia Tech, the university where two of the researchers who allegedly mined data for Joffe worked.

Just a few questions more, Alfa Banks attorney began, before asking, Mr. Joffe, are you a member of the so-called Union of Concerned Nerds as described by L. Jean Camp? Basically, shes used it as a description to describe a group of computer researchers who search for malware and other malicious content and actors on the internet, the attorney for the Russian bank continued.

Joffe responded that he cant remember having heard that term, before adding: And I dont belong to any organization. However, when asked whether he was a member of a group of individuals who sought to investigate potential foreign interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election or compiled supposed evidence of the Alfa Bank server connecting to the Trump campaign, Joffe pled the Fifth.

In posing these questions, Alfa Bank sought to connect Joffe to the reports of the supposed secret communication channel between it and the Trump administration and specifically to Slates reporting from October 31, 2016, headlined: Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia?

Author Franklin Foer opened the article by highlighting a small, tightly knit community of computer scientists . . . some at cybersecurity firms, some in academia, some with close ties to three-letter federal agencies, who claimed to have discovered the Alfa Bank-Trump server connections. Foer then quoted Indiana University computer scientist L. Jean Camps wry formulation of the group: Were the Union of Concerned Nerds.

Apparently, Joffe was not in on Camps joke, even if he was in on the research, as Durhams indictment of Sussmann suggests.

But what about Joffes second claim that I dont belong to any organization? As I reported last week, a random email included in a trove of documents provided by Georgia Tech in response to a Right-to-Know Request showed Joffe forwarding an email sent to cw-general@ops-trust.net to university researcher Manos Antonakakis. That Joffe had received the ops-trust.net email and then forwarded it to Antonakakis proves important because Ops-Trust matches many of the details included in the Slate article (and later two New Yorker articles) discussing the researchers behind the Alfa Bank claims.

For instance, Ops-Trust is aself-describedhighly vetted community of security professionals, which includes, among other experts, DNS administrators, DNS registrars, and law enforcement officials. Membership in Ops-Trust is extremely limited, with new candidates accepted only if nominated and vouched for by their peers.

Unfortunately, Alfa Banks attorney did not quiz Joffe on Ops-Trust, but his denial of belonging to any organization raises several questions. What was his connection to Ops-Trust? Did Joffe use that connection to obtain non-public information to mine for data to destroy Trump? Is he no longer connected to Ops-Trust, and is that why he claimed not to be a member of any organization?

Requests last week to Joffes attorney and other individuals connected to Ops-Trust seeking information concerning Joffes continued involvement with Ops-Trust went unanswered. A request to Camp on whether she was a member of Ops-Trust in 2016 and whether she knew Joffe or the Georgia Tech researchers through that organization also went unanswered.

In the special counsels criminal case against Sussmann, Durhams team revealed that Sussmann had provided the evidence of the Alfa Bank-Trump covert communication channel to the FBI on September 19, 2016 and shared an updated version of the Alfa Bank allegations with the CIA on February 9, 2017. According to the special counsels office, Sussmann also provided the CIA data that purported to show traffic at Trump-related locations connecting to the internet protocol or IP addresses of a supposedly rare Russian mobile phone provider.

The questioning of Joffe by Alfa Banks attorney now suggests Sussmann may have also provided that same data to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

It has been known for some time that after Americans elected Trump, Democrats regrouped and continued to push the Russia collusion hoax, including the Alfa Bank angle. The New Yorker, in a 2018 article rehashing the Alfa Bank claims and referring to Joffe with the pseudonym Max, wrote that after Trumps inauguration two Democrat senators had reviewed the data assembled by Maxs group.

One of the Democratic senators approached a former Senate staffer named Daniel Jones and asked him to give the data a closer look, The New Yorker article continued. Jones then spent a year researching the Alfa Bank allegations and writing a report for the Senate.

According to The New Yorkers coverage, then, the senators had the data and provided it to Jones. Jones confirmed that sequence when a former Sen. Dianne Feinstein staffer and founder of the left-wing The Democracy Integrity Project sued Alfa Bank seeking to keep confidential his deposition testimony and documents provided to the Russian bank.

In his complaint, Jones stated in court filings that in early-to-mid 2017, the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee asked him to research the alleged connections between Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization. Specifically, the Senate committee requested that Mr. Jones evaluate information it had received about DNS look-ups between Alfa Bank servers and Trump Organization servers.

Significantly, Jones stated that the Senate Committee informed him that the source of the DNS records had a history of providing accurate information, a lengthy history of reliably assisting the U.S. law enforcement and intelligence communities and was an individual or entity with sensitive contracts with the U.S. government. Jones added that he met with a representative for the source of the DNS records at the committees request.

While Jones does not identify that source or the sources representative with whom he met, in Joffes deposition, Alfa Bank lawyers stated that Jones had testified he had liaised with Mr. Joffe on various issues related to the server allegations. The sensitive contracts language from Jones filing also seems eerily like Durhams charge that Joffe had exploited internet data, including some accessed under sensitive government contracts.

Alfa Banks questioning of Joffe also seems to suggest a similar theory: Were you aware that Mr. Sussmann provided documents including white papers and data files to Congress? Alfa Banks counsel asked, clarifying that she meant not just the actual senators or representatives but also their staff. And did you direct Mr. Sussmann to provide such documents to Congress? the Russian bank attorney continued.

While Joffe refused to answer the questions, again pleading the fifth, Joffe admitted in his deposition that he knew Kirk McConnell. McConnell worked as a staffer for Sen. Jack Reed and in that role McConnell served as a contact for Jones related to the Alfa Bank research.

If Sussmann had provided the Alfa Bank data to the two Democrat senators on behalf of Joffe, as appears possible from these details, that would represent the fourth time Sussmann had served as an intermediary for Joffe with federal officials: In addition to the FBI and CIA, we know from Durhams filings that Sussmann also provided the DOJs inspector general information purporting to show that Joffe had observed that a specific OIG employees computer was seen publicly in Internet traffic and was connecting to a Virtual Private Network in a foreign country.

While at this point there is no evidence that Joffes tip to the DOJs inspector general connects to the other efforts undertaken by Joffe and his lawyer to push a Trump-Russia conspiracy theory within the Deep State, questions remain that are only heightened by the possibility that the Joffe-Sussmann team also fed senators on the Armed Services Committee their intel.

How exactly did Joffe see this internet connection? Did he exploit any government or private data? Was he specifically watching computer traffic at the DOJ? Where else was he monitoring internet connections? And why?

Of course, the more global question remains as well: When will the corrupt media begin reporting on the biggest political scandal of the last century?

Margot Cleveland is a senior contributor to The Federalist. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prizethe law schools highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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4 New Things We Just Learned About The Special Counsel Investigation - The Federalist

Nye is the president and CEO of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress and a former member of Congress from Virginia.

The American democracy is an incredible tradition that has been the envy of the world and remained resilient through two centuries. Though it has had to adapt to constantly reach for our ideals of equality and effectiveness, it has endured.

Yet the project is straining under the stresses of destructive factionalism our Founders warned us about at the outset of the republic, and it appears near the breaking point. The Economist Intelligence Units new Democracy Index 2021 has ranked the United States as 26th in the world and rated our country as a flawed democracy for the sixth year running. It is time for a serious reflection on the flaws plaguing our democracy and what we can do to fix them.

The EIU report cites extremely high levels of political polarization as a key problem. Our country is largely divided into political camps that define the other camp as an existential threat. Extreme competition for congressional majority compels politicians to ramp up practices like gerrymandering electoral districts for partisan advantage, which serves to destroy faith in politics and to further polarize the behavior of officials whose elections depend primarily on the sentiments of the most extreme party faithful. Closed primaries concentrate power on the fringes, as the primary is the only competitive election in most congressional districts.

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Lack of cooperation and resulting gridlock has rendered Congress largely dysfunctional, racked by increasingly common government shutdowns and an inability to complete sensible budgets on time or at all, while sectarianism prevents the basic cooperation our democracy requires to function. Political opponents are framed as such evil destructive forces that keeping them from power becomes more important than having a democracy at all. Discordant politicians have failed to come together even in the face of a concerted effort by a president to overturn a presidential election, an act which still defies a common assessment or response despite its attendant political violence. The cycle only seems to be spiraling further downward.

America is facing twin crises of dysfunctional politics and a lack of faith in our democracy. The bottom line is that our political system no longer provides incentive for elected officials to cooperate. Our electoral system is stacked in the favor of the most extreme voters, rewarding sectarian battling over cooperation, while our media is inclined to promote dramatic narratives and bombastic attention-grabbing personalities, further rewarding extremism.

If we fail to solve our fundamental incentive problem, we will remain unable to bridge the divides that tear at our country and leave us unable to rally to our greatest challenges at home and abroad.

In order to break this cycle, we must accomplish two things:

Partisan gerrymandering, closed primaries and winner-take-all systems are products of political party invention and not protected by the Constitution. They can be changed. Various states have already implemented fixes such as independent commissions or criteria for districting, open primaries, and ranked-choice selection methods, all of which incentivize candidates to appeal to a broader group of voters, thereby promoting greater cooperation. We should promote these in all states.

Federal legislation would also be ideal for systemic reforms that are most party-agnostic when implemented across all states simultaneously, such as gerrymandering reform, and for reforms that prevent racial discrimination, such as preclearance rules. But a federal legislative strategy that combines a large comprehensive set of reforms is difficult to explain to voters plainly, and unlikely to be successful.

A better strategy would entail a piecemeal approach, starting with reforms that enjoy broad support among voters of all stripes or that have traditionally enjoyed bipartisan backing, including preclearance rules and gerrymandering reforms, and devoting more debate time to these issues. Even though progress in Congress is difficult, a more robust public debate would serve to educate voters and move sentiment in favor of reasonable reforms.

American partisans, engaged in scorched earth warfare over voting methodology across numerous states, are poisoning the well for rational compromise on standards that could provide for easy, efficient, and secure voting.

The same malincentives that prevent cooperation over fundamental responsibilities like budgeting cause officials to pursue voting rules satisfying to the knee-jerk sentiments of partisan base voters but often connected to outdated or outright false perceptions or at worst specifically designed to discourage voting among groups that might be more likely to vote for the other team. A constant swing in rules defining absentee ballot usage, early voting opportunities or acceptable voter IDs all dependent on which party holds the majority in a state legislature is a sure-fire way to destroy faith in the process and intensify the heated partisan mistrust that derails opportunities to find common ground.

Fixing this would require the participation of trusted nonpartisan actors, such as respected private sector CEOs, who could broker a tension-reducing set of negotiations over voting rules using a data-driven process that eschews simplistic partisan talking points. A reduction in tensions across this front might blunt the destructive power of dramatic political personalities to constantly stoke sectarian tendencies.

It is also dangerous to allow partisan competitors to police the rules of electoral competition. This is akin to having the referees in a football game also be members of the opposing teams. The elimination of partisan secretaries of state would be a good start in returning the referees to neutral status and restoring faith that elections can be conducted without partisan leaning or undue influence.

The resolution of our dire polarization will take a concerted effort to change incentives and break the cycle of partisan warfare. Fortunately the solutions, however difficult, are known and proven at smaller scales. Though focusing on systemic reform and reducing tensions is not as sexy as the next campaign or charismatic personality, our country deserves our dedication to make this effort a national priority.

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Here's how we restore American democracy - The Fulcrum

EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT

While law enforcement agencies and a Congressional committee work to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the Capitolpolitical violence aimed at blocking or overturning the results of the 2020 presidential electiona wave of subsequent efforts seek to undermine the norms and structures that have given Americans basic confidence in elections and in the peaceful transfer of power.

Meanwhile, from statehouses to the Supreme Court, bitter debates rage over voting rights, access and security.

The University of Michigan will host four award-winning journalists who will share their insights into the forces threatening and protecting democratic structures and systems. The series is a partnership between the Ford School of Public Policy, Wallace House, and U-M Democracy & Debate 2021-22, co-hosted by the Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum, and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation.

The Democracy in Crisis series will also explore the current state of journalism and the role of the press in upholding democratic institutionsat a time of demagogic attacks on the media and dramatic shifts in media ownership and independence.

Here in the United States, and in many countries around the globe, democracy is being threatened, and journalists are standing up to raise the alarm. This series will help our community and the broader public understand whats at stake, and what they can do about it, said Ford School Dean Michael Barr.

Anne Curzan, dean of U-Ms College of Literature, Arts, and Sciences, says strong, free and open, ethical journalism is essential to a well-functioning democracy. The series, she adds, offers an opportunity to learn about the state of U.S. democracy as well as the state of political journalism from an insiders perspective.

Diminishing the role and work of journalists is a key tactic in undermining democracies, she said. Bringing visibility to the work of journalists is a necessary antidote to those efforts. We look forward to giving our community a chance to engage with these experienced reporters in a way that cuts through the noise to prompt thoughtful civic engagement.

The series begins with three events:

The Ford Schools events page has details of the talks, all of which will be streamed and some of which will also include in-person attendance.

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Journalists to share insights as part of U-M's Democracy in Crisis series - University of Michigan News

John Michalski| The Gaston Gazette

While men and women of the Ukraine are fighting and dying trying to preserve democracy, they require countries who proclaim to be supporters of democracy to support them. It is ridiculous beyond belief that radicals in both the Republican and Democratic parties are using this event to try to score political points instead of standing up to Tsar wanna-be Vladimir Putin.

Both major American parties have had inconsistent histories by treating Eastern Europeans as lesser-thans and their respective national struggles as not as worthy as those in Latin America, Asia, Western Europe, and the Middle East.

Both major parties have also had episodes of being true to the democratic self-deterministic aspirations of Eastern Europeans. A few examples of the former include the platform of the Klan so influential in party politics for almost a century, the hyphenated American beliefs and speeches of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, the immigration quota acts of 1921 and 1924, the SS St. Louis voyage, Yalta, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, and Helsinki Accords just to name a few.

A few examples of the latter include opening immigration to this great country during some of the darkest days in European and human history, providing humanitarian support, pressuring the Soviet Union to lift its iron curtain of oppression, supporting religious freedom, which often led to desires of freedom in other realms, using military means to halt a Balkan genocide, and expanding military and economic alliances that linked the future of portions of Eastern Europe to that of the democratic West just to name a few.

In both the former and latter, the intelligent American will quickly see that bothmajor parties are represented. No current American political party can claim historical purity in all-out supporting democracy in Eastern Europe. The current invasion and willful targeting of civilians by Putins autocratic Russia is another litmus test for American political parties. What side are their radicals really on? Actions speak louder than words.

The American media is beset with radical blowhards from both sides whose knowledge of Eastern European history and culture can fit on one side of a post it note. They are sadly attempting to use this event to score domestic points instead of unifying across the aisle to stand up to Putin. They portray themselves as experts but cannot even pronounce the names of people and places correctly.

Heck, these ignorant radical blowhards cannot even pronounce a simple Eastern European surname like mine correctly. As one whose family stood up to both Hitler and Stalin as well as other demagogues to the current day Tsar in Training, I am saddened by the negative influence that these American political radicals have upon a large faction of the American public.

Americas strength is its universal belief in freedom and democracy regardless of political affiliation. Americas great strength lies in its beliefs that every human being should have the opportunity to achieve their God-given potential regardless of political affiliation.

Historically many from Eastern Europe have admired the fundamental beliefs of the American republic since its inception. Examples include American Revolutionary figures such as Casimir Pulaski and Thaddeus Kosciuszko. Unfortunately, their names have been removed from too many U.S. history books.

I ardently hope that the vast majority of Americans will unify in their support of Ukrainians in defending their embattled democracy and not fall for the divisive dangerous drivel of radical political hacks from both parties who wish to do nothing but divide this country into paralysis.

Their promoted paralysis not only harms the United States but also freedom loving people everywhere who, as I write, are standing up to one the most powerful military forces in the world.

Their goal to have the freedom and opportunity that we have here but that too many in this country take for granted.

John Michalski is a resident of Gastonia.

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Stop the political grandstanding on Ukraine and support democracy - Gaston Gazette

Sometimes it is obvious when an attempt is being made to destroy a democracy. Tanks rolling across a border and missiles striking cities dont leave much room for doubt. But threats can be both more subtle and a slower burn.

Last week, the elections bill cleared its first hurdle in the House of Lords (UK elections watchdog warns bill threatens its independence, 21 February). During the debate, peers queued up to set out their concerns about the impact on the independence of the Electoral Commission the elections watchdog once Michael Gove is setting its strategy and policy. It is a dangerous power to put into political hands.

Lord Grocott deployed a footballing analogy to make his point and hit the spot: To allow the winning party to give instructions to the Electoral Commission is comparable to a game between Arsenal and Manchester United in which, prior to kick-off, the Arsenal manager gives instructions to the referee.

This move goes expressly against the recommendations of the committee on standards in public life. It was also criticised by the Conservative-led public administration and constitutional affairs committee, which concluded that it risks undermining public confidence in the effective and independent regulation of the electoral system, and by the chair of the Electoral Commission, John Pullinger, and the majority of electoral commissioners in an open letter to ministers.

Peers are the last line of defence against plans to take control of the body that manages elections and fines political parties for rule breaches. We urge them to be as forceful in defending democracy now as they were during discussions about the police bill, which saw the government defeated 14 times. Otherwise our democracy is on a slippery slope.Tom Brake Director, Unlock Democracy; Kyle Taylor Director, Fair Vote UK; Mark Kieran CEO, Open Britain; Jess Garland Director of research, Electoral Reform Society

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The subtle but deadly threat to UK democracy - The Guardian