{"id":1448549,"date":"2022-04-21T08:02:04","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T12:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1448549"},"modified":"2022-04-21T08:02:07","modified_gmt":"2022-04-21T12:02:07","slug":"new-documents-suggest-democrats-sicced-the-cia-on-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/new-documents-suggest-democrats-sicced-the-cia-on-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"New Documents Suggest Democrats Sicced The CIA On Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fnew-documents-suggest-democrats-sicced-the-cia-on-trump%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1448549&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>Newly released CIA memoranda suggest the tech gurus behind the Alfa Bank hoax also tracked Donald Trump\u2019s movements to devise another collusion conspiracy theory. While smaller in scale than other aspects of Spygate, the Yotaphone hoax represents an equally serious scandal because it involved both the mining of proprietary information and sensitive data from the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and the apparent surveillance of Trump\u2019s physical movements.<\/p>\n<p>When Special Counsel John Durham charged former Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann in September 2021, the indictment focused on the Alfa Bank hoax that Sussmann, tech executive Rodney Joffe, and other cybersecurity experts had crafted. The indictment detailed how Joffe and other tech experts had allegedly mined data and developed \u201cwhite papers\u201d that deceptively created the impression that Trump had maintained a secret communication network with the Russia-based Alfa Bank.<\/p>\n<p>Then, allegedly on behalf of the Clinton campaign and Joffe, Sussmann provided the Alfa Bank material to the media and to the FBI\u2019s general counsel at the time, James Baker, with Sussmann falsely telling Baker he was sharing the \u201cintel\u201d on his own and not on behalf of any client. That alleged lie formed the basis for the one count, Section 1001 false statement charge against Sussmann.<\/p>\n<h2>There\u2019s Another Alleged Lie<\/h2>\n<p>The 27-page indictment, however, also spoke of Sussmann sharing \u201cupdated allegations\u201d on February 9, 2017, to another U.S. government agency, namely the CIA, while allegedly repeating the same false claim that he was not sharing the \u201cintel\u201d on behalf of any client. From the framing of the indictment, it appeared that what Sussmann had shared with the CIA concerned the same Alfa-Bank data provided to the FBI several months earlier, albeit updated.<\/p>\n<p>But then two months ago, as part of the government\u2019s \u201cMotion to Inquire Into Potential Conflicts of Interest,\u201d Durham\u2019s team revealed for the first time that when Sussmann met with the CIA in early 2017, he provided agents with internet data beyond the Alfa Bank conspiracy theory. This data, Sussmann claimed, \u201cdemonstrated that Trump and\/or his associates were using supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the vicinity of the White House and other locations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The \u201csupposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones\u201d were \u201cYotaphones.\u201d Following Durham\u2019s filing of the conflicts of interest motion, it appeared Sussmann bore responsibility for peddling a second conspiracy theory to the CIA. But the details contained in the government\u2019s motion proved insufficient to understand the Yotaphone angle to Spygate. That all changed on Friday, when the special counsel filed two CIA memoranda memorializing what Sussmann said about the Yotaphones and the data Joffe and his tech experts had compiled.<\/p>\n<h2>What Sussmann Told the CIA<\/h2>\n<p>The first <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.dcd.235638\/gov.uscourts.dcd.235638.70.1_1.pdf\">memorandum<\/a>, dated January 31, 2017, summarized what Sussmann told a former CIA employee in hopes of scoring a meeting with the CIA. Sussmann said his client \u201chad some interesting information about the presence and activity of a unique Russian made phone around President Trump.\u201d Sussmann claimed the activity started in April 2016 when Trump was working out of the Trump Tower on its Wi-Fi network. That phone was also used on the \u201cWi-Fi at Trump\u2019s apartment at Grand Central Park West,\u201d according to Sussmann.<\/p>\n<p>The memorandum then noted that \u201cwhen Trump traveled to Michigan to interview a cabinet secretary, the phone appeared with Trump in Michigan.\u201d The unnamed cabinet secretary apparently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justsecurity.org\/72262\/the-trump-alfa-bank-server-mystery-resurfaces\/\">refers<\/a> to Trump\u2019s education secretary Betsy DeVos, whose husband Richard DeVos was chairman of the Michigan-based Spectrum Health in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>According to the notes, Sussmann also told his contact that \u201cthe phone was never noticed in two places at once\u201d and was seen \u201conly around the President\u2019s movement.\u201d The memo noted that once, when Trump was not in Trump Tower, the phone was active on the Trump Tower WiFi network. Then, \u201cin December 2016, the phone disappeared from Trump Tower Wi Fi network and surfaced on [the Executive Office Building] network,\u201d the memorandum said, with Sussmann claiming it was the same Yotaphone and that it \u201csurfaced\u201d at the Executive Office Building after Trump moved to the White House.<\/p>\n<p>The Yotaphone is rare, Sussmann told his contact, with only about a dozen or so present in the United States, and Russian government officials often receive a high-end version of the phone as a gift. According to Sussmann, the Yotaphone connected to Trump made a number of WiFi calls to Moscow and St. Petersburg from April 2016 until February 2017.<\/p>\n<h2>Adding Some Pressure to the Deal<\/h2>\n<p>Sussmann did more than merely pass on this information, however. He also \u201cclaimed that his client did not want to provide this [information] to the FBI as he knows that the FBI did not have resources to deal with these issues,\u201d but also that the source\u2014or Sussmann, it is not clear which\u2014\u201cdid not trust the FBI\u201d because Sussman is \u201copenly a Democrat\u201d and \u201cdoes lots of work for the DNC.\u201d Sussmann added \u201cthat his client would most likely only provide the data to senior bona fide [redacted] officers (active duty) and if there is no interest, he would most likely go to [the] New York Times.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To further push for the CIA meeting, Sussmann then stressed that, given that he is \u201can experienced attorney with full clearances and lots of [redacted] experience, he believes that this client is telling the truth as he knows it.\u201d \u201cHe cares about the security of the country\u201d and wanted the CIA \u201cto know about the Yotaphone activity close to the President,\u201d Sussmann claimed.<\/p>\n<p>Sussmann\u2019s preview of this Yotaphone \u201cintel\u201d to his contact served its purpose, with the CIA arranging to meet with Sussmann in person less than two weeks later, on February 9, 2017. At that meeting, Sussmann again noted that he was passing the current information directly to the CIA \u201cbased on how the FBI had handled\u201d the information he had previously provided that agency.<\/p>\n<p>During Sussmann\u2019s February 9, 2017 meeting with the CIA, the <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.dcd.235638\/gov.uscourts.dcd.235638.70.2_1.pdf\">memorandum<\/a> notes that Sussmann provided the agency thumb drives with separate data files for the Yotaphone by the location of the \u201cdomain name system\u201d or DNS lookups, including one for Trump\u2019s Central Park apartment, one for the EOP, one for Spectrum Health Care, and one for the Trump Tower. That data, Sussmann told the CIA agents, related to DNS information, \u201cindicat[ed] that a Russian-made Yota-phone had been seen by [Sussmann\u2019s contacts] connecting to the WiFi from the Trump Tower in New York, as well as a from a location in Michigan, at the same time that then-candidate Trump was believed to be at these locations.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>These People Were Watching Trump For Years<\/h2>\n<p>The data included in those files, however, reflected but a segment of the DNS lookups by the Yotaphones. The special counsel discovered that fact when it obtained more complete DNS data from a company that assisted Joffe in assembling the Yotaphone allegations. For instance, the more complete data assembled by Joffe and his associates showed the DNS lookups involving the EOP began at least as early as 2014, but Sussmann omitted that detail when providing the material to the CIA.<\/p>\n<p>That Joffe and his associates had assembled more complete DNS data related to the Yotaphones than that provided to the CIA\u2014data that disproves the Trump-Russia collusion theory\u2014is a huge scandal: Those allegations indicate an intent to deceive by omission.<\/p>\n<p>But it is not merely what data wasn\u2019t provided to the CIA, it was what data was provided and how it was gathered.<\/p>\n<p>From Durham\u2019s earlier filings, it was already clear that Joffe had culled the DNS data by using proprietary information related to the Trump Tower, Trump\u2019s residential building, and Spectrum Health, as well as exploiting sensitive data from the EOP. At the time, the corrupt media downplayed the misuse of the EOP DNS data by focusing on the fact that Joffe and his crew had accessed the EOP data while Barack Obama was still president. But these newly released CIA notes establish that the EOP DNS data specifically targeted Trump \u201cafter his move to the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The memoranda expose two additional troubling details. While the earlier court filings created the appearance that the DNS data had merely been pulled from locations connected to Trump, the memoranda speak of the phones connected to \u201cWi-Fi used at Trump\u2019s apartment.\u201d It thus appears that the DNS data directly targeted the Wi-Fi networks specifically used by Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Even more disconcerting are the repeated references in the memoranda to Trump\u2019s physical location during the DNS lookups, whether at the Trump Tower, in Michigan, or at the White House. Sussmann even claimed, according to one of the CIA memoranda, \u201cthe phone was never noticed in two places at once, only around the President\u2019s Movements.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>These newly revealed details suggest that Joffe and his team were surveilling Trump\u2019s movements, leading one to wonder whether they were doing so by geolocation technology. The four data files Sussmann provided the CIA related to the Yotaphones likely hold the answer to that question.<\/p>\n<h2>Democrats Sicced the CIA on the President<\/h2>\n<p>But no matter how Joffe and others tracked Trump\u2019s movements, that a political enemy of Trump would provide the CIA fraudulent-by-omission data to prompt an investigation into the sitting president of the United States is horrifying. These memoranda also make clear that was the goal, as Joffe had Sussmann bypass the FBI and go to great lengths to get the \u201cintel\u201d in the hands of the CIA.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Sussmann first attempted to peddle the Yotaphone data to the CIA in mid-December 2016, when he communicated with the CIA\u2019s general counsel, Caroline Krass. But when those efforts failed, he contacted a former CIA employee, threatening to go to The New York Times if the CIA didn\u2019t bite.<\/p>\n<p>As noted above, the ploy worked, resulting in Sussmann\u2019s meeting with two CIA agents on February 9, 2017. The memorandum from that meeting also suggests Sussmann wasn\u2019t shooting straight with the CIA.<\/p>\n<h2>A Pyramid of Lies<\/h2>\n<p>Foremost, of course, was Sussmann\u2019s claim \u201cthat he was not representing a particular client,\u201d even though the previous month he had told the former CIA agent his client \u201ccares about the security of the country.\u201d Also, according to Durham, Sussmann continued to represent Joffe during this meeting.<\/p>\n<p>Relatedly, Sussmann told the CIA that his \u201ccontacts\u201d \u201cpreferred anonymity, citing a potential threat from the Russian Intelligence Services.\u201d But as other court filings established, Joffe had previously <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/04\/04\/the-alfa-bank-hoax-is-looking-a-lot-like-crossfire-hurricane\/\">shared<\/a> information with intelligence agencies directly, making a claim he sought anonymity for safety reasons suspect.<\/p>\n<p>Also false, according to the special counsel, was Sussmann\u2019s claim during his February 9, 2017 meeting with the CIA that \u201cone of his contacts,\u201d who was a \u201cclearance holder,\u201d had collected the data from his \u201cprivate collection.\u201d While that may have been true about the data collected for the Trump Tower, Trump\u2019s Central Park West apartment building, and Spectrum Health, the data related to the EOP was accessed and maintained by Joffe\u2019s employer \u201cas part of a sensitive arrangement whereby it provided DNS resolution services to the EOP.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Joffe\u2019s exploitation of the government\u2019s EOP data to take down the president of the United States presents another huge scandal.<\/p>\n<p>Sussmann also told the agents that while his firm supported several Democratic causes and officeholders, including the Democratic National Committee and former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, his \u201cwork was unrelated to his reason for contacting the CIA.\u201d But Joffe\u2019s motivation in continuing to target Trump was far from apolitical, and Sussmann knew this.<\/p>\n<p>While the special counsel\u2019s office did not charge Sussmann with making a false statement to the CIA, Durham\u2019s team seeks to present evidence of Sussmann\u2019s representations to the CIA as evidence of his motive and intent to also deceive the FBI. But the scandal here goes much beyond Sussmann, and the Yotaphone hoax far surpasses what the public seems to realize\u2014and represents yet another instance of Trump\u2019s enemies <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/01\/28\/ig-report-proves-obama-administration-spied-on-trump-campaign-big-time\/\">spying<\/a> on him.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Margot Cleveland is The Federalist&#8217;s senior legal correspondent. 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. <\/p>\n<p>Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize\u2014the law school\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Newly released CIA memoranda suggest the tech gurus behind the Alfa Bank hoax also tracked Donald Trump\u2019s movements to devise another collusion conspiracy theory. While smaller in scale than other<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":498,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1448549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1448549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1448549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1448549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1448549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}