Correction: A previous version of this article, based on an incorrect report, stated that Special Counsel John Durham used the word “infiltrate” to describe the actions. The filing used the word “exploited.”
The tech executive identified as “Tech Executive 1” in court filings in Special Counsel John Durham’s criminal investigation into the origins of the FBI’s 2016 Trump-Russia probe appears to admit that he shared data that was collected on Donald Trump with the CIA.
Durham said in a new court filing that operatives linked to Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign “exploited” Internet data linked to Trump Tower and the Executive Office of the President in an effort to establish a “narrative” tying Trump to Russia. The court filing was made late last week and centered on potential conflicts of interest related to the representation of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman, who has been charged with allegedly lying to the FBI.
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board writes:
The indictment revealed that Mr. Sussmann worked with “Tech Executive-1,” who has been identified as Rodney Joffe, formerly of Neustar Inc. The indictment says Mr. Joffe used his companies, as well as researchers at a U.S. university, to access internet data, which he used to gather information about Mr. Trump’s communications. … The new shocker relates to the data Mr. Joffe and friends were mining. According to Friday’s filing, as early as July 2016 Mr. Joffe was “exploit[ing]” his “access to non-public and/or proprietary Internet data,” including “Internet traffic pertaining to . . . the Executive Office of the President of the United States (“EOP”).”
The filing explains that Mr. Joffe’s employer “had come to access and maintain dedicated servers for the EOP as part of a sensitive arrangement whereby it provided [internet services]” to the White House. Mr. Joffe’s team also was monitoring internet traffic related to Trump Tower, and Mr. Trump’s apartment on Central Park West.
A spokesperson for Joffe, the tech executive, told the WSJ that “contrary to the allegations in this recent filing, Mr. Joffe is an apolitical internet security expert with decades of service to the U.S Government who has never worked for a political party.”
The statement claimed “there were serious and legitimate national security concerns about Russian attempts to infiltrate the 2016 election” and that “respected cyber-security researchers were deeply concerned about the anomalies they found in the data and prepared a report of their findings, which was subsequently shared with the CIA.”
The New York Post reported last year that Joffe “claimed that he had been ‘tentatively offered the top [cybersecurity] job by the Democrats when it looked like they’d win [in 2016].”
“I definitely would not take the job under Trump,” Joffe added in an email that was quoted in the indictment.
Trump responded over the weekend to the court filing in the Durham investigation by saying that it provided “indisputable evidence that my campaign and presidency were spied on by operatives paid by the Hillary Clinton Campaign in an effort to develop a completely fabricated connection to Russia.”
“This is a scandal far greater in scope and magnitude than Watergate and those who were involved in and knew about this spying operation should be subject to criminal prosecution,” Trump continued. “In a stronger period of time in our country, this crime would have been punishable by death. In addition, reparations should be paid to those in our country who have been damaged by this.”
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