The Mystery of the Appearing Text Solved—Sort Of

Two weeks ago, when the wave of pre-trial evidentiary filings began, the special counsel’s office revealed for the first time that the day before Sussmann met with Baker, Sussmann sent this text to Baker’s personal cellphone: “Jim—it’s Michael Sussmann. I have something time-sensitive (and sensitive) I need to discuss. Do you have availability for a short meeting tomorrow? I’m coming on my own—not on behalf of a client or company—want to help the Bureau. Thanks.”

The existence of this text is huge because, as the special counsel stressed in its filing, it shows that “the night before the defendant met with the General Counsel, the defendant conveyed the same lie in writing….”

The revelation of the text message, however, also raised numerous questions. From the court filings in the Sussmann case and comments made by Sussmann’s attorneys, it appeared neither side knew of the text message at the time the indictment dropped. Why not? And why was the text just now becoming known?

On Friday we learned the answers to these questions, in part.

“On March 4, 2022, Mr. Baker apparently retrieved from his personal phone copies of text messages that he had sent and received with Mr. Sussmann between 2016 and 2020,” Sussmann’s attorneys wrote in their brief. Sussmann further claimed the special counsel had said that “the text messages had been stored on the cloud and Mr. Baker had not thought to produce them earlier.”

So Durham did not know of this text message at the time of the indictment, nor for five more months. But it was Baker, not the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General, who provided the text….

Yes, the Executive Office of the President Spying Was About Trump

The second blockbuster revelation from Friday’s filings concerned the Russia Yota cell phone hoax Sussmann fed to the CIA during a February 9, 2017, meeting, allegedly on behalf of Joffe.

Approximately two months ago, the special counsel revealed how, as part of this hoax, Trump’s enemies surveilled the internet traffic at Trump Tower, his New York City apartment building, a Michigan business, and later the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). Sussmann then provided that data to the CIA, telling agents there were “suspicious lookups” of the “internet protocol or IP addresses affiliated with a Russian mobile phone provider” connected to the supposedly rare Russian Yota phone….

When news broke that to craft the Yota phone hoax Joffe had accessed data his internet company obtained “as part of a sensitive arrangement whereby it provided DNS resolution services to the EOP,” the corrupt media framed that explosive detail as a nothingburger because the data appeared to have been collected while Barack Obama was still president….

Friday’s filings did more, however, than merely reconfirm that the EOP data Joffe exploited was collected after the election: Two exhibits filed by the special counsel revealed that the mining of the EOP data, as well as of the internet traffic at Trump Tower, Trump’s New York City apartment building, and a Michigan business, were targeted to Trump’s physical presence at those locations. This raises the further question of whether the cybersecurity experts were using geolocation technology to surveil Trump’s movements….

In addition to establishing beyond doubt that the mining of the sensitive EOP data concerned Trump, these new details suggest it was not merely the Yota cell phones and the internet at locations connected to Trump being surveilled, but Trump’s own physical movements….

It’s Tech Researcher-2, David Dagon, Who Has Immunity

The third piece of news flowing from Friday’s filings concerns the special counsel’s grant of immunity to Georgia Tech researcher David Dagon—and only to Dagon. “The only witness currently immunized by the government, Researcher-2, was conferred with that status on July 28, 2021,” Durham’s memorandum explained….

Durham’s decision to grant Dagon immunity proves intriguing for several reasons. First, unlike Researcher-1, who has been identified by his attorney as Georgia Tech researcher Manos Antonakakis, Dagon continued to work with Joffe and April Lorenzen to craft the second set of data Sussmann provided to the CIA related to the supposed Yota cellphone connection to Trump. The Sussmann indictment also alleged Dagon had drafted a white paper apparently related to the Alfa Bank allegations and that Sussmann asked Dagon to “speak on background with members of the media” regarding the Alfa Bank allegation….

These details suggest Dagon holds a wealth of knowledge related to both the Alfa Bank hoax and the Yota cell phone charade, including various players’ parts in crafting the plots. More significantly, Dagon likely knows what information he and his fellow cyber researchers conveyed to Sussmann regarding the data and its weaknesses….

Dagon also has the ability to counter Sussmann’s claims of ignorance about the technicalities of DNS data….

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(Excerpt from The Federalist. Photo Credit: Getty Images)