Looks like they were doing FISA type NSA archival database searching privately. Is there a parallel database out there, up for hire? Technically, they used it to snoop on Obama's EOP as well.
6. The Indictment further details that on February 9, 2017, the defendant provided an updated set of
allegations – including the Russian Bank-1 data and additional allegations relating Case 1:21-cr-00582-CRC
Document 35 Filed 02/11/22 Page 3 of 13 4 to Trump – to a second agency of the U.S. government (“Agency-
2”). The Government’s evidence at trial will establish that these additional allegations relied, in part, on the
purported DNS traffic that Tech Executive-1 and others had assembled pertaining to Trump Tower, Donald
Trump’s New York City apartment building, the EOP, and the aforementioned healthcare provider. In his
meeting with Agency-2, the defendant provided data which he claimed reflected purportedly suspicious DNS
lookups by these entities of internet protocol (“IP”) addresses affiliated with a Russian mobile phone
provider (“Russian Phone Provider-1”). The defendant further claimed that these lookups demonstrated
that Trump and/or his associates were using supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the
vicinity of the White House and other locations. The Special Counsel’s Office has identified no support for
these allegations. Indeed, more complete DNS data that the Special Counsel’s Office obtained from a
company that assisted Tech Executive-1 in assembling these allegations reflects that such DNS lookups (What was the company? Inquiring minds would like to know.)
were far from rare in the United States. For example, the more complete data that Tech Executive-1 and
his associates gathered – but did not provide to Agency-2 – reflected that between approximately 2014 and
2017, there were a total of more than 3 million lookups of Russian Phone-Provider-1 IP addresses that
originated with U.S.-based IP addresses. Fewer than 1,000 of these lookups originated with IP addresses
affiliated with Trump Tower. In addition, the more complete data assembled by Tech Executive-1 and his
associates reflected that DNS lookups involving the EOP and Russian Phone Provider-1 began at least as
early 2014 (i.e., during the Obama administration and years before Trump took office) – another fact
which the allegations omitted. |
