The ongoing investigation into the Trump administration and the Trump Organization’s Russian ties irks the president to no end. He’s lashed out at almost everyone — Obama, the FBI, and even Senator Chuck Schumer for eating a donut with Vladimir Putin — and news that the FBI is still looking into a weird computer link between his businesses and Russia won’t please him.
CNN reports that the FBI’s still conducting a probe that was supposedly dismissed last year. The agency’s counterintelligence team, which is also still digging into Russian interference in the election, remains fixated upon an “odd” server link between Russia’s Alfa Bank and the Trump Org. The agency can’t figure out what the link means or whether it greatly matters, but they can’t look past its existence.
While there have been no actual allegations of wrongdoing by the Trump Org, Alfa’s computer server “repeatedly looked up the contact information for a computer server being used by the Trump Organization” to the point that the lookups equaled 80% of the total lookups for the Trump Org server. No one, not even the FBI, knows what the heck is up:
[F]or those who have studied the data, the activity could suggest an intent to communicate by email during a period of time when ties between the Trump Organization and Russia are being closely scrutinized because of Russia’s alleged involvement in hacking the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chief John Podesta.
[One]computer researcher, Richard Clayton of Cambridge University, said it’s just plain weird. “It’s not so much a smoking gun as a faint whiff of smoke a long way away. Maybe there’s something else going on. It’s hard to tell,” said Clayton, who has independently examined the scant evidence available.
Indeed, the issue has puzzled a number of researchers, and no one can ascertain whether he servers actually communicated, but it’s something that the FBI feels “merits further scrutiny.” Meanwhile, Alfa Bank has theorized that the Trump Org (specifically, its hotels) may have spammed the heck out of its executives, and perhaps aggressive marketing is to blame for everything. CNN contacted the Trump Org and — not surprisingly — hasn’t received an answer, and they consulted experts who would like to see the evidence for Alfa Bank’s claim.
Again, the FBI hasn’t found evidence here to make specific allegations, but it’s simply one of those weird, unexplainable blips. This might even be overlooked if not for the other suspicious Russia-Trump ties, so the FBI sees fit to keep the probe open.
(Via CNN)