A graphic promoting the conspiracy theory is posted on April 3, 2017, by Tea Pain and titled “Trump Tower’s “Stealth Russian Data Machine.”
(…) Mr. Strzok‘s text messages were released on Thursday by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, and Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican.
Mr. Strzok talked of more investigative steps needed before coming to a finding. By February, the FBI finished its Alfa probe and concluded that no such Alfa-Trump server connection existed, according to a December 2019 report by the Justice Department inspector general.
Computer scientists, one going by the name “Tea Leaves,” had posted their Alfa-Trump conspiracies online. But it was a Slate.com story on Oct. 31, 2016, that propelled the story into the ongoing presidential election.
Hillary Clinton tweeted the Slate.Com assertion, as did her chief adviser, Jake Sullivan, the incoming national security adviser for president-elect Joseph R. Biden.
The Slate.com story reported that after a New York Times reporter contacted Alfa in September, the “Trump domain name in question seemed to suddenly stop working.”
That coincides with Mr. Strzok‘s innocent explanation that same month: the FBI had informed Central Dynamics (Cendyn) that it still maintained the obsolete “Trump-email.com” domain name and after the notification, the firm terminated it.
On the broader question of whether Alfa-Trump secretly communicated––a theory dismissed by the FBI––Alfa Bank has filed a lawsuit in Lancaster County, Pa., Court of Commons Pleas against “John Doe.”
In essence, the lawsuit says a hacker, or group of hackers, duped computer scientists and the news media.
The purpose is to try to find out who created phony DNS pings of supposed communication that never actually happened, the lawsuit says. Alfa lawyers have contacted computer scientists who endorsed and wrote about the conspiracy to see if they can lead them to the hackers.
Alfa’s assertions are based on the findings of three cybersecurity firms it hired.
“Alfa bank in fact engaged in no communications with the Trump Organization in 2016 or 2017 beyond the falsely generated and inauthentic DNS queries,” the court action says. “Indeed, Alfa bank has never had any business dealings with the Trump Organization.”
“Tea Leaves” findings were promoted during and after the election by Fusion GPS and its co-founder Glenn Simpson, who handled anti-dossier writer Christopher Steele. The dossier, financed by Democrats, stands today as discredited in its dozen or so felony allegations against President Trump and aides.” (Read more: Washington Times, 12/18/2020) (Archive) (Strzok emails)