Bizarre Treason Cases Tied to Russian Election Hacking

[DonViejo]

FOUR RUSSIANS ARE EITHER TRAITORS TO THEIR COUNTRY OR PAWNS IN A PUTIN POWER GAME

BY ZACHARY FRYER-BIGGS ON 12/27/17 AT 12:54 PM

Four Russian hackers have been rotting away in a notorious prison for more than a year—and they are either traitors to their country for telling U.S. intelligence agencies about Russian meddling in last year's U.S. election or just pawns in a bizarre power game by President Vladimir Putin.

Almost nothing about the cases against Sergei Mikhailov, Dmitry Dokuchaev, Ruslan Stoyanov and Georgy Fomchenkov is known, except that all four are being held on charges of treason. Their lawyers won't talk about details of the cases, and even the legal papers haven't been made public. Newsweek spoke to one of the men's lawyers, and he wouldn't even confirm the name of his client, let alone whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty.

The trials are at the core of the Russian election-hacking scandal, which has roiled American politics since even before Election Day last year. But the cases also may reveal Putin's darkest political instincts. The Russian media, which are largely controlled by the Kremlin, say the men are spies. Others say they are pawns. Then again, in Putin's Russia, they may be both at the same time.

This much is known: Mikhailov and Dokuchaev were officers in Russia’s Federal Security Service, the notorious FSB. Fomchenkov is a cyberexpert who also worked for the security agency. And Stoyanov is a cyberexpert at Kaspersky Lab, a software company that the U.S. government believes allows Russian intelligence access to customers' computers and, according to Bloomberg, has been working closely with Russian agents.

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http://www.newsweek.com/bizarre-treason-cases-tied-russian-election-hacking-759011

[blogslut]

1. Sergei Mikhailov is the bag-over-the-head guy Rachel's been talking about for a year.

https://www.inquisitr.com/3925491/rachel-maddow-russia-fsb-agent-dragged-out-with-bag-over-head-raises-trump-putin-questions/

Yesterday, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow presented an in-depth feature on questions being raised about possible connections between United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the wake of new revelations coming forth from the former Soviet state.

Yesterday, independent Russian publisher Novaya Gazeta, founded by Mikhail Gorbachev with funds from his Nobel Peace Prize, reported that in early December 2016, FSB agent Sergei Mikhailov was arrested, dragged out of a meeting with a bag over his head, and has not been seen or heard from since. Rachel Maddow reports that Mikhailov was also charged with treason. Then, Ruslan Stoyanov a high-level cybersecurity official with a private firm, was arrested on “suspicion of treason,” as reported by USA Today.

The New York Times states that if reports are accurate, Sergei Mikhailov’s arrest may be among the “the highest-profile detentions for treason within the FSB since the breakup of the Soviet Union.”

Maddow asked viewers to consider a high-ranking official with the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Central Intelligence Agency sitting in a meeting, only to be suddenly arrested and pulled out with a bag over their head, not to be heard from again. She then walked through all the “crazy stuff” coming out of the Trump administration, including the executive order to build a wall along the Mexican border, despite the fact that the U.S. has experienced net negative immigration from Mexico, as reported by Pew Research; President Trump’s claim that millions of illegal votes were cast in the election; and White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon’s call to the New York Times instructing the media to “keep its mouth shut.”

[maxsolomon]

2. they're being stashed where they can't be touched

if they weren't in custody, they'd be dead.

I bet they're in prison like Pauly and Henry Hill in Goodfellas.