On top of their investigations into the extent of Russia‘s role in hacking the U.S. Presidential election, the FBI is continuing their probe into an ‘odd’ link between a Trump Organization computer server and a Russian bank.
According to CNN, last year investigators were looking at internet traffic connected to the Trump Organization. Within these leaked documents was information showing Russian based Alfa Bank conducting repeated searches for contact information on a Trump Organization server.
Last year, a small group of computer scientists obtained internet traffic records from the complex system that serves as the internet’s phone book. Access to these records is reserved for highly trusted cybersecurity firms and companies that provide this lookup service.These signals were captured as they traveled along the internet’s Domain Name System (DNS).These leaked records show that Alfa Bank servers repeatedly looked up the unique internet address of a particular Trump Organization computer server in the United States.
Although no final determination has been made by the FBI into the significance of this apparent computer link, U.S. intelligence still finds it ‘odd’. This is especially the case considering from May 4th of last year to September 23rd the Russian bank looked up an address to a Trump Organization corporate server 2,820 times. This according to reports was more lookups into the Trump server than any other source. Coming in second was a company called Spectrum Health which is owned by Dick DeVos, husband of Trump’s education secretary Betsy DeVos. However the Spectrum Health server only looked up the Trump server 714 times.
On another interesting note, Trump’s baseless accusations towards President Barack Obama and the notion that he tapped his phones emerged from a Breitbart article last weekend. Within that article were allegations that a FISA court was ‘focused on a computer’ in Trump Tower with possible links to a Russian bank.
As far as explanations go, Alfa Bank says it was most likely due to ‘spam marketing’. However this is just another layer to further connections between Donald Trump, his administration, former campaign and the Russian government.
The onion keeps on getting peeled away. At this point it’s just a matter of time before Trump himself will be found to have a direct connection not only to Russia but the Kremlin.
