Nearly $20,000 was paid to a cybersecurity firm from the Biden campaign, at the center of Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe. In 2020, according to Federal Election Commission records, the campaign paid Neustar Information Services for accounting and compliance work.
In order to collect “derogatory” information about Donald Trump, the Neustar chief technology officer, Rodney Joffe, accessed sensitive web traffic data that the company maintained on behalf of the White House executive office, according to Durham. Allegedly the information was provided by Joffe to Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, who in turn gave it to the CIA during a meeting in February 2017, which was followed by Durham charging Sussmann in September for lying to the FBI about his investigation of Trump, per reports.
So as, according to Federal Election Commission records, the Biden and Clinton campaigns are the only two presidential committees to have ever paid Neustar, some questions have been raised about whether Joffe continued snooping around on Trump in the most recent election.
Joffe allegedly told associates that he was investigating Trump in order to please “VIPs” on the Clinton campaign, while also allegedly wanting a job in the Hillary Clinton administration. Joffe has not been charged with any wrongdoing, but his attorneys have confirmed his involvement in the matter to news outlets after Joffe and Neustar have not been named in court filings for the Sussmann case.
On the other side, Trump said that “this is a scandal far greater in scope and magnitude than Watergate and those who were involved in and knew about this spying operation should be subject to criminal prosecution.”
Data showing contacts between Trump associates and users of a Russian mobile phone provider were allegedly provided to the CIA by Sussmann, while he said that the spy agency the contacts were rare and suspicious. But the prosecutor denied that claim, saying that there were millions of contacts with users of the Russian provider, including from the Obama White House.