So, for those who don't know "how" they twisted the law to tag the term "Felon" on Trump, here it is. I won't do a whole thread on all the other craziness like how they got around that statute of limitations which expired on this years ago, the politically motivated Judge and the refusal to recuse themselves or allow a change of venue, or the judges daughter raking in millions and having Biden, Harris, Schiff, etc as clients. Below is "How They Did It". 



https://web.archive.org/web/202405311327...e-law.html

Quote:The charges against Trump are obscure, and nearly entirely unprecedented. In fact, no state prosecutor — in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere — has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime, against anyone, for anything. None. Ever. Even putting aside the specifics of election law, the Manhattan DA itself almost never brings any case in which falsification of business records is the only charge.



Standing alone, falsification charges would have been mere misdemeanors under New York law, which posed two problems for the DA. First, nobody cares about a misdemeanor, and it would be laughable to bring the first-ever charge against a former president for a trifling offense that falls within the same technical criminal classification as shoplifting a Snapple and a bag of Cheetos from a bodega. Second, the statute of limitations on a misdemeanor — two years — likely has long expired on Trump’s conduct, which dates to 2016 and 2017.


So, to inflate the charges up to the lowest-level felony (Class E, on a scale of Class A through E) — and to electroshock them back to life within the longer felony statute of limitations — the DA alleged that the falsification of business records was committed “with intent to commit another crime.” Here, according to prosecutors, the “another crime” is a New York State election-law violation, which in turn incorporates three separate “unlawful means”: federal campaign crimes, tax crimes, and falsification of still more documents. 

Inexcusably, the DA refused to specify what those unlawful means actually were — and the judge declined to force them to pony up — until right before closing arguments. So much for the constitutional obligation to provide notice to the defendant of the accusations against him in advance of trial. (This, folks, is what indictments are for.)


In these key respects, the charges against Trump aren’t just unusual. They’re bespoke, seemingly crafted individually for the former president and nobody else.
The Manhattan DA’s employees reportedly have called this the “Zombie Case” because of various legal infirmities, including its bizarre charging mechanism. But it’s better characterized as the Frankenstein Case, cobbled together with ill-fitting parts into an ugly, awkward, but more-or-less functioning contraption that just might ultimately turn on its creator.


Trump will appeal, as is his right, and he’s certain to contest the inventive charges constructed by the DA. I won’t go so far as to say an appeals court is likely to overturn a conviction — New York law is broad and hazy enough to (potentially) allow such machinations — but he’s going to have a decent shot at a reversal.


“No man is above the law.” It’s become cliché, but it’s an important point, and it’s worth pausing to reflect on the importance of this core principle. But it’s also meaningless pablum if we unquestioningly tolerate (or worse, celebrate) deviations from ordinary process and principle to get there. The jury’s word is indeed sacrosanct, as I learned long ago. But it can’t fix everything that preceded it. Here, prosecutors got their man, for now at least — but they also contorted the law in an unprecedented manner in their quest to snare their prey.

Quote:

Dem clients of daughter of NY judge in Trump hush money trial raised $93M off the case

Quote:NORFOLK, Va. — Fresh from announcing the name of the Navy’s next amphibious assault ship, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro surprised sailors at Naval Station Norfolk by revealing additional vessels for the planned Despair-class of surface combatants.

“I know it’s tradition to name our amphibs after past victories,” said Del Toro. “But we haven’t really put a ‘W’ on the board recently. So the Navy’s top leaders and I decided that a ship class that reminds its occupants of endless hardship for fewer explainable reasons the longer things went on was a better tribute to the last 20 years of American military performance. I’m pleased to tell you that the USS Helmand Province will soon be joined by a sister ship, the USS Hamid Karzai International Airport.”

Del Toro noted that in recent years, Navy leadership has been increasingly hard-pressed to conjure positive examples of American arms. So it has decided to name ships after aspects of military life to which all servicemembers can relate.

“I tell you, we went through a lot of introspection trying to figure out why we’d run out of successful campaigns to name our ships after,” Del Toro said. “Ultimately we decided it was a combination of tragic mistakes by mid-level leaders and junior troops combined with Gen Z’s lack of adulting skills and in no way a reflection of decades of corruption, failed accountability, and lack of oversight on the part of the Navy, or really, the American defense establishment in general. Anyway, we still needed ship names. So we decided that new Despair-class vessels would be the floating embodiment of the Defense Department’s 21st-century zeitgeist.”

According to Del Toro, each ship will be custom-made as a living interactive experience of its namesake.

“Take the Hamid Karzai—the ship’s air wing offers free rides in aircraft wheel wells and on Friday nights there’s a fun hide-and-seek for a suicide bomber you’re not allowed to shoot. Then when the suicide bomber kills all your friends, you can take a trip to the bridge where the commanding officer—wearing a Frank McKenzie mask—tells you it’s not his fault your buddies are red mist and by the way, you’re not allowed to talk about it. Oh, and you’ll love our multimedia room where you can watch your former interpreter whose Special Immigrant Visa is still awaiting approval get dismembered in 4KHD.”

The names of other future vessels hearken back to fond memories for many veterans of the GWOT. The USS Green on Blue Incident and USS Turn a Blind Eye to Open Pedophilia capture the high points of many an OEF deployment, whereas the USS Burn Pit bridges the experience of both Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The Burn Pit is actually a great deal for the American taxpayer,” Del Toro said proudly. “It’s a converted Admiral Kuznetsov-class coal-powered aircraft carrier we got from the Russians in exchange for promising to never let Tucker Carlson back into their country. And we’ll save a ton of money on the back end because we certainly won’t be paying benefits for lung, heart, and brain diseases from sucking down exhaust fumes.”

Del Toro said the Navy was also considering a new line of Misery-class hospital ships sponsored by the Department of Veterans Affairs.


“The class leader will be the USNS We Rate You 30% For Being a Quadruple Amputee, followed by the USNS 22 A Day. The 22 A Day has a lot of amenities: each cabin is equipped with a noose and a hold music playlist just long enough to make you want to use it.”

According to Del Toro, Navy leaders are still developing a full list of future ship names, some of which would capture the more mundane aspects of military life. Top candidates include the USS Get Your Hands Out of Your Fucking Pockets, USS Leave Request to Attend Your Mom’s Funeral is Denied, and USS Triple Divorcee.

At press time, Del Toro said that all the new ships he had just announced a minute ago were now delayed by 50 years.

I have chosen this forum for this thought because I believe one day we will come back to the pen and paper being a widely used form of communication. 

We are entering a new phase. A phase of total control through the digital world. Every word we type at this point is monitored, saved, all used for counterintelligence and all fed to AI for the future punishments to come. Everything we do now is digital, and soon even our money will be digital. They will have total control when this happens.

Since most of us do not have the tech knowledge to cover tracks and "go dark" I see a future where the pen and paper, as well as the "messenger" making a come back.

Pen and paper will be impossible to monitor on any affective level.

I see a future where we will communicate through the old fashioned  handwritten letter. 

It will end up being the only way for "sensitive and private" information to be passed.

The pen and paper will make a comeback. 

Watch how they'll make it "illegal."

Our future...¿

As many as 50 to 80 (depends on who is reporting) tunnels from Gaza to Egypt has been discovered along the buffer zone between Egypt and Gaza. Many of these tunnels are large enough to drive a delivery truck through. 
 
Israel could not figure out how Hamas had so many missiles to keep firing at Israel but now the answer is before them..
 
Egypt has a peace treaty with Israel and for anyone to believe Egypt did not know of the supplies and tunnels to Hamas from Egypt to Gaza has to be dumber than a....no one could be that dumb IMO !
 
The only question is how far up does this knowledge go in the Egyptian government ?

I personally believe it goes to the top as Egypt did not want Israel to occupy the Philadelphia buffer Zone and thus discover the tunnels.

This may not stay up long so get it while you can if interested

This post comes with the usual high octane speculation we all love.

Quote:INJECTING CRUD, EJECTING GOD, AND BEING A PATENT SLAVE

May 27, 2024 / Joseph P. Farrell

Every now and then I get a very unusual article from all of you that I have to pass along, together with my usual high octane speculation, and that's the case with today's blog article that was spotted and shared by S.D. This one clearly falls into the high octane questions and speculations  category, and I think you'll see why as soon as you read the title:

Destroying Our Connection to God with Gene Editing Injections

There's nothing for it but to dive right in; from the beginning of the article:

Quote:More than a hundred years ago, Rudolf Steiner wrote that. “In the future, we will eliminate the soul with medicine. Under the pretext of a ‘healthy point of view’, there will be a vaccine by which the human body will be treated... so that the human being cannot develop the thought of the existence of soul and Spirit… He would be extremely smart, but he would not develop a conscience, and that is the true goal of some materialistic circles.”

Most regular readers of this website or participants in our members' vidchats know that I am not a big Rudolf Steiner fan. To put all my cards on the table, I find his writing dry, one dimensional, and unreadable, and the endless claims and assertions without the slightest attempt to cite any source from which he draws some of those assertions to be downright irritating and frustration almost without parallel. After all, he's German, and when it comes to footnotes, he should know better.  But in any case, Steiner's speculation here is one of the few that I think is highly intriguing, given its relationship to what follows in this article, and yes, while I have blogged about this subject before, it's time for a revision and extension of remarks. Consider the relation between Steiner's speculation, and the following exchange from the article on whether or not a  "God gene briefing" at the US Department of Defense was fake news or not:

Quote:A viral video which claims to be a leaked 2005 presentation to the DOD by American geneticist, Dean Hamer, shows a man briefing a room of men about the VMAT2 gene, the God gene, and how it can be suppressed with the use of vaccines.

"Excuse me, on the left over here, we have individuals who are religious fundamentalists, religious fanatics. And this is the expression RTPCR, real time PCR, expression of the VMAT2 gene. Our hypothesis is that these are fanatical people, that they have overexpression of the VMAT2 gene and that by vaccinating against this, we'll eliminate this behavior."

Now this last quotation, in the article, is followed by a little parenthetical comment that alleges it is fake, presumably because the alleged briefing was not a Department of Defense briefing, but a "home movie" that it was just a short film:

Quote:In 2021, former NEWS anchor, Ryan Harper, claimed in the San Francisco Chronicle that he created this video as a short film. But has provided no clear evidence to substantiate this claim. And if it is a hoax, then it appears to be disinformation, False information deliberately spread to employ strategic deceptions to advance political, military, or commercial goals. Because in 2009, Dean Hamer lectured at Marlboro College about this same subject.

"Well, it turns out at least one gene that's involved in spirituality has not been identified. It's one of many different players. The next slide shows it. It's something called the Vesicular Monoamine Transporter number two."

So the "God gene" is real. And apparently so is the effort to deploy means for its attenuation or even complete eradication, for the article goes on to link this article:

Erasing Humanity: Evidence of VMAT2 Deletion

In the second article, a connection is drawn to the covid injections and to the phenomenon that some of its recipients have reported a loss of emotionality, listlessness, of "connection" to others and even themselves. Returning to the first article, we note the following:

Quote:The VMAT2 gene is a protein that carries several vital neurotransmitters to synapses in the brain. It basically controls the central nervous system. Deleting it, known as a knockout, would greatly reduce these neurotransmitters creating an endless list of chronic health issues.

VMAT2 deletion is accomplished using the “SLC18A2 cDNA ORF clone” where “cDNA” is “Complimentary DNA.” Which is used in human cloning and genetically modifying an organism. In 2013, Supreme Court judges ruled that cDNA added to target cells in the human genome, makes a person patent eligible. And there are patents for using this to genetically edit the human VMAT2 gene and delete it. This can easily be done using simple CRISPR technology and is even sold online.

In a 2020 study on mice, VMAT2 gene deletion caused schizophrenia. In a 2022 study it caused Parkinson’s disease. In the American Journal of Human Genetics, a study on deleting the VMAT2 induces an “Intellectual Disability Syndrome” in humans. It causes autoimmune disorders, cerebral palsy, type 1 diabetes, and several other illnesses. Begging the question, as Dr. Love asks, “How long have pharma and the government been reducing our humanity through VMAT2 knockouts?”

VMAT2 deletion also causes fearfulness, psychiatric disorders, cardiac arrhythmia, cancer, and accelerated aging. While it’s unlikely that these sadistic mad scientists can cut us off from God, they are definitely doing their best to murder us. (Emphases added)

That list would seem, at least in part, to record some types of adverse reactions associated with the covid injections. At best, it's suggesting that its attenuation or utter removal results in a loss of reasoning ability, and even of physical control of one's body (both the voluntary and involuntary). But you will note that one of my own previous high octane speculations has been confirmed, for note that the Supreme Court of the USA has already ruled that genetic modifications done to edit out this gene  are patentable...

...in other words, one could envision the Mon(ster)santo-GMO scenario on steroids, whereby "infection" with a modified gene of this nature could lead to assertions of property rights over an individual...
...to a kind of "zombie slavery"...

That of course, leads me to my high octane speculation of the day, which must be asked in the form of a question: one assumes that the "God gene" is not the only such "spirituality-influencing" gene in the human genome, and that there may be other genes and even epigenetic factors involved. The question then becomes, is there or are there present, within animals and particularly the higher beasts, similar genes that enable their domestication, as these genes appear to enable human reason and emotional life?

I suspect there are, and I also suspect that just as "they" have already talked about putting their quackcines into the food supply to be ingested by the human population, they might attempt to do the same to the animals...

...if they haven't already. After all, they've pretty well tainted most of the rest of the food supply, and we do not need to catalogue how: chemtrails and aerial spraying, pesticides, steroids, and of course, genetic modifications (and who knows how many of these additives there really are?).

I'm reminded once again of that marvellous chapter, "Banquet at Belbury" of C.S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength, as these insane, godless, irrational and power-mad scientismists continue their mad experiments, that the animals, at least, have to good sense to revolt. After all, when one tries to remove that logos spermatikos of the "god gene" from humanity one ends up with all sorts of health problems, including mental health problems. One can only imagine what happens when one removes the logoi spermatikoi from the rest of the living world as well.

The 1992 documentary tells the story of The American Dream "from the environment's point of view", as HBO describes it, and the price that was paid to make it come true. It is narrated by a huge cast of then-and-now-famous actors reading famous quotes from historical figures of all kinds throughout our country's history. It begins exactly 500 years previous with the landing of Columbus, and progresses through all our major eras, including the ravaging of the land, the displacement and killing of the Native Americans and the great killing of the American Buffalo, The Industrial Revolution, the boom and subsequent Stock Market Crash of 1929, the Great Depression, the Atomic Age, the advent of electricity in every home, the Space Race, and the destruction of the environment.

This documentary aired on HBO back in October 1992 with periodic repeats for about six months after. The footage is quite beautiful, even for a 32 year old, made-for-premium-TV documentary that would end up being all but forgotten.

A question the film poses all throughout is when will we learn that we have only this one planet and that we are all one people? It is interesting to look back to see how little has really changed.

Featuring the celebrity voices of:

Ed Asner - Alec Baldwin - Ned Beatty - Ed Begley, Jr. - Lloyd Bridges - Ellen Burstyn - James Caan - Jacques Cousteau - Peter Coyote - Harrison Ford - Mel Gibson - Lee Grant - Graham Greene - Gene Hackman - Dustin Hoffman - Anthony Hopkins - Jeremy Irons - Michael Keaton - Jack Lemmon - Karl Malden - E.G. Marshall - Bette Midler - Haing S Ngor - Christopher Reeve - Mary Steenburgen - Rod Steiger - Sam Waterson - Dennis Weaver - and more.

Quote:Giants of Malta | Evidence the Ancient Builders are Hiding Underground Malta is an island rich with history and legends with mysterious megalithic structures that have puzzled archaeologists for centuries. These massive stone temples, some of the oldest in the world, seem almost impossible to have been built by prehistoric farmers. But there's more lurking beneath the surface. Legends say the Nephilim were the giant beings who constructed these incredible structures, and their descendants may still dwell underground today. We investigate the possibility of these giants, examining bones, elongated skulls, and mysterious hidden subterranean chambers called The Hypogeum.

Full title: Bird flu reported in second Michigan farmworker; third human case in U.S.

I felt this needed to get out there, just two cases, but out of three in the entire country. To my paranoid mind that sounds like the beginning of a cluster, that could become an epidemic and then a possible pandemic. It is carried by birds, bears, cattle, cats, dogs, etc., and humans now obviously.

Quote:Bird flu reported in second Michigan farmworker; third human case in U.S.

(CBS DETROIT) - A second case of H5 influenza, also known as bird flu or avian influenza, was detected in another Michigan farmworker, marking the second human case in Michigan, and the third in the country.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services says the new case was reported in a farmworker who worked closely with cows that tested positive for bird flu but was employed at a different farm than the worker did in the case they announced on May 22.

The risk to the general public is still low . . . according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

. . . The first case of bird flu in a human was detected in a Texas farmworker who was exposed to infected dairy cattle.

Bird flu was first detected in Michigan in dairy herds that arrived in Michigan from Texas, and have since been found in Clinton, Gratiot and Ionia counties.

Earlier this month, Michigan egg producer Herbuck's Poultry Ranch announced that it was laying off about 400 employees. The company said the virus impacted its hen population at some farms in Ionia County.

Caution: Super lengthy spy novelish article.

Quote:VIENNA — The coup began with the sound of a doorbell.

Just after 8 a.m. on Feb. 28, 2018, Austrian police Commander Wolfgang Preiszler pressed the buzzer at the headquarters of the country’s domestic intelligence service and held his ID up to the security camera.

Within minutes, dozens of his colleagues armed with Glock pistols and a battering ram fanned out through the building in bullet-proof vests and balaclavas, seizing confidential data stored on the agency’s servers and sensitive documents lying on desks.

The incursion — pitting the police against the spy service, known as the BVT — unleashed a firestorm that shattered Austria’s reputation in the intelligence world and led to the agency’s closure.

The incursion — pitting the police against the spy service, known as the BVT — unleashed a firestorm that shattered Austria’s reputation in the intelligence world and led to the agency’s closure.

More than six years later, the true scope of what transpired that day is only now coming into focus. Intelligence officials tell POLITICO that new evidence suggests the raid was part of a Moscow-led operation to discredit Austria’s spy services in order to rebuild them with new leadership under the Kremlin’s influence. Crucial to that effort, they say, was the junior partner in the government coalition at the time: the far-right, pro-Russia Freedom Party (FPÖ), which today is the most popular party in the country.

Last month, Austrian prosecutors revealed that the men believed to have laid the groundwork for the action were Russian agents directed by Jan Marsalek, the fugitive former chief operating officer of the collapsed payment processing firm Wirecard, who authorities say works for Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.

The suggestion of a Moscow-led conspiracy is explosive for a number of reasons. For one, it appears to have nearly succeeded. Were it not for the so-called Ibiza scandal in 2019 (in which the FPÖ’s then-leader was caught on video trying to sell political influence to a woman he believed to be the niece of a Russian oligarch), there may have been nothing to stop the plan from coming to fruition. Instead, the Ibiza affair triggered the government’s collapse, pushing the FPÖ into opposition where it has remained since.

Most worrying, however, is that the man ultimately responsible for the BVT raid, then-Interior Minister Herbert Kickl, now heads the FPÖ — which makes him a leading candidate to become Austria’s next chancellor after elections later this year. Though seasoned political observers insist Austria won’t become a Russian vassal under the FPÖ, a Kickl chancellorship would still play into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hands, allowing the Kremlin to exert more influence over the country behind the scenes, and echoing its success in co-opting the likes of Hungary and Serbia. 

“Putin would naturally be pleased by the ambiguity about Austria’s position on Ukraine and the EU that Kickl would bring,” said Christian Rainer, a veteran Austrian publisher and commentator. “The danger for Austria is that it would be completely isolated.” 

The honeytrap: How Russia recruited Jan Marsalek

In Marsalek, a well-spoken polyglot who had a taste for adventure and didn’t mind getting his hands dirty, the Russians found a perfect vehicle to infiltrate Austria’s security establishment.

The Vienna-born executive had an unorthodox CV for the No. 2 position in a blue-chip company.  After leaving home and ditching school at 19, he joined Wirecard as its chief technology officer in 2000, when the firm’s core business was processing payments for online gambling and pornography.



Like many an espionage career, Marsalek’s began with what is known in the trade as a “honeytrap.” A lifelong bachelor with a reputation as a thrill seeker (one of his Russian handlers later took him to Palmyra in Syria to see the war there up close), Marsalek, then in his mid-30s, was ripe for the taking.

Her name was “Natasha.” An erotic model who had once played a Russian agent in a vampire B-movie called “Red Lips II-Blood Lust,” Natasha, aka Natalia Zlobina, met Marsalek in 2013.

Wirecard’s CEO had dispatched Marsalek to Moscow to drum up business, and he traveled there frequently. A Russian business contact suggested Natasha could help him, and the two hit it off. Investigators suspect that Natasha, with whom Marsalek enjoyed a jet-set life traveling around Europe from St. Tropez to Santorini, played a central role in his recruitment. 

At first, Russian intelligence was primarily interested in Marsalek for his connection to Wirecard. Investigators believe the Russians used the firm to launder money, pay off mercenaries and fund other illicit activities. Over time, however, they began to grasp the value of Marsalek’s Austrian connections.

As the capital of a neutral country at the crossroads between East and West, and one that hosts important branches of the United Nations, OPEC and other international organizations, Vienna had long been a hotbed for global espionage. That explains why Russia has more accredited diplomats and Russian support staff in the city — 258 — than almost anywhere else in the world. About one-third, intelligence experts say, are likely spies.

Moreover, Russia likely wanted to spy not just in Austria, but on Austria, for a simple reason: Despite its lack of political clout on the world stage, the country belongs to the EU and has long been within the Western fold (while not a member of NATO, Austria collaborates with the alliance), giving it access to the kind of information Moscow covets.

“Austria is interesting for the Russians because they can use it as a platform for spying operations against other European countries,” said Thomas Riegler, a Vienna-based historian who has written extensively on Austrian intelligence.

Marsalek quickly proved himself willing and able to deliver just what the Russians wanted.

The infiltration of Austria’s spy service

The Austrian executive was officially based at Wirecard’s offices in Munich, but from his shadow headquarters — a 19th-century, neo-baroque villa that once belonged to a Bavarian prince — he maintained close ties to his homeland and its political elite. 

The villa, situated across the street from the Russian consulate, helped burnish Marsalek’s reputation as a serious player. After meetings there, he liked to treat his guests to a meal at nearby Käfer, an exclusive Munich eatery. At one such gathering, Marsalek brought together ex-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel’s former top security adviser, Erich Vad, and Wolfgang Schüssel, the former chancellor of Austria.

By 2015 Marsalek’s connections had led to Martin Weiss, then head of operations for BVT, the domestic intelligence agency. Exactly when and where they met isn’t clear (Weiss claims he first encountered Marsalek in 2015 at a conference organized by the interior ministry), but the relationship would prove fateful for both.

As the head of the agency’s “Section 2,” its operations arm and largest and most important division, Weiss was arguably the best-informed intelligence official in Austria. He and another senior official at the agency, Egisto Ott, would eventually be accused by investigators of funneling information to Marsalek and onward to Moscow. 

Ott was arrested on Good Friday this year on suspicion of spying for Russia at Marsalek’s behest. Weiss, Ott’s ex-boss, remains at large in Dubai, where he fled in 2021 with Marsalek’s help. Ott, who is being held in preventive custody, denies any wrongdoing. Weiss could not be reached for comment.

Like most officials at the BVT, Weiss and Ott had a background in law enforcement. Housed within the interior ministry, the BVT’s primary mission was to protect Austria’s constitutional authorities and identify terror threats (hence its unwieldy name: the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Combatting Terrorism).

Both men began their careers as uniformed policemen in the 1980s and worked their way up the ranks, each joining a special anti-terror unit in the 1990s, where they met. Both came from humble beginnings.

Named for the Greek mythological figure Aegisthus (a notorious schemer), Ott was born to an Italian mother and an Austrian father. Though well-liked among his foreign counterparts, who readily shared confidential information with him, he was less popular within the BVT. Former colleagues describe him as abrasive and a “know-it-all.”

Weiss, meanwhile, was regarded as a shrewd analyst but a distant figure driven by his ambition to reach the top of the agency. Why he decided to collaborate with Marsalek, as authorities allege, remains a mystery.

What is known is that in 2015, Ott, who reported directly to Weiss, began making unauthorized queries in police computers, often inventing fake case numbers to hide his tracks, according to Austrian investigators. The searches typically involved the location of exiled Russians, especially those who had fallen out of favor with the Kremlin.

Weiss would receive requests from Marsalek and pass them on to Ott, who would report back to Weiss, according to investigative files seen by POLITICO. In one case described by investigators, Ott used his network to track down a Russian intelligence officer who defected by circulating his fingerprints and claiming the man was a terror suspect. Though Ott ultimately discovered the former Russian agent’s fake identity, the man managed to avoid assassination.

According to texts he exchanged with Weiss, Ott needed money. Over the years he received hundreds of thousands of euros for providing information, authorities believe. Ott denies this.

Marsalek’s Austro-Russian network and a secret dossier

In late 2015 Weiss went on sick leave after injuring his back. Though he was out of commission for more than a year, during which he had to relinquish control of Section 2, the flow of information continued, with Ott making hundreds of unauthorized queries for Marsalek via Weiss, according to the authorities.

In 2017, after Weiss returned to BVT in a different senior role, the two men undertook a more complicated mission for Marsalek, authorities allege.



It was a delicate moment in Austrian politics. The country was in the middle of an election season that promised to remake its political landscape.

After years of a grand coalition led by the Social Democrats, the center-right People’s Party, under a charismatic young leader named Sebastian Kurz, was favored to win the October ballot. Kurz’s likely coalition partner, the far-right FPÖ, was keen to take control of the interior ministry and, with it, the BVT.

For Marsalek, the power shift represented a chance to deepen Russia’s influence at the agency. And he knew just which buttons to push.

Founded in the 1950s by SS veterans, the FPÖ has always deeply resented the political establishment. If Marsalek wanted the FPÖ to go after the BVT, then, all he had to do was convince the party’s leadership that the intelligence deep state was out to get them.

Ott and Weiss, both with their own gripes against the BVT and its leaders, were perfect for the job. In April 2017 an anonymous dossier, which investigators believe was compiled by one or both of the men, began landing in the mailboxes of journalists and prosecutors in installments. The anonymous authors accused the agency’s leadership of corruption on a grand scale, including the mishandling of privileged data and the misuse of public funds for sex parties and other unorthodox pursuits.

Laced with authentic insider details about BVT operations and naming dozens of agency personnel, the dossier seemed credible at first glance, but the accusations didn’t stand up to scrutiny. 

Michael Nikbakhsh, one of Austria’s top investigative journalists and a recipient of the dossier, spent weeks probing it only to reach a sobering conclusion. “It was bullshit,” he said. “It all sounded plausible, but it was a mix of fact and fiction.”

For Marsalek, “plausible” was good enough. He had just the vehicle to promote the dossier’s conclusions: the Austro-Russian Friendship Society, of which he was a prominent member.

Founded in the late 1990s to promote closer ties between the two countries, the Friendship Society’s membership included the CEOs of some of Austria’s biggest companies, including oil and gas conglomerate OMV, as well as prominent lawyers, lobbyists, at least one Habsburg, and senior politicians from the country’s major parties, including the FPÖ.

The main target of Marsalek’s campaign was the leader of the FPÖ’s parliamentary group, Johann Gudenus, an impressionable Russophile close to Heinz-Christian Strache, then the party’s leader.

As coalition talks between the People’s Party and the FPÖ were underway, Marsalek peppered Gudenus with negative information about the BVT’s leadership, warning his friend that powerful forces within the security service and aligned with Kurz’s party were trying to undermine the far-right group. To keep his communications secret, Marsalek sent Gudenus messages via one of the founders of the Friendship Society, Florian Stermann.

The FPÖ, Gudenus and Stermann did not respond to requests for comment.


Austria’s far-right vs. the deep state

Marsalek had good reason to undermine the BVT. Ott, his trusty source within the agency, had just been suspended, following a tip from the CIA that he had forwarded work emails to his private account.  The authorities had yet to find a smoking gun, but they were closing in.

With the clock ticking, Marsalek made a risky move. In November 2017 he forwarded Gudenus a confidential BVT case number, encouraging him to get his hands on the file and falsely claiming it held sensitive information the agency had collected on the FPÖ.

By the time the FPÖ took control of the interior ministry at the end of 2017, the party’s leadership was convinced the BVT was actively trying to undermine it.

In January 2018, Peter Goldgruber, the newly installed No. 2 official at the interior ministry who reported directly to Kickl, told a prosecutor who handled corruption cases that he had been ordered to “clean up” the ministry, according to notes the prosecutor took on the meeting. His first target: the BVT.

Goldgruber encouraged the prosecutor to pursue a case against the agency’s leaders on the basis of the information contained in Marsalek’s dossier. Though the accusations were vague, a key witness had come forward: Martin Weiss. Ultimately, the prosecutor signed off on a raid.

The next task was to find police officers to carry out the operation. All of the country’s elite units had ties to the BVT leadership, meaning there was a great risk the agency would catch wind of the raid before it happened. Goldgruber settled on Commander Preiszler, a local FPÖ politician who ran a special street-crime unit.

“Good morning, comrade, we’re here for a meeting,” Preiszler told the BVT security guard after he rang the bell. Once inside the first gate, Preiszler’s tone turned less friendly, according to eyewitness accounts, and he ordered the guards to hand over a master key and electronic pass for the premises.

Preiszler knew his destination: “Where is the entrance to Section 2?” he barked at the guards. Once there, he and his officers made a beeline for the unit that investigates right-wing extremism, including organizations with strong ties to the FPÖ, such as the so-called identitarian movement.

The officers didn’t know what to look for, so they grabbed everything they could find, from printed documents to servers and thumb drives. A printout on the desk of the unit’s director was likely of particular interest to Preiszler — an invitation to an event sent by convicted Austrian neo-Nazi Gottfried Küssel, with Preiszler among the invitees. (A former head of the BVT unit described the document, which has gone missing, during a recent parliamentary hearing.)

No shots were fired, but by the time Preiszler’s team finished its work that evening, the real target of the operation — the BVT — had been neutralized.

The trouble was that Preiszler’s unit, which spent most of its time chasing drug dealers, was ill-prepared for a search that involved highly classified information.

Among the 40,000 gigabytes of data seized by police during the BVT raid was a copy of the “Neptune Databank,” a hard drive containing years of top-secret information shared with the Austrians by other Western intelligence agencies, including the CIA, MI5 and Mossad. (Whether the Russians managed to make a copy of the drive in the chaos that followed the raid isn’t clear.)

If the cloud of suspicion unleashed by the action wasn’t bad enough, the seizure of a top-secret hard drive with information from partner services was crippling. In the fraternity of global intelligence, such an indiscretion, regardless of the circumstances, was unforgivable. The Austrians were soon cut off by their partners.

Marsalek’s plan to remake Austria’s spy services

Marsalek had every reason to be pleased with himself. 

The agency was discredited. Its director, Peter Gridling, had been suspended amid the investigation, and Weiss had left the BVT and gone to work for Marsalek directly in Munich out of his villa. Finally, in an unrelated decision, an Austrian court had lifted Ott’s suspension.

Though Ott had been reassigned to another corner of the interior ministry, he still had access to the information Marsalek wanted, and the relationship between the two men continued to pay high dividends.

In the wake of the Salisbury poisoning of Russian defector Sergei Skripal, a former military intelligence officer, and his daughter by a nerve agent known as Novichok, the Hague-based Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons commissioned an analysis.

The Russians were eager to know what the OPCW knew about Novichok. Moscow dispatched several agents to The Hague in early October 2018, according to Dutch authorities. They tried to hack into the OPCW’s computer system but failed.

Ott had more luck. Shortly after the failed Russian effort, he secured a copy of the report, which included the OPCW’s breakdown of the formula for Novichok. Authorities believe Ott handed the report, a copy of which was found on his phone, to Marsalek.

Amid the chaos at the BVT, Moscow moved to fully infiltrate Austria’s security services, the intelligence sources say. Whether the sources based their conclusion on hard evidence or inference isn’t clear. What is clear is that Marsalek was working behind the scenes to reconfigure Austria’s intelligence services under a single “national secret services coordinator.”

In messages to the FPÖ’s Gudenus, Marsalek offered his views on how a new intelligence service should be structured. He even proposed a candidate to lead the new service: the Vienna attorney who had accompanied Weiss when he offered himself up as a witness to the abuses alleged in the dossier.

In addition to “trying to undermine the senior leadership of the BVT, there was an attempt to influence a reform of the BVT in terms of its personnel and organizational structure,” investigators concluded in a summary shared with POLITICO.

At the same time, Ott was working on a blueprint for a new secret service within the foreign ministry, where he would play a central role.  “You will definitely be a part of this,” a senior FPÖ MP close to Kickl told Ott in a text exchange recovered by investigators. “We’re going to find a good solution for everyone who has helped here.”

Austria’s foreign minister at the time was Karin Kneissl, a politician known for her friendly stance toward Russia. That summer, in August 2018, her wedding made global headlines after Putin showed up and waltzed with the bride. 

The most memorable moment came at the end of the dance, when Kneissl stepped back and bowed before the Russian president.

Vienna tries, and fails, to shut Marsalek down

Before Marsalek could complete his grand plan to rebuild Austria’s intelligence service around his agents, however, Ibiza got in the way.

A private detective released a video showing Strache, then FPÖ leader, offering lucrative government contracts in exchange for campaign help from a woman he believed was the niece of a Russian oligarch.

The hours-long, alcohol-fueled encounter at a finca on the Spanish island had been filmed two years earlier in 2017. But the ensuing scandal enveloped the FPÖ like a wildfire, triggering the government’s collapse and forcing the party from power. With his political allies out of office, Marsalek’s operation collapsed.

By then the Wirecard COO also had bigger worries. The Financial Times had published a series of articles pointing to grave irregularities in the firm’s accounting; the authorities were circling, and investors were fleeing. On June 18, 2020 Wirecard acknowledged that nearly €2 billion, one-quarter of its assets, were missing from its accounts.



Later that day, Marsalek met Weiss at an Italian restaurant for dinner, then quietly left Munich headed for Austria. In Vienna the following evening he took a taxi to an airfield outside the city, where Weiss had arranged for a Cessna to fly Marsalek to Belarus. He has yet to return; investigators believe he went from Minsk to Russia, where he remains.

In most spy tales, that would be the end of the story. Marsalek, however, was far from done. He continued to run both his Austrian cell and a separate London-based ring of Bulgarians, authorities say.

In December 2020 Weiss sent Ott a text message asking him to dig up the address of Christo Grozev, the Bulgarian-born investigative reporter who had helped expose the Novichok poisoning. Ott delivered the info, as well as photos from Grozev’s residence; Marsalek’s Bulgarian team subsequently broke into Grozev’s apartment, stealing thumb drives and a computer.

U.S. intelligence didn’t know about the break-in but had other indications that Grozev was in danger and recommended that he leave Austria, where he had lived with his family for 20 years. He now resides in the U.S.

Authorities in Austria didn’t move to shut down Marsalek’s network until 2021, and even then didn’t understand its full scope. After investigators pieced together his escape and discovered that Weiss, with the help of a former FPÖ politician, had arranged the private flight to Minsk, police arrested the former BVT official on Jan. 22 of that year.

Weiss defended his role in helping Marsalek, arguing there wasn’t an arrest warrant out for his boss at the time. He admitted to engaging Ott to dig up information on dozens of names but downplayed the significance. 

After keeping him in custody for two days, the authorities, who didn’t have enough to charge him, let Weiss go under the condition that he cooperate with the investigation. Instead, with Marsalek’s help, he jumped on the next flight to Dubai.

“I just managed to evacuate my Austrian guy to Dubai,” Marsalek wrote to one of his Bulgarian agents that day. “That was quite an adventure as well. We were worried they’d arrest him again at the airport.”


Some in the BVT speculate that Weiss turned against the agency out of anger because he wasn’t promoted to deputy director. But Gridling, the agency’s former chief, says Weiss didn’t even apply for that position. Running Section 2 was the job Weiss spent years trying to land, he said.

“I find it difficult to explain his actions,” Gridling added. “If he had been patient, he could have been director one day.”

Shortly after Weiss was arrested in early 2021, the police also took Ott into custody. After officers broke through the door Ott tried unsuccessfully to destroy his phone, according to police. After six weeks in detention he, too, was released pending an investigation.

Though authorities suspected the Russians had had a hand in Weiss and Ott’s dealings, it wasn’t until late last year that they discovered the depth of Moscow’s involvement. In September, British counterintelligence broke up an alleged U.K.-based spy ring of six Bulgarians that authorities say worked for Marsalek. 

As part of the U.K. probe, investigators stumbled on chat communications between the ring’s alleged leader, Orlin Roussev, and Marsalek that pointed to intensive engagement by Moscow. 

Most surprising was that Ott appeared to have continued to work for Marsalek unabated even after his 2021 arrest. In June 2022, for example, he allegedly handed over three mobile phones that had belonged to senior Austrian officials to Marsalek’s Bulgarian crew. Ott acquired the phones from a former colleague in the BVT, according to Austrian law enforcement. 

According to the chat communications recovered by British authorities, Marsalek was in constant contact with his agents during their Austria visit, even asking one to purchase two Sachertorte, the Viennese chocolate cake, on their way home. 

A few months later, Ott delivered a so-called SINA laptop, a highly encrypted computer used by German intelligence, to Marsalek’s helpers in return for €20,000, authorities say. Police discovered two more of the laptops during a search of Ott’s home.

What an FPÖ government would mean for Europe

Ott, whose latest arrest came as a result of the information U.K. authorities provided to the Austrians, is unlikely to be released from prison soon, Austrian officials say.

That might be wishful thinking.

Kickl, who was interior minister at the time of the BVT raid, now leads the FPÖ; with a national election due before the end of the year, the party has a comfortable lead in the polls.

If the FPÖ wins and forms a government, both Ott and Weiss, who remains in Dubai (which doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Austria), may yet get a reprieve.

The bigger question for Europe is what an FPÖ-led government would mean for Vienna and its broader relationship with Moscow. Austria’s critics argue that the country is already dangerously dependent on Russia. The center-right government might take a tough line on Moscow in public, they say, but has dragged its feet when it comes to disentangling Austria’s economy from Russia.



The country has been slow to wean itself off Russian energy despite persistent pressure from Brussels and Washington, for example. In the financial sector, Austrian-owned Raiffeisen Bank International continues to operate one of the largest retail banks in Russia, despite a longstanding pledge to withdraw.


If Moscow really was behind the effort to take over Austria’s spy service, as Western intelligence officials claim, it’s clear that the Russians regard the country as an important prize and are willing to go to great lengths to influence its politics.

In the Kremlin’s effort, Kickl and the FPÖ proved at worst eager accomplices and at best useful idiots. Though Kickl hasn’t been as overtly pro-Russian as some of his colleagues, he has been a vocal opponent of European sanctions against Moscow and critical of Western military support for Ukraine.

With Kickl as chancellor, it’s a safe bet that Vienna would pursue even closer economic ties with Moscow. And with both Slovakia and Hungary already leaning toward Russia, Austria’s entry into the Kremlin’s sphere of influence would create a Putin-friendly bloc stretching from the Carpathians to the Eastern Alps, posing a fundamental challenge to European security.

If the rest of Europe is surprised by the Austrian turn, it shouldn’t be: Putin has never made his interest in the country a secret. In 2018, just months after the BVT raid, he accepted an invitation from the Austro-Russian Friendship Society to celebrate 50 years of Russian gas deliveries to the country. Several weeks later, he returned for Kneissl’s wedding. (Describing herself as a “political refugee,” the former foreign minister has since left Austria and now runs a think tank in St. Petersburg.) 

“We’ve had very good and close relations with Austria for a long time,” Putin told Austrian television just months after the raid on the BVT. “Austria has traditionally been a reliable partner for us in Europe.”