Flynn didn't sign Trump ethics pledge: report

President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, did not sign an ethics pledge required of all administration appointees, The Daily Beast reported Wednesday.

The vow bars all federal appointees from lobbying their former colleagues for five years after leaving the administration and bans lobbying for a foreign government for life.

“Gen. Flynn never had the opportunity to sign Trump’s ethics pledge, but he plans to abide by its terms,” spokesman Price Floyd said of the retired Army lieutenant general.

The fact that Flynn didn't sign the pledge removes legal hurdles preventing him from foreign agent lobbying and advocacy work involving former administration colleagues.

Reports emerged earlier this month Flynn was being paid to lobby for Turkey while attending top-level intelligence briefings during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

More: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/325143-flynn-did-not-sign-trump-ethics-pledge-report

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It’s hard to overstate just how close Trump and Stone have been over the years. Their professional and personal relationship goes back more than three decades. Trump without Stone is akin to George W. Bush without Karl Rove or Barack Obama without David Axelrod. Though Trump has derided Stone to reporters in the past — “Roger is a stone-cold loser,” he told The New Yorker in 2008, “he always tries taking credit for things he never did” — the two men have always made up after such occasional spats, and a permanent split would be stunning.

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In 1988, Stone wanted Trump to run for president and arranged for him to give a speech at the Portsmouth, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, which garnered enormous media coverage. Stone says some of his friends in the state organized a short-lived “Draft Trump” movement, but within a few weeks, Trump had determined he would forgo a run to focus on his business career.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422353/donald-trumps-departed-top-adviser-speaks-out-jim-geraghty

Russian bank threatens researcher with CFAA suit over DNS request data

In a document obtained by CyberScoop, Alfa Bank notified Indiana University computer researcher L. Jean Camp that it’s pursuing “all available options” after Camp’s research suggested the bank engaged in some form of communication with the Trump Organization. Washington-based law firm Kirkland & Ellis sent the letter on the bank’s behalf on March 17.

Among the options listed is litigation under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act’s civil action provision, which allows companies to sue for damages in the event of unauthorized computer access. Foreign entities can bring cases to U.S. federal courts under a CFAA provision that allows private causes of action.

Camp’s research has pointed to Alfa Bank’s servers making an unusually high amount of DNS lookups to Trump Organization servers, particularly during a period of time in the summer of 2016. The possible connection was first revealed in October by Slate, but the bank claimed the most likely explanation was spam marketing due to bank executives’ use of Trump hotels.

More: https://www.cyberscoop.com/alfa-bank-l-jean-camp-donald-trump-cfaa-suit-dns-data/