Last week the Department of Justice arrested a new South Dakota transplant for participation in the January 6 insurrection. This week the DOJ has busted another Blue State refugee, this time John Murray Rowe, Jr., a former East Cost defense contractor who would have sold fighter jet secrets to the Russians in return for a ticket to Moscow or St. Petersburg… if his contacts hadn’t actually been undercover feds:
An undercover FBI agent approached Rowe in Lead in March 2020 and introduced herself as a Russian agent. They met at a hotel in Deadwood where the agent said the Russian government was interested in information Rowe had about the U.S. government.
Rowe allegedly shared classified information with the agent, explained that his security clearance would expire in April 2020, and said he’d like to move to Russia.
“I’ve been saying this to people. I said, ‘I’m gonna go work for the Russians.’ I’ve been saying that for the last two years,” Rowe allegedly told the agent.
Rowe then emailed with a second undercover FBI agent — posed as the same Russian agent — from March through November 2020.
Rowe discussed classified security protocols and how he could use his experience to conceal his relationship with the Russian agent, the affidavit says. He also allegedly shared classified information, including the “specific operating details of the electronic countermeasure systems used by U.S. military fighter jets.”
The affidavit says the FBI spoke with an Air Force expert who confirmed this information was classified at the “secret” level. That means unauthorized disclosure reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to national security [Arielle Zionts, “South Dakota Man Accused of Attempted Espionage with FBI Agents Posing as Russians,” SDPB, 2021.12.16].
According to the affidavit, Rowe lost his last job as a defense contractor in March 2018, after bringing a thumb drive into a classified space at work (he told the employee who stopped him that he was just going to install some software onto a work computer, which is the worst excuse ever) and asking if he could hold U.S. and Russian security clearances simultaneously (which strikes me as another really dumb cover-blowing statement to make).
Rowe further demonstrated intellectual dullness briefly on this blog a year ago, when he posted a brief and sloppy dismissal of this blog on December 31, 2020—”A typical Communisms, very low IO and all your fact are wrong“—and, three weeks later, a hard-to-follow rant about Donald Trump’s apparently positive legacy:
I think Trump biggest legacy will be: The United States Government will NEVER be a threat to world peace ever again. The rest of the world watches as the United States Government make fools out of them, The impeachment started 19 minutes after Trump was sworn in as president, blame Russia . the fake election and now another impeachment. Screw balls running a sinking ship. Pelsio Army protecting HER capital and the up comming “Quid Pro Joe Show” . It a government without a Country [John Rowe, comment, Dakota Free Press, 2021.01.18].
In a January 1, 2021, email to Dakota Free Press, Rowe said he moved to the Black Hills “several years ago to get away from the Communism over there in New England.” It takes some strange thinking that leads someone like Rowe to flee perceived Communism but offer help to a former Communist country in undermining America’s national security… or maybe it just takes childish selfishness. Rowe emailed the undercover FBI agents after he lost his security clearance, “Without Active Secret clearance you can not work on classified projects, so I been without a job the past year…. Anyway, I kind of look at the situation like this. If I can’t get a job here then I’ll go work for the other team.”
Rowe apparently convinced himself and tried convincing his granddaughters that Russia was going to take us over:
I deleted the [prior] E-mails [with UCE-2] to protect myself in case these E-mails got into the wrong hands…I figure this virus things is going be around for a very long time and politically something else is going to happen. Everyone here is talking about a new world order and I believe this so much that I even been asking my granddaughters to learn the Russian language , it a hard language to learn. I saw that Putin sign into law in which a foreigner can become Russian citizen without giving up their own citizenship. This is important to me because I can live on my social security that I received here while living in Moscow. I been seeing how much it cost to live there and that the place to be. Once this travel ban is over, I’m going to be heading to Moscow…my phone number is [] if you don’t have it. I been pretty open telling people about moving to Russia BUT I have never told anyone about you!!!! [John Rowe, email, 2020.04.30, in U.S.A. v. John Murray Rowe, Jr., Criminal Complaint, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 2021.12.14]
Rowe transmitted classified information to the FBI contacts who he thought were Russian agents. He also admitted giving classified information to a foreign national:
That girl from Denmark [name] that help build that house in Alabama , she used to live right here in Lead. That whole situation happen over 10 YEARS ago…She was very anti-American and very Pro-Communism , she kept on asking me why we have won the cold war, the Soviet Union was a better nation. I kind of like to let that whole crazy thing that happen back then slip into the past. That why I don’t like talking about it , because I DID tell her some classified stuff back then !!!! [Rowe, email, 2020.08.04, in Complaint, 2021.12.14]
On August 5, Rowe told the FBI that he saw his offered deal as “my only hope of getting to Russia before the bottom drop out here in the United States.” In September, he told agents he planned to travel to Philadelphia and communicate via his Get Smart shoe phone: “I disguise the phone so it doesn’t look like a phone, it kind of looks like some type of foot wear.” In November he said that his study of Russian news convinced him America’s end was near: “Reading the stuff on RT news, it looks like the rest of the world is ready to get rid of the United State government and their phony money.”
Rowe is scheduled to appear in federal court today.
Casino gambling drives desperation, it’s just that simple.
The Spy Who Loved Lead….
Hopefully he wasn’t driving when he was trolling your blog, Cory!
Fake Noise ran a story about this guy. Surprised he is not their current cause celebre. Biden and Soros are surely behind this.
The grammar and syntax remind me of grudznutz.
Lead poisoning?
Much thanks to The Dope Queen of Delusion for blowing the Trump foghorn
for all of the nation to hear.
Dog whistles are heard by dogs and whether you want to see it or not, the crack pots are coming to South Dakota like Californians to Bozeman.
It’s no wonder she built the fence around
Our mansion in Pierre.
Protection from her own.
Be careful everyone, there are Human
Beings out there.
All the trumps can move to South Dakota, after all it’s funded by the Communists in California.
But Soros pays well Mike from iowa.
Well…He’s a traitor, just not a very smart traitor.
Lowe probably had a poster of Maria Butina…
I am curious what the heck a Danish national was doing looking for American military secrets.
Cory – you don’t actually believe that tale about the Danish woman – do you?
It was a big trumpian crook week, Finally. One foolish retired colonel charged with espionage. Another subpoenaed for authoring the January 6th Power Point. My hearthrob Judge Chutkan demanded a 5 year sentence of a January 6th rioter who used deadly force on Capitol Police. (If using “shod feet” is deadly force on a reservation prosecution . . . then bludgeoning a cop with a fire extinguisher is also deadly force.)
Then 3 retired general officers issued a warning to the Army to prepare for the insurrection of 2024. Had the Army adult leadership, it would require the warning to prepare. Army leaders are compromised that 124 retired flag officers signed on to a letter supporting the trumpian fantasy of created a Reich.
Maybe paywalled: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/17/eaton-taguba-anderson-generals-military/ The real problems here include the reticence of AG Garland to aggressively prosecute, and 2) the confession from trumps kid that ‘we were too stupid to collude with the Russians’. If we do not purge this crap now, in 2024 we likely will face most enlightened treasonous folks,
Our part time governor is correct about one thing — our students desperately need coursework on American history and governance.
Corey–the Danish national is probably easily identified by just asking around the hot spots in Deadwood and Lead. The younger men would remember a Danish woman on the loose.
Probably a Ron Moeller supporter.