Summary
Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old DOGE staffer recently promoted to a senior adviser role in the State Department, is reportedly the grandson of former KGB spy Valery Martynov.
Martynov was executed in the Soviet Union after being exposed as an FBI informant. Coristine, an alleged former cybercriminal, previously worked in the General Services Administration and now has potential access to sensitive diplomatic data.
Concerns have been raised over his background and apparent lack of a security check.
The situation fuels fears about foreign influence in U.S. government operations.
And what is anyone doing about it?
I am seeing nothing but stories today about how trump, musk, and musk’s incel groupies are all tied to russia. And no one arresting them for being undocumented foreign agents.
So why bother reporting?
why bother reporting?
Here are some of the many ways this could be answered:
- To exercise this core freedom, to not lose it. What comes out of it is a much less important question. The day news outlets remain silent about wrongdoings because they believe nobody cares anyways is going to be one of the darkest days towards the death of democracy.
- Separation of powers means the Press is not the Legislative, which is not the Judicative. The question seems to assume they were all one, or since the Press lacks the means of the other two, it’s mission would be kind of futile. But since these powers are separated, it is irrelevant to the Press wether and what legal actions follow (aside from being stories worth covering in themselves). It’s simply not the job of reporting to carry out arrests, and the lack of arrests, even when necessary, does not devalue the reporting. Maybe even on the contrary: It’s probably of much more value to society to report about things which aren’t already dealt with.
- It is totally relatable to feel powerless, maybe even getting accustomed to things going south. But I think we should be extra careful how these sentiments are communicated. A necessary prelude to that darkest day from above, is when outlets still report, but are met with nothing but indifferent “water is wet”, “can’t do anything so why care at all?” comments.
Who would arrest them? Dems and gop both have spent a century placing nearly all government power with scotus and the executive. The judicial isnt going to start drafting an army of armed officers of the court, so that just means the executive is going to continue to use all of the power both parties decided to give it.
