Marco Rubio Signed Contract With Company After Kremlin Ties Exposed

The State Department knowingly agreed to the partnership the same day federal officials revealed Oxygen Forensics’ Russian connections.

The State Department offered a government contract to Oxygen Forensics even after federal officials were made aware of the company’s ties to Moscow.

Last week, the Justice Department announced that Oxygen Forensics CEO Lee Reiber (an American) and Russian national Oleg Sergeyevich Davydov had been arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. They were also accused of orchestrating a scheme to conceal the company’s Russian ownership from the federal agencies to which they supplied phone hacking software.

The government knew of this by at least August 28, when Oxygen Forensics sued a former employee turned whistleblower, Max Weissberg, for making the plot public. Nonetheless, the State Department agreed to a $50,000 contract with Oxygen Forensics that same day, according to federal procurement data obtained by PunchUp.

Reiber advertised that his company, which provides forensic and archival services for electronic data, exclusively sold American-made software and had no foreign ownership.

Yet five Russian nationals, including Davydov, allegedly owned and controlled Oxygen Forensics through a holding company based in Cyprus, according to a criminal complaint released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. The company’s software, too, was Russian, the complaint alleged.

Several executive agencies were affected by the scheme: the Defense Department and components of the Department of Homeland Security, including the Secret Service, the National Computer Forensics Institute, Homeland Security Investigations, and the DHS Office of Inspector General, according to the complaint. But the federal procurement data would suggest that the State Department—as well as the U.S. Embassy in Zagreb, Croatia, which awarded the contract—could also have been compromised.

The Virginia-based group allegedly concealed its true ownership after the U.S. imposed additional sanctions on Russia in early 2022, following its invasion of Ukraine. Months later, Reiber—of Boise, Idaho—was appointed the company’s CEO, president, and chairman of the board, while mentions of Russian ownership were stripped from the company’s public filings, according to the complaint.

Details released in the affidavit suggest that Reiber was well aware of the conspiracy. In November 2023, Reiber wrote to Davydov and the other alleged Russian accomplices after a reporter asked about Oxygen Forensics’ connection to a Russian company. Reiber noted at the time that the reporting “could destroy” a pending contract with the National Computer Forensics Institute, and that the “current existence of this company hangs in the balance,” according to the criminal complaint.

Kash Patel Exposed for Shady Strategy Behind High-Profile Arrests

Patel has reportedly been putting people on the list right before he knows his agency is about to arrest them.

Kash Patel’s FBI has been fudging the numbers to boost the agency’s success rate on apprehending fugitives from its Top 10 Most Wanted List.

Patel announced the addition of a new name to the agency’s Top 10 Most Wanted List on Tuesday, and bragged about the agency’s rate of successful captures under his leadership.

“This FBI has had historic success manhunting Ten Most Wanted fugitives—since the start of the Trump administration, we’ve captured TEN of the Top Ten Most Wanted, 2.5 times the number of TMW fugitives captured during the previous four years combined,” Patel wrote on X.

However, Patel’s FBI has imposed new policies that manipulate that........

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