No Really: DARPA Is Involved

Last night, we highlighted a snippet from a new document I obtained from the Georgia Attorney General’s office on an Open Records request.

Tonight, we’ll cover a stunning set of documents.

In May, I realized that Georgia Tech was paying the legal expenses of David Dagon and Manos Antonakakis. I began developing some information and had a write up in June.

These documents show a substantial portion of the negotiations behind the scenes to get the State of Georgia to pay the legal expenses of David Dagon as a state employee.

Their first argument was that all of this work related to Dagon’s role at Georgia Tech. Their next argument is the eye-opener. They represent, repeatedly, that all of this work was sanctioned by DARPA.

Their argument was that DARPA approved it all.

Initially at least, Georgia Tech appears to have had the same reaction as most Americans. Was this work really in scope for Dagon?

As noted above, Kate Wasch was understandably concerned that this work was actually not part of Dagon’s official responsibilities at all.

Their response was to cite his work being approved by DARPA.

Of course, that is in conflict now with DARPA publicly denying that this work was approved.

Adamant, Dagon and his attorneys engaged outside counsel and threatened a lawsuit to try to get all of Dagon’s legal fees paid for by the State of Georgia - after he had obtained an immunity agreement from John Durham. The outside law firm, Dentons, summarized their initial efforts to get Dagon’s legal fees paid:

Dentons goes on to reiterate in a letter that:

Once again, pointing to outside governmental parties, presumably DARPA. Continuing they noted:

And again, seeming to reference DARPA or the US government approving and directing this work:

And yet, they make another representation and this time, they are wrong. Numerous parties, including the US government have found the data to be manipulated or falsified:

Georgia Tech put up some fight, with Kate Wasch again reiterating that this work was NOT sanctioned in the course of his official responsibilities.

Here is the point of all this. By virtue of these emails, we can speculate firmly that Georgia Tech did not approve of this work. Therefore, everything rests on whether DARPA approved it.

In these representations repeatedly made to the State of Georgia, David Dagon now is at risk of a fraud charge if they lied. If DARPA did not approve this work, he is in a world of trouble. You can forget about that immunity agreement.

Shortly after this email, there seems to have been some settlement and agreement on paying Dagon’s fees:

The stakes are monumental in the face of DARPA’s public denials over being associated with this work. Dagon has put everything on the line, resting on a representation that they sanctioned and approved the work.

We are continuing to look for any reaction after DARPA’s denial in re-assessing this arrangement. Eagle eyed observers will note that these letters make numerous references to other communications, not all of which have been obtained. We are getting them, including one such letter that offers a chronology of events from Dagon’s lawyers.

One of these referenced letters suggests Georgia Tech asked a very reasonable thing:

It’s unclear what was provided in response to this request and whether it substantively addressed the question, but we are making inquiries.

Meanwhile, there are no indications that anyone asked to see any emails stored on Dagon’s personal accounts, no indications that Georgia Tech/Georgia engaged anyone to provide an independent assessment of this, and we have extremely limited visibility into what work Dagon did via open records requests because it appears Dagon exclusively used private email accounts.

Dagon’s attorneys represent he has no records whatsoever relating to any of this. Presumptively all records were destroyed, and still, they strong armed the taxpayers in Georgia [by threatening a lawsuit against the State] into paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees for his defense.

More coming. For now, here are the documents.

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