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.

  • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    What kind of North Korean “sins of the father” shit is this?

    Punish him for his actions of helping Musk take over the government in a coup, not that his grandad did spycraft every nation did in the Cold War.

    I don’t care if he was the grandson of Jesus Christ and Buddha if he is a dipshit fascist. Fascists get called out for being fascists, not being related to one they might have never known.

    • daepicgamerbro69@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      What kind of “nuanced” concerntroll is this? No sane person would say shit if the kid was a political moderate but since he’s a fascist swine AND alleged grandson of a secret police officer, 100% I am going to use it against him.

      • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 day ago

        The kid would be a fascist swine dipshit if he was from Alabama and his family was from New York and his grandad was from Mississippi.

        Actions are what make someone a fascist, not their family linage.

    • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      National security isn’t fair because its more important than being fair and those who are for any reasons suspect are free to do any of the other hundreds of millions of jobs.

      People are absolutely suspect because of their associations.

      • Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com
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        2 days ago

        Exactly this. Top Secret clearance typically extends out to three degrees of separation. They’ll check on you, your friends/family, and their friends/family. Because when national security is concerned, they don’t want to risk a leak due to something like a cousin being a spy and going drinking after work with the employee.

      • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        Then would a check to everyone of an immigrant family be acceptable? Only people who’s family have never left the country are fit to protect it?

        That feels like a violation of the 14th amendment, and ensures only redneck Republican hillbillies are the ones who ensure the safety of Americans.

          • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            So was the Japanese internment camps rational? We were at war with Japan so we forbid them from having anything else, as national born citizens who never once stepped foot in Japan.

            • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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              It’s pretty clear that japanese internment camps were illegal and morally reprehensible. There is a vast difference between not allowing someone to take a tiny number of highly secure jobs with the government entirely legally and imprisoning people and herding them into a camp like animals contravening their rights and the law. It’s not a slippery slope its standing on the edge of the grand canyon and jumping in.

        • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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          I’m not sure the people making the jingoistic comments are aware of the implications of this way of thinking.

          • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            Liberals want the same policies as Conservatives just with a different coat of paint.

            Most of them probably couldn’t hold any government office if the shoe was on the other foot.

            “Family moved here from Ireland when the potato famine struck? Sorry no matter how much you love this country you’re dead to us.”

            “Family was forced out of the country due to a genocide that still has lingering effects? Sucks to be you.”

      • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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        National security being more important than being fair has been justification to do many of the most horrific acts in recent history.

        • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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          Nonsense. Its normal for a small number of highly secure roles to go only to people whose loyalty is beyond and known doubt. This means if you have questonable family you can only be a CEO, scientist, dentist welder or race car driver or you know all the other jobs other than say head of the NSA or part of the team with access to all our secrets

          • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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            Advocating for nepotism on the basis of loyalty and national security is partly why we are in this mess. America has never been a meritocracy, and we should stop pretending it ever was.

            • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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              It’s not nepotism. Nobody is suggesting hiring people based on their personal relationship to decision makers. It is about preferring those who don’t have any ties that could be exploited including but not limited to family ties that could complicate loyalty.

              We have this mess in America because we are a nation that on average worships wealth and hates intellectualism whilst allowing an insane amount of wealth to interfere with politics to the point where the country is arranged to enrich the wealthy at the expense of everyone else leading to widespread disaffection which has been turned by a poisoned media to hate and blame for the other. For people smarter than the mass of the average. For immigrants. For the poor in need of welfare.

              We have hired a despot because he implies that we can bask in his reflected glory and help ourselves up on the backs of this other.

              In short we aren’t hear because we don’t allow the grandchildren of enemy spies with our most secret data.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Even if this stupid asshole isn’t related to a KGB spy…WTAF:

    recently promoted to a senior adviser role in the State Department

    He’s a FUCKING TEENAGER. The guy cannot even legally drink. Cannot rent a car.

  • redwattlebird@lemmings.world
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    3 days ago

    Surely the fact that he’s 19 and a senior advisor in a state department is more damning than his lineage? And that Trump is very obviously friendly with Putin?

    I think this familial connection is just a storm in a teacup which is sitting inside a much larger storm.

    • Placebonickname@lemmy.world
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      U know what I was doing at 19 years old? Nothing…nothing that counted as work. I won a bacon eating contest at college and played a ton of Mario Kart 64.

      • stardust@lemmy.ca
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        3 days ago

        And that was very responsible of you. Wish more people would be participating in bacon eating contests over actively making the world a worse place. Please play video games and go have harmless fun. It’s better for society.

      • Saleh@feddit.org
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        Yeah, and other people led successful military campaigns and even empires at that age.

        Alexander “the great” was 20 years old, when he got into power.
        Scipio who later defeated Hannibal got his name on the roaster for a daring charge as an 18 years old officer.
        Pennypacker was 16-19 years old when he became captain in the US Union army and was 20-22 when he became Brigardier General and was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1865

        This is just some quick examples i found, but history is riddled with young people excelling in leadership roles.

        • Placebonickname@lemmy.world
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          Yeah, but that’s like when people died from old age when they were 40 have their midlife crisis by the time they’re 21, get married at 12 and cheat on your wife at 16. Have to set up alimony payments. …

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Surely the fact that he’s 19 and a senior advisor in a state department is more damning than his lineage?

      Well firstly, it is the media, they love to sensationalise so they came up with this attention grabbing headline.

      And that Trump is very obviously friendly with Putin?

      At first I thought both simply have the same ideological inclination, and the speculation that Putin has a kompromat on Trump is a meme. Now, I am increasingly becoming convinced on the latter. Not even Mussolini bent this low to Hitler.

  • PantanoPete@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    So what? The KGB hasn’t existed for 30 years or more. My dad was a dead beat, what does that matter? The bigger problem is what he is doing not who his parents and grand parents were lol

    • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      “We need to ban anyone who was ever part of the countries we don’t like.”

      “But most Americans are from countries America never got along with and wanted a better life. Actions define who they are, not their ethnicity or family.”

      “Shut up concern troll, time to ban all ethnic Russians, Chinese, and Koreans!”

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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    4 days ago

    [slightly off topic]

    I’m a native of the Northeastern United States and I’ve lived in numerous areas depicted in the media as being under the influence of ‘organized crime.’ To wit, Harlem, lower Manhattan, Hell’s Kitchen, and Staten Island.

    Actual tough guys never have nicknames like ‘Big Balls.’ Never. The guys you fear have names like ‘the Chin,’ or ‘Bumpy,’ or ‘Legs.’ Al Capone’s buddies called him ‘Snorky.’

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        Pilot’s nicknames / unofficial callsigns often are as well, some kind of back handed reference to a fuck-up or troublesome character trait.

      • Cort@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Maybe that’s what this is. Like calling a fat guy slim, or a tall guy tiny. Maybe he’s used to many steroids and actually shrunk his balls

      • GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        I worked in construction and we used radios to communicate between crews. One kid insisted we call him ‘AntDawg.’ His name was Anthony.

        It’s started with ‘Labradoodle.’ He put up with that for two days before bitching he didn’t wanna be Labradoodle. Everyone agreed it was too annoying over the radio, so we all agreed to shorten it. Doodle still hates his name.

        • Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com
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          I know a dude who introduced himself with “hey, my name’s Mike but call me Spike.” I think it was one of those “I just changed schools and want to reinvent myself as someone cooler” scenarios.

          That was like 15 years ago. To this day, we still call him Spmike (pronounced “SPUH-mike”).

    • MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com
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      I’m pretty sure it comes from his twitter handle or something like that. I think it’s more irrelevant/childish humor and less serious than it’s made out to be. Plenty of people refer to each other by their online handle, and I don’t think it’s intended as a “nickname” in the conventional way. I have a friend whose UN is basically “dragonslayer42069” and people call him dragon. I don’t think he chose that name so his nickname would be badass or anything. I think he thought it was funny when he made it and people just happen to refer to him as dragon. Plenty of memorable vulgar UNs on microblogs and forums are just there for some immature fun.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        You’re losing sight of the fact that he and his boss weren’t elected, haven’t been vetted by Congress, and have zero experience.

        His name is the least of his problems.

        That’s why my comment was [off topic]

        • MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com
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          2 days ago

          I’m not losing sight of anything. My comment wasn’t off topic because it was a response to your comment, not the post. I wasn’t supporting him or Elon/DOGE. I don’t know why you’re taking issue with my comment. I imagine we agree on more than we disagree on, I was just adding context. If you didn’t want to talk about it, then I’m not sure why you brought it up.

  • Kalysta@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    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?

    • Spzi@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      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.
    • yunxiaoli@sh.itjust.works
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      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.

  • grue@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    How the Hell does someone have a background as both a cybercriminal and a GSA employee at 19? I mean, sure, you can be a cybercriminal as an adolescent. But why is the GSA even hiring anybody that young at all?

  • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    “Big Balls” huh. This is 100% the same situation as calling the dude that can bench a school bus “Tiny”.

    Looking at a photo, this dude definitely has a pair of undescended testicles. They’re missing for sure.

  • wirebeads@lemmy.ca
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    3 days ago

    America is Putins puppet. Musk is sitting in between getting richer while Trump does Russia’s wants.

    Look at the Russian playbook. Look at the current U.S. playbook.

    Insert image of “the office <they’re the same image>.jpg here.