Russian Agents Backed Short-Lived California Secession Campaign: Indictment

Many Golden State residents were likely scratching their heads in a mix of befuddlement and bemusement when a curious campaign called “CalExit” sought the secession of California from the rest of America in 2018. It turns out that the quixotic quest was funded and encouraged, at least in part, by Russian intelligence officers as part of a general effort to destabilize America. According to a federal indictment, a Russian named Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov allegedly worked with at least three officials from the Russian Federal Security Service on a “years-long foreign malign campaign” that aimed to turn American political groups and U.S. citizens “into instruments of the Russian government.”California’s Sacramento Bee newspaper reported that Mr. Ionov in February 2018 “offered funding for a protest that would have supporters make their way into then-Governor Jerry Brown’s office.” After doing so, he is said to have corresponded in Russian with an officer of Russia’s security service, known as the FSB, who Mr. Ionov said had asked for “turmoil” in the United States. “There you go,” Mr. Ionov wrote, according to the court papers — a reference to what would have amounted to the storming of the governor’s office. The newspaper said Mr. Ionov offered the sum of $500 to a CalExit founder, Louis Marinelli, who said in an online newsletter that he first met Mr. Ionov in 2016 and that he used his office space in Moscow. Mr. Marinelli, who now lives in Arkansas and disavows CalExit, wrote that he is “not and never was an illegal agent of the Russian government tasked with sowing discord in the United States,” and that “regardless of what Mr. Ionov may have believed and reported to his superiors, the money he offered was not used for political purposes.” Mr. Marinelli did admit that some of his funds helped supplement his “modest salary as an English teacher” during the time he was residing in “a provincial Russian city.”The CalExit campaign ultimately fizzled, in part because some of its supporters feared being accused of involvement in something Russia was pushing. While Californians are known to do things a little differently, the notion of the state declaring independence borders on ludicrous — but it was by no means the only plan Russia had to meddle in America’s internal affairs. According to the indictment, Mr. Ionov and the agents backing him also attempted to “spread pro-Russian propaganda and interfere in elections within the United States.” Furthermore, these efforts were ongoing “from at least December 2014 until March 2022” — the month after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.The indictment, which was unsealed at Tampa — Mr. Ionov also allegedly targeted at least one American political group based in Florida — puts Moscow on notice. In a press release, a U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida, Roger Handberg, said, “The prosecution of this criminal conduct is essential to protecting the American public when foreign governments seek to inject themselves into the American political process.” He added: “We will continue to work with our partners at the FBI to investigate these events, and we will continue to follow the evidence to ensure justice is done.”

Russian Agents Backed Short-Lived California Secession Campaign: Indictment

Russian Agents Backed Short-Lived California Secession Campaign: Indictment

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