The Dalya Attar Indictment

A grand jury in the district of Maryland just indicted state senator Dalia Atar, her brother Joseph Atar, and a suspended police officer Kman Finkelstein in a case of conspiracy, extortion, and illegal surveillance. Is the FBI finally cracking down on political espionage in the United States? Guys, it’s time for some game theory. You know, there is a branch of espionage that is rarely discussed and even more rarely prosecuted. that of domestic political espionage. I guess the most famous case of this would be the Watergate scandal uh in which domestic political operatives working supposedly for the benefit of the re-election of the president of the United States committed crimes in support of his 1972 re-election campaign.

The operatives also known as the plumbers were prosecuted and President Nixon’s advisers Halddederman Gordon Litty and those guys also faced prison time. Nixon himself may have been indicted but chose to resign the presidency instead. Now, the godfather of this activity you probably know most about is Roger Stone, , 4 secondsthe convicted felon known to use uh prostitutes and madams and foreign intelligence service type activities to impact American elections. Uh he came to , 13 secondsgreat no notoriety having tried to coordinate Wikileaks, a more or less known Russian front for intelligence uh , 21 secondsfor the 2016 Trump campaign. He was convicted of lying to the Mueller investigation. Subsequently, his , 28 secondssentence was commuted by Trump and then he was pardoned in 2020.

Um nevertheless, his activities go back to the Brooks Brothers riot of George W. , 37 secondsBush’s election uh in in the year 2000 took out uh political hopeful Elliot , 44 secondsSpitzer in New York through the use of madams. Uh this all smacks of intelligence service type stuff. Uh but , 51 secondsit is rarely prosecuted as such. Even Stone was just prosecuted for lying to investigators, not for the acts themselves. And election interference has become a big topic around the world, especially with the overt actions of the Russian Federation. But what about domestic , 8 secondsversions of in of election interference, especially those kinds of interference that rely on techniques that sound like a spy movie?

Suffice it to say, this , 17 secondskind of thing happens a lot more than we actually ever see it prosecuted. But on October 23rd, 2025, the Department of , 25 secondsJustice unsealed an indictment against sitting Maryland Senator Dalia Atar and , 32 secondstwo co-conspirators for several really serious felonies. 18USC 371, Conspiracy. , 39 seconds18USC 875D, extortion via interstate communications. 18USC 2511, subsection 1 , 46 secondsC and D, interception and disclosure of a wire communication. 18USC 1952A3 , 53 secondsand B2 the travel act and 18USC section two aiding and abetting the US government is accusing Dalia Atar her , 2 secondsbrother Joseph and police officer Kman Finkelstein all of the Baltimore Maryland area of extorting Atar’s former political consultant over an , 10 secondsextrammarital affair so that the consultant wouldn’t interfere with Atar’s political future.

Now, the victim , 17 secondsis a political consultant to both Democrat and Republican parties who resides full-time in Israel, which is extremely interesting and which we will , 26 secondsnot be unpacking on this show today. , 31 secondsSaid consultant was planning a trip to the United States from Israel. He’s going to be staying in Baltimore and was invited to stay at a home owned by , 39 secondspolice officer Kalman Finkelstein. So, this is has kind of a family feel to it, doesn’t it? You’ve got you have the , 47 secondsstate senator, her brother, you have the police officer, and the political consultant arranges to stay at the home , 53 secondsof the police officer, Finkelstein, um, who allegedly had it wired up with , 1 secondcameras all over the place, guessing that the political consultant would be having sex with an otherwise married man known as victim two in the indictment.

, 10 secondsUh, further, the conspirators fitted a tracking device onto the car used by the Israeli political consultant, which isn’t strictly illegal, but otherwise , 19 secondsdoesn’t look too good considering the rest of the circumstances. According to the indictment, the scheme went off as planned. Uh, the Israeli political , 27 secondsconsultant did meet up with the married man in the wired up apartment. Marathon fun times were had and it was all captured on on video through fake smoke , 36 secondsdetector cameras. The video was compiled and set up to be distributed to the community, in this case the Orthodox , 43 secondsJewish community of both Baltimore and I believe Israel. And then the conspirators allegedly got into what is just undeniably straight up extortion.

, 53 secondsIn a series of WhatsApp messages from March 2021, Dalia Atar said the political consultant quote wants her daughters to get married more than she wants to screw me. And this is the perfect way for her regarding her , 7 secondsdaughter’s shiduhim. Uh each mailor can do a lot of damage and that way we can potentially stop her. Uh a shiddok is in , 16 secondsthe Jewish community uh just a hookup for people to get married and and and otherwise have relationships and it’s done by the community. So this is , 23 secondsinterfering with a with a very kind of sacred uh intercom community uh activity here. , 30 secondsJoseph Atar allegedly mar met the married man at a shopping center and straight up extorted the guy.

Said, “We , 37 secondshave quote hours of footage of you in bed with the political consultant and the only thing you need to do is very simple. Go to this consultant and tell , 46 secondsher leave Dalia alone. Don’t bring her up any more to anyone. Stay out of this election and make sure she doesn’t do anything against Dalia.” quote, “I’ll , 54 secondsshare this video with everyone you know, everybody she knows, every rabbi in town, your kids, your wife, her daughters. I already have all her , 2 secondsdaughter’s phone numbers, and every shad in Israel who’s trying to set up her daughters I will share these videos with.” So, boom. There’s 20 pages to , 10 secondsthis indictment. It’s very serious.

Uh, but those are the elements of all the felonies mentioned. You’ve got conspiracy, meeting the minds, illegal , 18 secondswire taps, corrupt intent, use of instrumentalities of interstate commerce, and absolutely screamingly overt extortionate demands, specific demands. Do this or we will hurt you. , 30 secondsJust classic extortion, and it uses um digital communications, which is an instrumentality of interstate commerce, , 37 secondsthat gives the feds jurisdiction. Boom, boom, boom, you’re in. It seems like the prosecution is eventually going to result in either a guilty plea or a jury , 47 secondsconviction because the details that are alleged are voluminous and really cover all the elements of everything that’s really super bad.

But otherwise, this , 57 secondsstrikes me as a very important prosecution. Here we have illegal surveillance, specifically video taken , 3 secondssurreptitiously used for the purpose of coercing future political behavior. The video that they took was of an , 12 secondsindividual known to be involved in politics and the purpose of this conspiracy was to change the dynamics of , 19 secondsupcoming elections. This is the kind of election interference that we’ve been discussing with regards to Russia and other countries. Uh but it’s an entirely , 28 secondshomegrown version of it. Um even though some of the people involved live in a third party country, Israel, um that , 36 secondsthis all happened on US soil.

These are people that have the right to be in this country who have the right to redress , 43 secondsour government and uh they’re just committing a bunch of crimes while they’re doing it in a way that is oddly reminiscent of a spy movie. That’s all. , 53 secondsYou know, so how much of this thing is going on in the United States these days? And how much is the DOJ going to keep prosecuting it? The January 6th and , 2 secondsfake electors prosecutions, even though they were dismissed, signaled one degree of interest in prosecuting election , 9 secondsinterference on home soil. And this seems like an extension of that. Um, there was one additional element that I , 16 secondswondered about when I heard about Israeli nationals involved and illegal wiretaps.

I immediately thought about Israelmade Pegasus iPhone hacking , 25 secondssoftware. I wondered if the victims were tapped by their own phones through that NSO group product. And the answer was , 34 secondsno. The video was captured via disguised cameras. Kind of a classic spy gadget. , 38 secondsAnd you can buy these on the internet if you’re so interested. Um, don’t do it to impact elections. Just clarify there. , 45 secondsI’m not selling this. Um, but I have to wonder just how many cases with Pegasus are out there where victims have had the contents of their phones tapped. , 56 secondsUm, it would be criminal laziness if hostile spies didn’t use Pegasus software to influence an election or two, at least a couple.

So, I guess , 5 secondswe’ll see what the FBI plans to do if it finds any election cases where Pegasus might have been a factor. Either way, , 12 secondsthis Maryland prosecution is sorted and anti-democratic and gross the way it’s alleged. , 19 secondsBut the purpose of such criminal charges is to name and shame and get people acting better. Don’t do this in American , 26 secondspolitics. So, what do you think? Are there any other political spy cases that are equal to Watergate that are just as gross as this? Are you glad that the FBI , 36 secondsis pursuing a case like this? Let me know in the comments. Click like and subscribe and I will see you soon for more game theory.