What Russian-Israeli Transnational Repression Against a Journalist Looks Like
Legal action against this blog on two continents, Pierre Louvrier has asked a Roman court to seize this Substack
As Ian Fleming famously wrote, “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”
In the last few weeks, Br’er Rabbit here, your humble correspondent, got throwed in the briar patch.
Within a day of each other, two actions were filed against this blog on two separate continents. First, a lawsuit was filed by Yaacov Apelbaum against me in the Eastern District of Virginia, alleging I have defamed him.
It’s dated January 29, the very day the statute of limitations for defamation suits expires in Virginia, given that the first exhibit in the suit is this post.
The second complaint was made in Rome. Pierre Louvrier has asked a Roman court to criminally charge me, and some New York Times reporters, and seize my Substack. You can read his complaint here:
Apelbaum’s suit does not name an amount in damages and it’s dubious whether the court has jurisdiction. The basic claim, as I wrote in my response to his cease-and-desist, is that it’s defamatory to call an Israeli in the spyware business who by his own admission has done business with intelligence agencies an Israeli spy. His St. Louis attorney, Mr. Burns, did not get back to me about my requests for clarification. They decided to sue me instead.
It seems pretty clear to me that this suit is not intended to actually prevail, but to raise my costs to operate.
The attorney he retained is Timothy B. Hyland, the same one Hal Lambert initially used to respond to Charles Johnson’s suit over the Umbra shares. Incidentally, I am told that recently Omeed Malik and Chris Buskirk recently topped the little pig-faced Texan off, maybe they really liked the Chinese MAGA ETF he was involved in.
As for the Louvrier situation, his claims about giving up the Bulgarian telecom acquisition are true. He may have been more of an unwitting actor in all this than the Ukrainian and German press accounts have suggested. But all I published was the information that completed the account in the New York Times. Louvrier claims the photo of himself with Igor Girkin is fake. Whether or not that’s true, it’s certainly the one mentioned in the Times, nothing I’ve printed is remotely defamatory.
Moreover, the business relationships between Louvrier and sanctioned individuals Konstantin Malofeev and Alexander Torshin are not speculative.
Louvrier has proposed to the court to seize this Substack, and presumably the New York Times as well. Quite a drastic action not all unlike the type of lawfare for which the Russians have become famous in the West. I’ll go ahead and publish my full conversation with him, which occurred on January 29, the same day the Israeli Yaacov Apelbaum filed his suit against me in federal court in Virginia:
This is manipulative bullshit very typical of the Russian and Opus Dei worlds. You can sort of hear the vox diaboli in the mouth of a liberal bishop in his appeal to “human dignity” to get me to ignore all this.
A few more details have trickled out about Mr. Louvrier since he was mentioned by Sen. Warner in Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation process. As I suspected, he is involved with Opus Dei, which perhaps suggests the organization’s Russian issues did not end with Robert Hanssen. The French publication Intelligence Online had more. It mentioned that Louvrier is in contact with Sen. Tom Cotton’s office to clear the situation up, and Sen. Warner said they had no contact with him.
Here are the important paragraphs:
Louvrier, a Christian, has long been involved in Vatican parallel diplomacy initiatives with Moscow. Intelligence Online can confirm that he attended the historic 2016 meeting in Havana between Pope Francis and the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Kirill of Moscow (Kirill). This unprecedented encounter between the heads of the two Churches was organised by the Russian Orthodox Church's sherpa, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, and the Vatican's Father Hyacinthe Destivelle. A Dominican priest who served in the French navy and studied at the elite Sciences Po in Paris, Destivelle is the Vatican's specialist on relations with the Russian Church.
Louvrier has previously said that he was first introduced to the Vatican during the time of pope John Paul II by his long-time spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, also a prominent lay member of Opus Dei. Navarro-Valls even spent time living at Opus Dei headquarters with Josemaría Escrivá, who founded the Catholic Church's most controversial order.
All of this suggests there is not just a business relationship with Russia, but a sort of politico-religious one, and that Opus Dei has a big role in it. The one arranging the invites to the conference in Rome was Mick Mulvaney, who is involved with the CIC. But Louvrier’s willingness to resort to very Russian lawfare is one of the reasons he continues to be treated with suspicion.
Moreover, if I could make a religious point, the kind of psychological manipulation that the Russians do is pretty dangerous in the context of a prelature like Opus Dei. It’s precisely the way the group’s spiritual mentorship works, the way the personality and independent thinking of its votaries is effaced, that renders them susceptible to Russian influence operations. If he wants to do the woo-woo stuff in all his videos, maybe he ought to stick to some sort of Russian hermitage.
I’ve contacted a number of sources for legal representation, though I’m waiting to hear back, and I’m a little tapped out from the last one. Needless to say it is clear already that intelligence services of a number of countries are looking at this situation. I’m being kept just below the threshold of paid subscribers necessary to apply for the legal defense resources Substack has been shamed into starting to provide, and the domain mapping I set up on November 1 has yet to kick in. Whether that’s because of the Chinese mob cash the company has taken, who’s to say. But it’s necessary to take on some of these fights. This is a time for choosing.
Wow.
@Arthur Bloom, I recently have fallen under Apelbaum's attack list, not sure why he is so interseted in me, here is an article I put together on him - https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2025/04/26/yaacov-apelbaum-the-spooky-alleged-israeli-spy-out-to-discredit-me-and-claims-of-biblical-cannabis-use/