FOREIGN AGENTS (2): LOUIS MARINELLI

Louis Marinelli agent of intended but ineffectual chaos 

Marinelli is now a rather forgotten figure, but he should be remembered as an example of how foreign ops, agents, and useful idiots work in our open and rather naïve Western societies. Born in New York in 1986, Marinelli is an Italian-American, who became a foreign agent by the well-known route of going off to Russia to teach English.

In 2007, Marinelli after finishing high school (but not college apparently) headed off to the "giant outdoor toilet" that is Russia to "teach English" in the cities of Samara and Kazan. Nothing to see there, folks! Lots of unskilled English-speakers have done the same over the years -- God bless 'em! -- but by 2009, Marinelli was in St Petersburg, where he was also a student at Saint Petersburg State University, the alma mater of Russian presidents Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev.

Prior to leaving for Russia, he had been an anti-same-sex-marriage activist, launching the Facebook group "Protect Marriage: One Man, One Woman" in 2006, which then grew into a major social media network of "social conservatives" against same-sex marriage, all while he was in Russia, and quite possibly because the page was already getting lots of help from Kremlin on-line assets.

Then in 2011, having acquired a Russian wife, he suddenly returned to the West, moving to California, where, very suspiciously, he immediately got involved in the completely inorganic and, to all intents and purposes, astro-turfed "Calexit" movement. This was odd because while in Russia he had often expressed disgust with the "decadent," "homosexual" West, but now he was suddenly so keen to live there and help a pro-gay marriage Blue State part of the USA escape from Red State dominance.,

The obviously fake "Calexit" movement, which he became involved with after his return to the USA, was clearly based on the slightly more organic "Texit" movement in Texas and the somewhat more organic "Brexit" campaign in the UK, both of which were knocking around at the time. 

Suffice to say, the idea of parts of the USA or the EU "seceding" is an idea that has a lot of appeal in Russian intelligence circles, as the Russian siloviki feel rather ill-done by the Western-backed secessionism that split up their beloved USSR back in the day. 

While Texit played to Texan Republicans freaking out that Obama had been elected President and then re-elected, Calexit lamely attempted to play a similar role to Californian Democrats upset by the prospect of "Orange Hitler" (or some other GOP candidate) becoming President.

This was a little odd because the whole logic of Calexit is that left-leaning Dems would support it in order to escape from a conservative America, but Marinelli, with his opposition to same-sex marriage was on the other side!

This kind of "ideological flexibility" is often a good "tell" of foreign agents and assets. Indeed, all the better to serve the Calexit agenda, Marinelli accordingly dumped his opposition to gay marriage around this time, something he would never have done if the Kremlin had assigned him to, say, the more conservative Texit movement.

But, that aside, even with the election of Trump, Calexit had zero traction and turned out to be a total wet fart.

But it is not the success or failure of the movement that is at issue here (as it clearly failed), it is the malevolent intent of outside actors, like those in the Kremlin, seeking to break up the United States or cause disruption and division. 

This seems to have been the principal, if not the only, reason for Marinelli to return to the USA, because, just as soon as Calexit hit the ground like a dead cat, Marinelli immediately upped sticks and ran back to his beloved Russia, in April 2017, despite having declared a more "pro-gay marriage" stance than when he left, LOL.

He wrote at the time that he was withdrawing his petition to repeal the part of the state’s constitution that said California is an inseparable part of the United States:

"It is only proper, given my intention to seek permanent residence in Russia and not return to California in the foreseeable future, to withdraw that petition from circulation, and to allow a new petition, free from ties to me and drafted by others, to be resubmitted at future date of their choosing."

The impossibility of getting 585,407 valid signatures between April and July, in order to place the petition on the ballot may have been the real reason for withdrawing it.

But this was not the end of the story. Perhaps motivated by the growing success of other Kremlin ops in adding to the growing hysteria in the USA, it seems that Marinelli's handlers decided to dust off Calexit once again, with Marinelli re-emerging in 2021 to whip the dead horse of Californian secessionism again, even though he was living in Russia at the time! 

As reported by Fresno site GVWire: 

"Louis Marinelli believes that California should separate from the rest of the United States so much, he is living in Russia. He also plans to run for governor in the upcoming recall election using a Fresno address. The election to determine the fate of Gov. Gavin Newsom is scheduled for Sept. 14. Marinelli is one of an 100-plus candidates expected to run to replace Newsom, if he is recalled. 'I personally have labeled him as a rising despot, an authoritarian. I do not believe that the elections will be held fairly and freely in California,' Marinelli said this week at a news conference in Russia."

Perhaps up to this point, if you were a naïve enough numbskull, you could still dismiss Marinelli as "just an oddball" with no links to the Kremlin. But in 2022, actual evidence of Russian state funding for Marinelli's quixotic campaign was revealed. 

Top Californian newspaper The Sacramento Bee reported:

"In February 2018, as organizers of the so-called 'CalExit' campaign to have California secede from the union and form its own country, a Russian national named Aleksandr Ionov sent electronic messages to a secession supporter, court documents say. Ionov offered funding for a protest that would have supporters make their way into then-Gov. Jerry Brown’s office.

Ionov and the organizer traded proposed designs for posters for the event, and eventually wrote that he sent $500 to the organizer, who on Valentine’s Day led a demonstration at the state Capitol 'in support of California’s secession from the United States,; court papers say.

Afterward, Ionov corresponded in Russian with a member of the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, boasting that the FSB officer had asked for 'turmoil' in the United States. 'There you go,; Ionov wrote, court papers say.

The effort was part of a 'years-long foreign malign influence campaign that used various U.S. political groups to sow discord, spread pro-Russian propaganda, and interfere in elections within the United States,' the Justice Department said in an announcement Friday during which authorities in Tampa, Fla., revealed Ionov had been indicted there on charges of targeting political groups in Florida, Georgia and California 'to further Russian interests.'"

Ionov also has links to Neo-Confederate group, the League of the South.

So, how does this tie to Marinelli?

"Court documents identify the organizer in California only as 'unidentified co-conspirator 6,' an American who had lived in Russia and California and was the founder and president of an unnamed group seeking to have California secede from the union.

That individual appears to be Louis J. Marinelli, the one-time founder of CalExit and the Yes California political action committee who subsequently gave up on his quest and now lives in Arkansas."

The only questions left to answer are "WTF is Marinelli doing in Arkansas?" and "What is the Kremlin likely to be up to there?"