Anyone on GitHub can give a grey checkmark approval. It's basically just a thumbs up. The green checkmark approvals are the ones given by people who at time of

Anyone on GitHub can give a grey checkmark approval. It's basically just a thumbs up. The green checkmark approvals are the ones given by people who at time of approving had project approval permission and only these green checkmark approvals have any mechanical effect. Additionally, everyone who has ever contributed to the project gets a "Contributor" tag on their profile (current recognised contributors with permissions get a "Member" tag). You can see the trolling PR authors and approvers lack those. So no, the trolls, including those giving the grey checkmark approvals, are not the former maintainers.