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How Alleged Russian Hacker Teamed Up With Florida GOP Operative

Tovarisc

Member
Political consultant Aaron Nevins received documents from hacker ‘Guccifer 2.0’ and posted some on his blog; Guccifer called the blog to the attention of Trump adviser Roger Stone

The hacking spree that upended the presidential election wasn’t limited to Democratic National Committee memos and Clinton-aide emails posted on websites. The hacker also privately sent Democratic voter-turnout analyses to a Republican political operative in Florida named Aaron Nevins.

Learning that hacker “Guccifer 2.0” had tapped into a Democratic committee that helps House candidates, Mr. Nevins wrote to the hacker to say: “Feel free to send any Florida based information.”

Ten days later, Mr. Nevins received 2.5 gigabytes of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee documents, some of which he posted on a blog called HelloFLA.com that he ran using a pseudonym.

Soon after, the hacker sent a link to the blog article to Roger Stone, a longtime informal adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump, along with Mr. Nevins’ analysis of the hacked data.

Mr. Nevins confirmed his exchanges after The Wall Street Journal identified him first as the operator of the HelloFLA blog and then as the recipient of the stolen DCCC data. The Journal also reviewed copies of exchanges between the hacker and Mr. Nevins. That the obscure blog had received hacked Democratic documents was previously known, but not the extent of the trove or the blogger’s identity.

“I just threw an arrow in the dark,” Mr. Nevins said in an interview, adding he set up a Dropbox account so whoever was using the Guccifer 2.0 name could send large amounts of material. Later, going through what the hacker sent as someone who “actually knows what some of these documents mean,” the GOP consultant said he “realized it was a lot more than even Guccifer knew that he had.”

The episode shows how the hacker’s activities extended to exposing Democrats’ get-out-the vote strategies in swing states and informing a Trump ally of hacked data during the national campaign.

U.S. officials believe Guccifer 2.0 is linked to Russian military intelligence. Guccifer 2.0 denies that. The moniker appeared in hacks last year and isn’t the same as a Romanian hacker who earlier used the “Guccifer” name.

....

DCCC documents sent to Mr. Nevins analyzed specific Florida districts, showing how many people were dependable Democratic voters, how many were likely Democratic voters but needed a nudge, how many were frequent voters but not committed and how many were core Republican voters—the kind of data strategists use in planning ad buys and other tactics.

....

In hopes of a scoop, he said, he reached out to Guccifer 2.0 last Aug. 12 after seeing a newspaper article about a hack of the DCCC. The hacker using the Guccifer 2.0 name had invited journalists to send questions via Twitter direct messages, which Mr. Nevins did.

More impressed after studying the voter-turnout models, Mr. Nevins told the hacker, “Basically if this was a war, this is the map to where all the troops are deployed.”

At another point, he told the hacker, “This is probably worth millions of dollars."

“Hmmm,” Guccifer 2.0 responded. “ok u owe me a million :)”

....

Mr. Nevins said he hasn’t been contacted by any investigators about last year’s political hacking.

He isn’t convinced the Russians were behind it, Mr. Nevins said, but even if they were, it doesn’t matter to him because the agenda of the hackers seemed to match his own.

“If your interests align,” he said, “never shut any doors in politics.”


Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-al...amed-up-with-florida-gop-operative-1495724787
 

Zolo

Member
Learning that hacker “Guccifer 2.0” had tapped into a Democratic committee that helps House candidates, Mr. Nevins wrote to the hacker to say: “Feel free to send any Florida based information.”

Uh.....isn't this illegal in some way? Or not because the rep. wasn't paying the hacker to do this?
 
Party before country. Gotta make sure their team wins, regardless of who gets destroyed in the long run. Same mindset as their voters.
 

KingK

Member
Between this, the recording of Paul Ryan telling GOP leaders not to ask questions about Russia/Trump, and that Montana candidate who just committed assault and was apparently hiding a quarter million in Russian stocks, I'm seriously starting to think a good chunk of the entire party may be compromised to various degrees. Not only Trump's circle. This is ridiculous.
 

kirblar

Member
Between this, the recording of Paul Ryan telling GOP leaders not to ask questions about Russia/Trump, and that Montana candidate who just committed assault and was apparently hiding a quarter million in Russian stocks, I'm seriously starting to think a good chunk of the entire party may be compromised to various degrees. Not only Trump's circle. This is ridiculous.
Yup. This goes way bigger than the campaign.
 
The party is morally bankrupt.

There would be worry and confusion in the Democratic party if a country like Russia supported them as enthusiastically, but the Republicans just love it.
 

Buckle

Member
Another one? What the fuck?

You can't even walk two feet anymore around a GOP member without tripping over russia.
 

Zolo

Member
Between this, the recording of Paul Ryan telling GOP leaders not to ask questions about Russia/Trump, and that Montana candidate who just committed assault and was apparently hiding a quarter million in Russian stocks, I'm seriously starting to think a good chunk of the entire party may be compromised to various degrees. Not only Trump's circle. This is ridiculous.

Yeah. Feels like our IC has been completely played by Russia these past few years at least while Russia's been doing what it can to get politicians invested in them.
 
Between this, the recording of Paul Ryan telling GOP leaders not to ask questions about Russia/Trump, and that Montana candidate who just committed assault and was apparently hiding a quarter million in Russian stocks, I'm seriously starting to think a good chunk of the entire party may be compromised to various degrees. Not only Trump's circle. This is ridiculous.

Wait what?

*googles*

...

“I’ll guarantee you that’s what it is…The Russians hacked the DNC and got the opp [opposition] research that they had on Trump,” McCarthy said with a laugh.

Ryan asked who the Russians “delivered” the opposition research to.

“There’s… there’s two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy said, drawing some laughter. “Swear to God,” McCarthy added.

“This is an off the record,” Ryan said.

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/864968031692349442

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...17/515f6f8a-3aff-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story

Jesus.
 
Would it be appropriate to title this thread "Florida Man teams up with Russia"?

I'm not sure what else there is to say about the political climate these days. Nothing surprises me anymore.
 
The party is morally bankrupt.

There would be worry and confusion in the Democratic party if a country like Russia supported them as enthusiastically, but the Republicans just love it.

I wish progressives in this country could get the same level of international support conservatives are getting.

Germany, you're free to help us unfuck ourselves anytime you want; and the same to you France.
 

Ocara

Member
If these people just take data from whoever without question, wouldnt it be extremely easy for someone with a non-russian agenda to just.. feed these politicians some completely reverse file dumps on voter info and make them waste money campaigning in the wrong spots?

I guess the problem is people with the thought to actually making things better probably wouldnt get embroiled in more duplicity, but im sure theres someone out there...
 
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