Has WSJ Proven GOP Collusion With Foreign Hacker?

On May 25th, the WSJ published an article that hasn't garnered much attention despite bringing to light events and revealing details that have a good deal of significance in the hotly debated events surrounding the 2016 election

Hard to believe this was missed but searching ATS for the name of one of the principals, I could only come up with a single post on ATS referencing the piece. A couple of years ago, it would have been hard to imagine this passing under the ATS radar for more than a week and a half but these are overly-interesting times we find ourselves in. Aside from the new normal's daily deluge of important, seemingly important and utterly unimportant news stories, this was published in the immediate aftermath of the Manchester terrorist attack. It's also behind a pay wall which compelled me to do something I've not done before — subscribe to WSJ — for two months @ $1 at least.

I'm just going to jump into a few choice excerpts.

How Alleged Russian Hacker Teamed Up With Florida GOP Operative

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.

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.

The Journal reviewed these documents as well as Democratic voter analyses also sent to Mr. Nevins about congressional districts in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

Okay, so what have here is a dump of voter data, complete with turnout models. Not only would this data be valuable for its originally intended purposes but because it was the actual data the Democrats were using, it would have been even more valuable because it could be used to extrapolate the Democrat's turnout strategy which was based on it.

This is a point that was not lost on Nevins:

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.”

(full-size)

I'm still mulling this over but here's a few significant implications imo:

* It adds substantially to the body of material known to be directly associated with "Guccifer 2.0"

* This data is of a completely different nature than much of what "Guccifer 2.0" released. One common claim has been that "Guccifer 2.0" didn't release much that was directly damaging to the Democrats. This is undeniably material support.

* Though this doesn't change my opinion of the murder of Seth Rich, I would be remiss if I did not point out that unlike the emails, this is exactly the sort of data that Seth Rich would be expected to have unbridled access to.

* This is the first concrete evidence of collusion between a GOP operative and a foreign agent, using stolen data in an attempt to influence 2016 election outcomes and in of all places, Florida.

* This is proof that Roger Stone — close friend, campaign operative and sometimes employee of Trump not to mention partner for decades of Paul Manafort — received election-related data from a foreign hacker. Stone viewed the data and responded to "Guccifer 2.0" so there's no confusion about whether or not he actually was exposed to it. Stone denies that he shared the data with anyone.

There will be splitting of hairs about the nature of Roger Stone's official status regarding the Trump campaign. An argument can be made this already proves collusion between a member of the campaign and a foreign hacker. Though I suspect Trump and his campaign leadership/spokespeople will claim that Roger Stone didn't hold an official position. (no, he just embedded with Infowars and coordinated with Posobiec, Cernovich, etc in the Trump Twitter Troll Army) However, if he shared this with just one person who DID have an official position within the campaign, that's clearly evidence of collusion.

But wait, there's more.

After requesting a foreign agent send him stolen data, Nevins setup a Dropbox account for "Guccifer 2.0" to dump the data to. After receiving the data, Nevins did not contact the authorities. Instead, he published some of it on his blog (which he claims has about 100 visitors a day) under a pseudonym and forwarded at least portions of it to others, including he claims, reporters.

And at least one GOP operative, active in a 2016 campaign, claims to have utilized the data:

“I did adjust some voting targets based on some data I saw from the leaks,” said Anthony Bustamante, a campaign consultant to Republican congressional candidate Brian Mast. Mr. Bustamante said the Democratic voter analyses led him to amp up some of his TV ad buys and reduce some mailed material ahead of the November election. Mr. Mast won a House seat, previously Democrat-held, in Florida’s 18th district near Palm Beach.

After publication, a spokesman for Mr. Mast said Mr. Bustamante stopped working for the Mast campaign on June 30, 2016, before the release of the hacked data, and said he hadn’t made ad buys for the campaign. Asked about that, Mr. Bustamante said he continued to advise the campaign informally after June.

Jacob Perry, who managed the Mast general-election campaign, said he wasn’t aware of the use of any hacked data and said it didn’t play a role in the outcome of the race.

This is really just astounding. The Florida Republican Party and the NRCC didn't respond to the WSJ reporter's request for comment. There are two more bits from this article that I want to mention and one of them I find extremely dismaying.

According to Nevins, he has NOT been contacted by investigators. Let that sink in. Hell, let all of this sink in. Forget the stories of undisclosed meetings revealed by anonymous sources, this is the biggest bombshell in months imo.

I'll leave you with a quote from Mr. Nevins to show exactly how this scumbag thinks:

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.”

Wow.

a reply to: theantediluvian

For starters -

* - There is no evidence Russia hacked the DNC / Clinton / Podesta stuff.
* - Gucifer lied when he claimed he hacked the systems according to Comeys testimony to Congress.
* - Why would Gucifer have info if it was obtained by Seth Rich?
* - Finally, show me the statute for illegal collusion.

Respectfully this seems like an attempt to keep the russia collusion bs going.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Guccifer 2.0 is not Russian

Roger Stone vs. the Wall Street Journal
By Roger Stone

In a Wall Street Journal article updated May 25, 2017, writers Alexandra Berzon and Rob Barry attempted to drag me into the daisy chain of communications between a South Florida political consultant Aaron Nevins and Guccifer 2.0 regarding the supposed leaking of DNC voter turnout analysis data their misleading headline saying I “teamed up’ with a guy I had no contact with in 2016.

To be clear, I had nothing to do with the messages shared between Mr. Nevins and Guccifer. It is true that I myself have been in communication with Guccifer 2.0 (who I maintain is not a Russian Agent despite the dopes at the CIA insisting otherwise), and I have fully disclosed the contents of those discussions in their entirety. It is true that I was directed to take a look at the HelloFLA.com website by Guccifer, and I did take a quick perusal and my response to him of “Pretty standard” shows clearly that I considered it mundane nonsense.

I had no idea there was an alleged dump of gigabytes worth of data to Mr. Nevins, nor that Aaron Nevins supposedly asked Guccifer 2.0 to send it by saying “Feel free to send any Florida based information” that Guccifer might have from his claimed possession of DNC data.

What I saw in HelloFLA.com didn’t seem interesting, or important. It seemed like something you’d find in any high-end political consultancy shop in D.C. as it seemed to be merely massaged data taken from public voting records.

HelloFLA.com was run under a pseudonym, and I had no knowledge that it was really being run by Aaron Nevins, and there is no way I could possibly know that it represented portions of data handed over to Mr. Nevins by Guccifer, if in fact that is what happened.

While I have no earlier or further connections to Guccifer than what I’ve previously published, I do find something very interesting, now that I’ve learned of this voter turnout data. What is fascinating about this data, is that it is exactly the type of data that Seth Rich was working with at the DNC for his job as a Director level data analyst at the DNC. Part of his job was investigating voting records for his official job title, which was Voter Expansion Data Director at the DNC.

It’s clear to see that the WSJ and left Fake News site RawStory had hoped to pull Roger Stone into the mud, but I believe they’ve just realized they merely demonstrated yet again the case for investigating the Seth Rich murder.

a reply to: Xcathdra

There is a strange thread here ...George Webb along with Jason Goodman received a thumb drive with info similar to the Gusifer2 release . The thumb drive has a FEC file that someone doing a analysis on said the extra file had something that looked like GOP data . He was only going on some of the file idents and not the actual data inside . skip to the 2:00 mark

I find it strange that the WSJ timing on this comes just after the Sh%$ storm this new thumb drive caused in that group looking into this

a reply to: the2ofusr1

Comey testified GOP data was stolen but never released / used. I am curious if there is a push to "contain" the information in question to just the Democrats for political reasons. If GOP information comes out it would undermine the "democrats were targeted" narrative.

a reply to: Xcathdra

* - There is no evidence Russia hacked the DNC / Clinton / Podesta stuff.

I didn't claim that this added anything in the way of evidence for Russian attribution. However, there's actually quite a lot of evidence pointing to Russia. Perhaps what you mean to say is that there's nothing public that is conclusive? Clearly all evidence isn't a smoking gun.

And since neither you nor I (well, I assume you aren't) are receiving daily briefings on the status of the ongoing investigations, we really have no idea what isn't being publically released.

* - Gucifer lied when he claimed he hack the systems according to Comeys testimony to Congress.

I'm not sure what you're referring to. Perhaps you could give me the full quote? It's hard to see how that would be relevant. It's not in doubt that "Guccifer 2.0" provided 2.5 gigs of data stolen from the Democrats. He got it from somewhere.

* - Why would Gucifer have info if it was obtained by Seth Rich?

I'm not claiming that it was obtained by Seth Rich. I said this is the sort of data that Seth Rich would actually be far more likely to have access to than emails. I'm making no claims beyond that and in fact, my own belief is that Seth Rich didn't provide anything to anyone and that his murder has nothing to do with the DNC/Clinton.

* - Finally, show me the statute for illegal collusion.

I don't know of any collusion statutes but I don't think that's really as significant as it might seem. In a worst case scenario for Team Trump — an impeachment — it's "high crimes and misdemeanors" which can cover pretty much whatever Congress decides it does as there is no court review of impeachment.

As it pertains to others like Nevins and Stone, if nothing else you have 18 U.S. Code § 2315 -
Sale or receipt of stolen goods, securities, moneys, or fraudulent State tax stamps.

If I'm not mistaken, this would also cover stolen data worth millions of dollars.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Going bact to the YT vid and down in the comments the guy was corrected and the files are the same except one is named a bit different . There are other people looking into it that are very IT savy so I am not sure what the final results are going to say . Its main concern from what I have seen is in the NGPVAN part of the leak or plant or what ever it really is Oh and GUSIFER 2 is either the DNC or is a part of crowdstrike

a reply to: Xcathdra
Comey has a bad memory, he's going to end up going down, I just know it.


tweet

Though barely noticed at the time, DCLeaks published a collection of about 300 emails in June 2016 purportedly obtained from various Republican targets, including staffers of Arizona Senator John McCain and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, among other GOP officials. Security researchers linked DCLeaks to a Kremlin-linked hacking group about two months later.
Mr. Comey “[misled] Congress … when he stated that emails on Republicans were not released during 2016,” WikiLeaks tweeted after Monday’s hearing. The FBI director never said Republican emails weren’t released, however; instead, rather, Mr. Comey said that none of the emails published during last year’s race were obtained by a GOP breach.

Washi ngton Times

a reply to: D8Tee

Guccifer 2.0 is not Russian

Thanks for clearing that up for me. You do undertand that stating things matter-of-factly isn't a persuasive argument right? It's just you saying things. Or in this case, you saying things and Roger Stone, notorious liar, hoaxer, trickster, criminal political operative, etc saying things.

Also notice that nowhere in the OP did I say that the WSJ proves that GC2 is Russian. That's the article title. Speaking of which, Roger Stone might be getting a bit senile in his old age because the political operative they are talking about isn't Roger Stone. It was actually Nevins that they were referring to.

analysis data their misleading headline saying I “teamed up’ with a guy I had no contact with in 2016.

That sounds like that last Guccifer2.0 dump, it came in the last month (right around 1 month before the election if I remember correctly), that 'he' claimed was "Clinton Foundation" docs, but web analysts all agreed was DCCC stuff (which sort of discredited the whole dump while calling into question the previous work as he insisted it was CF data).

a reply to: the2ofusr1

I would love to comment further but I don't have the time to watch a bunch of YT videos atm. What I will say is that by your own admission, you don't really know what you're looking at. Given that, don't you think that maybe you should refrain from making bold declarations like this?

Oh and GUSIFER 2 is either the DNC or is a part of crowdstrike

I'll take a look at them today and give you my honest opinion if you'd like. I have 20+ years of professional experience in a wide range of IT positions and prior to that, a number of years of real world hacking experience.

a reply to: theantediluvian

You do undertand that stating things matter-of-factly isn't a persuasive argument right? It's just you saying things.

Nice try. Guccifer 2.0 = DNC. Check the metadata.

a reply to: D8Tee

Go to the 5:12 mark of this vid

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

The data came from somewhere and it's not the sort of thing you find lying around in emails. There's only a couple of reasonable possibilities and each of them have accompanying hypotheses with their own supporters.

I favor the GC2 as propaganda officer/team hypothesis and that it was a persona thrown together in haste following the Crowdstrike announcement of the DNC hack. I don't believe that GC2 actually hacked into anything "himself" but at the same time, it also appears that "he" had the goods.

Obviously, it's open to speculation based on how folks interpret the data.

a reply to: the2ofusr1

Calling in CrowdStrike was a shady move on the DNC's part.
Dimitri is a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council.
Sony gets hacked by the NORKS, FBI investigates.
DNC gets hacked, CrowdStrike gets the call?

originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
That sounds like that last Guccifer2.0 dump, it came in the last month (right around 1 month before the election if I remember correctly), that 'he' claimed was "Clinton Foundation" docs, but web analysts all agreed was DCCC stuff (which sort of discredited the whole dump while calling into question the previous work as he insisted it was CF data).

Actually judicial watch just got access to more Hillary Clinton emails that werent disclosed. It turns out Clinton sent emails (and classified info) to members of the Clinton foundation. I wonder if thats why there might be confusion on where they came from.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Wrong guccifer. This is G2.

originally posted by: D8Tee
a reply to: theantediluvian

Guccifer 2.0 is not Russian

Roger Stone vs. the Wall Street Journal
By Roger Stone

In a Wall Street Journal article updated May 25, 2017, writers Alexandra Berzon and Rob Barry attempted to drag me into the daisy chain of communications between a South Florida political consultant Aaron Nevins and Guccifer 2.0 regarding the supposed leaking of DNC voter turnout analysis data their misleading headline saying I “teamed up’ with a guy I had no contact with in 2016.

To be clear, I had nothing to do with the messages shared between Mr. Nevins and Guccifer. It is true that I myself have been in communication with Guccifer 2.0 (who I maintain is not a Russian Agent despite the dopes at the CIA insisting otherwise), and I have fully disclosed the contents of those discussions in their entirety. It is true that I was directed to take a look at the HelloFLA.com website by Guccifer, and I did take a quick perusal and my response to him of “Pretty standard” shows clearly that I considered it mundane nonsense.

I had no idea there was an alleged dump of gigabytes worth of data to Mr. Nevins, nor that Aaron Nevins supposedly asked Guccifer 2.0 to send it by saying “Feel free to send any Florida based information” that Guccifer might have from his claimed possession of DNC data.

What I saw in HelloFLA.com didn’t seem interesting, or important. It seemed like something you’d find in any high-end political consultancy shop in D.C. as it seemed to be merely massaged data taken from public voting records.

HelloFLA.com was run under a pseudonym, and I had no knowledge that it was really being run by Aaron Nevins, and there is no way I could possibly know that it represented portions of data handed over to Mr. Nevins by Guccifer, if in fact that is what happened.

While I have no earlier or further connections to Guccifer than what I’ve previously published, I do find something very interesting, now that I’ve learned of this voter turnout data. What is fascinating about this data, is that it is exactly the type of data that Seth Rich was working with at the DNC for his job as a Director level data analyst at the DNC. Part of his job was investigating voting records for his official job title, which was Voter Expansion Data Director at the DNC.

It’s clear to see that the WSJ and left Fake News site RawStory had hoped to pull Roger Stone into the mud, but I believe they’ve just realized they merely demonstrated yet again the case for investigating the Seth Rich murder.

Oh , crap. Now you have done it. Brought actual facts and logic into one of the OPs threads....
With 2 posts even

originally posted by: Sillyolme
a reply to: Xcathdra

Wrong guccifer. This is G2.

you are correct.. my apologies.