This has been bubbling up in tech blog circles much of the day: claims by unknown persons on a website popular with hackers that they broke into an office of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Franklin, Tenn., accessed a computer, and stole the tax returns of Mitt and Ann Romney. It’s a fantastical claim, made all the more so by the accompanying extortion demand: pay us $1 million not to release them.
But here’s the thing.
One of the posts going around claimed that thumbdrives containing the tax returns were delivered to the local county offices of the Republican and Democratic parties in Franklin. Both offices have now confirmed receiving packages containing thumbdrives in recent days.
Today the Secret Service visited both offices and took the thumbdrives and confirmed to TPM that they are investigating. Eric Lach pieces it all together.
David Kurtz
David Kurtz is Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of Talking Points Memo where he oversees the news operations of TPM and its sister sites.