Roger Stone Was Phished Before Trump Campaign Hack-and-Dump

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

The Weakest Link?

A number of new developments since yesterday in the hack-and-dump attack on the Trump campaign, but none stands out with as much color and irony as the cameo by longtime Trump acolyte Roger Stone.

Stone was apparently the victim of a phishing attack, according to multiple news outlets, citing anonymous investigators. Stone also said so himself, for what that’s worth.

As CNN described it:

The hackers used access to Stone’s email account to try to break into the account of a senior Trump campaign official as part of a persistent effort to access campaign networks, one of the sources said. The hacking incident, which occurred in June, set off a scramble in the Trump campaign, the FBI and Microsoft, which spotted the intrusion attempts, to contain the incident and to determine if there was a broader cyber threat from Iran.

The implication of the day’s reporting was that Stone was the weak link point of entry for the hack-and-dump, but I want to be clear that no one as far as I can tell has yet confirmed that the attack on Stone directly led to the hack-and-dump operation against the Trump campaign.

Stone told the NYT that both his Hotmail (old school!) and his Gmail accounts were compromised. Stone said he was first contacted by Microsoft a few months ago, and then a few weeks later by the FBI. Using Stone, who was convicted in the Mueller investigation then later corruptly pardoned by President Trump only to turn up again in the thick of Jan. 6, to exploit access to the Trump campaign is a scriptwriter’s fantasy plot twist.

Among the other developments:

• The FBI publicly confirmed it is investigating the hack-and-dump operation (though it didn’t name Trump), apparently as part of a larger investigation.
• The Biden-Harris campaign was also reportedly targeted:

At least three staffers on the Biden-Harris campaign were targeted with so-called spear-phishing emails intended to trick recipients into clicking on seemingly legitimate links or files in a bid to gain access to their internal communications, the person said, adding that the attempts took place before President Biden stepped aside for re-election and was succeeded by Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. The hacking attempts were apparently unsuccessful, the person said.

• The FBI briefed the Biden-Harris campaign in June “about Iranian hackers targeting that campaign,” CNN reported, citing an anonymous source.
• Iran remains a prime suspect in the hack, but the U.S. government hasn’t yet pointed the finger at Iran. It’s reportedly less clear whether Iran was involved in the dump.
• “[I]nvestigators anticipate further attempts by the hackers to disseminate other materials,” the NYT reported.

It remains to be seen if the documents already confirmed to have been dumped with Politico, the NYT, and WaPo will yield more news stories beyond the one Politico published Saturday.

Tina Peters Convicted

Former Mesa County, Colorado clerk Tina Peters was convicted by a jury in state court of tampering with voting machines that were under her control in the aftermath of the 2020 election – part of her now-notorious effort to prove elements of Donald Trump’s Big Lie.

The jury deliberated for nearly five hours before convicting Peters on seven of the 10 counts against her. The top two bulleted items are felonies:

• three counts of attempting to influence a public servant;
• one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation;
• first-degree official misconduct;
• violation of duty; and
• failure to comply with an order from the Secretary of State.

Sentencing is set for Oct. 3, and she could face real prison time. It’s a long way from August 2021, when the weird case first burst into public view.

Musk And Trump Are Made For Each Other

Let’s begin by acknowledging the alarming tableau of the world’s richest man inserting himself forcefully into the presidential campaign of a would-be authoritarian and co-opting his potent global information platform to do so.

As ominous as that sounds, it is also buffoonish – and there’s no reason for those two things to be mutually exclusive.

Last evening’s Elon Musk interview with Donald Trump on the occasion of his return to X/Twitter faced the same kind of comical technical snafus that bedeviled Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign launch with Musk.

Musk blamed a denial of service attack, which is to say malign outside actors trying to shut down the Trump interview. But The Verge throws cold water on that claim, reporting:

The rest of X appears to be working normally, however, and a source at the company confirmed to The Verge that there wasn’t actually a denial-of-service attack. Another X staffer said there was a “99 percent” chance Elon was lying about an attack.

Nothing that was said (or mumbled) rose to the same level of newsworthiness as the grotesque symbolism of the moment.

Good Luck With That One

Donald Trump has taken the first step toward suing the Justice Department over the Mar-a-Lago raid, a preposterous claim that is unlikely to succeed.

2024 Ephemera

• A pro-Trump super PAC is launching a $100 million TV ad buy between now and Labor Day in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.
• In a decision that, if upheld, would keep Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., off the presidential ballot in New York and possibly jeopardize his ballot access in other states, a New York state judge ruled that Kennedy falsely claimed to be a resident there when in fact he lives in California.
• Kamala Harris’ popularity “has driven a large correction in economic sentiment,” Brian Beutler notes, which requires some rethinking of the lessons of the past three years.

Abortion Watch

• TPM’s Kate Riga: SCOTUS Didn’t Go Nuclear On Abortion In 2024. It’ll Have Plenty Of Options To In 2025
• Women file complaints with HHS claiming that two Texas hospitals denied them abortions for ectopic pregnancies.
• AP: “More than 100 pregnant women in medical distress who sought help from emergency rooms were turned away or negligently treated since 2022, an Associated Press analysis of federal hospital investigations found.”

No Other Way Out

Lawfare’s Natalie Orpett, on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s disastrous decision to revoke the plea agreements entered into with the accused 9/11 plotters:

What makes Secretary Austin’s order so destructive is that guilty pleas are the only way out. They represent the sole possibility for 9/11 families to see some semblance of the public reckoning a trial is meant to provide. The defense, the prosecutors, and the convening authority all recognize this. That’s why they made these deals. But Austin chose to ignore this reality—just the latest in a long tradition of political leaders determined to avoid the choices necessary to bring this case to an end.   

Words To Live By

I keep referring back to a comment that basketball great Kevin Durant made to the international media at the Paris Olympics: “A lot of bullshit happens in our country. But a lot of great things happen, too.” Indeed.

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