Remember this?
I do!
And it appears as though the wheels of justice have spun and doled out swift justice on a SECOND Democrat congressional staffer, both of whom worked for Democrat Sen. Maggie Hassan.
You might recall during the Kavanaugh hearings that all of a sudden private information about certain Republican senators was released, which is what’s known as doxxing.
It’s also known as highly illegal.
And now the second Democrat staffer just got charged and got hit with four years in prison!
Take a look:
Fox News had more details:
A second aide to New Hampshire Democrat Sen. Maggie Hassan is facing federal charges stemming from a scheme to publicly post the personal information of several Republican politicians amid the contentious confirmation hearings for now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The aide, Samantha Deforest Davis, was a staff assistant in Hassan’s office from August 2017 until last December. She was fired after Capitol Police discovered her possible involvement in the so-called "doxing" effort.
Court documents accuse Davis of aiding 27-year-old Jackson A. Cosko, a former Hassan aide who has pleaded guilty to five federal offenses, including making public restricted personal information, computer fraud, witness tampering and obstruction of justice.
Among the officials Cosko targeted were five Republican senators, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Cosko posted the home addresses and phone numbers of GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky -- as well as then-Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah.
Davis is reportedly expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges, including evidence tampering and aiding and abetting computer fraud. Also on Wednesday, Cosko was sentenced to four years in prison in the scheme.
Cosko, prosecutors said, became angry about the senators' support for Kavanaugh despite sexual assault allegations leveled against him. Cosko intended to intimidate the senators and their families, according to court records.
At the time of his arrest, Cosko was working as an unpaid intern for Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, who fired him soon after. He was previously employed as a computer systems administrator in Hassan's office -- a job that gave him "intimate knowledge of, and broad access to" the computer systems in Hasan's office, according to court records. But he had been fired from Hassan’s office in May 2018 for failing to follow office procedures.
After the firing from Hassan's office, Cosko became angry and repeatedly burglarized the office without being detected, court records said. He copied gigabytes-worth of data, including dozens of user names and passwords belonging to Senate employees and "contact information for numerous sitting U.S. senators," according to court records.
Cosko was arrested Oct. 3, 2018, one day after a staffer discovered him working on a computer in Hassan's office, where Cosko was not authorized to be. Records show Cosko sent a threatening email to the staffer the evening he was confronted.
Cosko previously held positions with other prominent Democrats, including former Sen. Barbara Boxer of California and the office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, also of California and the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Look at all those names!
Feinstein, Boxer!
Wonder who else might be connected?
And more, from Politico:
A former aide to Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) was sentenced to four years in prison Wednesday for hacking Senate computers and releasing personal information online about five Republican senators out of anger spurred by their roles in the confirmation hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan said the sentence for Jackson Cosko, 27, was needed to send a signal that criminal harassment driven by political motives would be punished severely in an era marked by extreme political polarization.
“We have…a society that has become very vicious,” Hogan said. “It’s very concerning to the court and unfortunate that you played into that.”
In April, Cosko pleaded guilty to five felonies, admitting that after being fired last year from his work as a systems administrator on Hassan’s staff, he repeatedly used a colleague’s key to enter the office, install keylogging equipment that stole work and personal email passwords, and downloaded a massive trove of data from Senate systems.
Cosko also acknowledged that after growing angry about the GOP’s handling of the Supreme Court nomination, he released home addresses and phone numbers of Sens. Lindsry Graham, Orrin Hatch, and Mike Lee on Wikipedia. After initial press coverage of that doxing, Cosko released information about Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul.
Cosko said he’d received a victim impact statement only from Paul, who said the event caused fear to him and his family.
“It was a rather vicious offense,” Hogan said. “That was totally unjustified….We need to send a message out there. We need to have some deterrent and community understanding.”
Shortly before the sentence was handed down, Cosko stood at a courtroom lectern and apologized.
“I take full and complete responsibility for my actions,” he said. “I am embarrassed and ashamed for what I did.”
Cosko said that he’d been struggling with substance abuse and mental health issues and that the judge’s decision earlier this year to let him enter a treatment program was pivotal.
“I firmly believe that it saved my life,” he said.
Prosecutors had sought a 57-month sentence, while lawyers for Cosko asked for a two-year prison term.
Hogan said Cosko’s actions put senators, their families and others at risk. “You exposed them. People may want to harm them in our polarized society,” the judge said.
Prosecutor Demian Ahn said Cosko’s actions amounted to “the largest data breach in Senate history.”
“These are deliberate and malicious crimes that the defendant engaged in,” Ahn said, accusing Cosko of a “months-long, deliberately planned, meticulously executed crime spree.”
Ahn said Cosko’s offenses amounted to an attack on “civil society” and were particularly worrisome because Cosko went after most of the senators involved solely because “they had different political opinions from the defendant.”
In his two-minute statement to the court, Cosko said that he’d been struggling with substance abuse and mental health issues and that the judge’s decision earlier this year to let him enter a treatment program was pivotal.
“I firmly believe that it saved my life,” he said.
Hogan said he was puzzled at how Cosko kept up work in congressional offices given the cocaine, psychedelics and alcohol he was consuming daily.
“The probation office indicated he’s lucky he wasn’t dead,” the judge said.
Defense attorney Brian Stolarz stressed that Cosko has changed his life dramatically since his arrest last October and cooperated with investigators, leading them to hidden evidence, like computer equipment he stashed in an oven.
After the hearing, Stolarz had no criticism of the sentence, although it amounted to double what the defense had sought. “We thank the judge for this considered and thoughtful sentence,” he told reporters.
“No one should be judged by their worst act but how they emerge from it,” the defense attorney added in a statement. “Mr. Cosko is sincerely remorseful for his conduct, is in recovery, and looks forward to living a purposeful life after he serves his sentence.”
The sentencing came on the same day a second former Hassan aide, Samantha Deforest-Davis, was charged with two misdemeanors stemming from the same scheme: aiding a computer fraud and evidence tampering. She is expected to plead guilty to the two misdemeanor charges, a person familiar with the case said.
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