Report: Russian hackers demanding money from progressive groups

Hot Air ^ | March 6,2017 | JOHN SEXTON

[Hojczyk]

Russian hackers are gaining access to emails and other information belonging to progressive groups and then sifting it for embarrassing information. As many as a dozen groups have been blackmailed with demands for thousands of dollars in bitcoins. Some have even agreed to pay in the hopes the hacked information won’t be released.

In one case, a non-profit group and a prominent liberal donor discussed how to use grant money to cover some costs for anti-Trump protesters. The identities were not disclosed, and it’s unclear if the protesters were paid.

At least some groups have paid the ransoms even though there is little guarantee the documents won’t be made public anyway. Demands have ranged from about $30,000 to $150,000, payable in untraceable bitcoins, according to one of the people familiar with the probe…

The Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank with strong links to both the Clinton and Obama administrations, and Arabella Advisors, which guides liberal donors who want to invest in progressive causes, have been asked to pay ransoms, according to people familiar

After the story was published, a spokesperson for The Center for American Progress told Bloomberg, “CAP has no evidence we have been hacked, no knowledge of it and no reason to believe it to be true. CAP has never been subject to ransom.” But the other group mentioned in that paragraph above, Arabella Advisors, revealed it was the target of a financially motivated cyber crime.

With Democrats heavily invested in the idea that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the election from Hillary Clinton, the latest hacking is said to be setting off “alarms” that this is a further attempt to impact the U.S. political system. That could be but the demand for money seems to offer a clear alternative explanation.

[jdsteel]

“Breaking into the DNC servers is hard work.”

Yeah, it’s hard to figure out Podesta’s password was “password”!!!!

[Liz]

..... a spokesperson for The Center for American Progress (CAP) told Bloomberg, “CAP has no evidence we have been hacked, no knowledge of it and no reason to believe it to be true. CAP has never been subject to ransom” .....

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The Center for American Progress (CAP) was started in 2003 by John Podesta, Bill Clinton's onetime Chief of Staff; Podesta led Obama’s presidential transition team after 2008 and was Hillary’s 2016 campaign manager.

PODESTA DECONSTRUCTED---A leaked Jan. 3, 2014 document shows that Podesta transferred more than 25,000 of 75,000 shares of Joule Technologies---a Russian-connected firm---to Leonidio Holdings LLC......listed w/ an address at his daughter's Megan Rouse’s Shannon Court home in Dublin, California. Rouse operates Megan Rouse Financial Planning from that same address. The inference is to money laundering, perhaps tax evasion. Suggests that Megan Rouse's father, John Podesta, hid stocks connected to Russia.

Conspiring w/ a family member to hide income, launder illicit money, and evade taxes is a known scam---uncovered by the IRS in the UBS investigation.

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IRS REFERENCE Offshore Tax-Avoidance and IRS Compliance Efforts

The IRS continues to uncover abusive tax-avoidance schemes involving offshore activity pertaining to Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) investigation.

SOURCE---https://www.irs.gov/uac/offshore-tax-avoidance-and-irs-compliance-efforts

CONT

[Liz]

cont

The Podesta angle in this must be investigated.

After she lost, the furious Hillary horse-whipped her 2016 campaign chair, John Podesta, into action. Podesta came charging out of the gate like Greased Lightning, galloping at breakneck speed, sweating it out, desperate to make Hillary look like a "victim."

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John Podesta Op-Ed: Washington Post post-election op-ed / FR POSTED by by ColdOne

PODESTA: The more we learn about the Russian plot to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s campaign and elect Donald Trump, and the failure of the FBI to adequately respond, the more shocking it gets. The former acting director of the CIA has called the Russian cyberattack “the political equivalent of 9/11.” Just as after the real 9/11, we need a robust, independent investigation into what went wrong inside the government and how to better protect our country in the future.

As the former chair of the Clinton campaign and a direct target of Russian hacking, I understand just how serious this is. So I was surprised to read in the New York Times that when the FBI discovered the Russian attack in September 2015, it failed to (Excerpt) Read more of Podesta at washingtonpost.com ...

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WikiLeaks: Tax Form Reveals Hillary's campaign chair, John Podesta,
Continued Ties to Russian Energy Company After Claiming He Divested

LINK http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/10/31/wikileaks-tax- form-reveals-john-podesta- continued-ties-to-russian-energy-company-after- claiming-he-divested/

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EXCLUSIVE: Dem Super-Lobbyist Podesta Got $170K
Daily Caller News Foundation ^ | March 6, 2017 | Richard Pollock / FR Posted by kevcol

Democrat super-lobbyist Tony Podesta (brother of John Podesta) was paid $170,000 over a six-month period last year to represent Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, seeking to end one of the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against that country, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned.

Podesta, founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms. His firm received more than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. (Excerpt) Read more at dailycallernewsfoundation.org ...

[Grampa Dave]

Their new password is probably: DNC#123