Iran-linked hackers breach FBI director's personal email
reuters.com440 points by m-hodges 2 days ago
440 points by m-hodges 2 days ago
https://ddosecrets.org/article/kash-patel-emails
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/doj-confirms-fbi...
Interesting, and not all that implausible. The real test: his personal email should be pretty uninteresting except for stuff like HIPAA, amazon purchases, communications with friends / family. (good for HUMINT) But other than that, there shouldn't be anything in there which should make the news. It'll be interesting to see whether or not that bears out. If they wanted to maintain access, they certainly wouldn't celebrate it publicly, which is why I assume they want to release information. But, there shouldn't be anything damning to release. ie, there ought not to be if the director is acting professionally. We'll see how the facts bear out. I also suppose it's possible they're just going for any win they can and there's nothing interesting here whatsoever, or it's a really boring secondary address or something. I think this is actually the opposite of the correct conclusion—just look how influential Patreus cheating on his wife was (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petraeus_scandal). I seriously doubt that Kash Patel doesn't have a bunch of skeletons to dust off and show the world; the man is a weirdo (much like the rest of the administration). EDIT: I actually misread the comment; I think we're likely in agreement. My bad. I don't know, these days skeletons seem to be treated as funny decoration and we're in a permanent state of Halloween. …Better plan all day
Better plan all week,
better plan all month,
better plan all year….
(Sorry, esoteric song lyric that applies.) > look how influential Patreus cheating on his wife was Those times have passed. I'll restate what I said in a comment some days ago: >> 50 years ago the press was "impeaching" presidents. Today presidents are "impeaching" the press The current strategy is "keep the outrage hose on full blast and eventually people get desensitized". It works. The press was stupid. They were doing stupid gotchas like swiftboats, fake reports on GWB (Dan Rather), but couldn’t care less about things like the CIA and the crack cocaine connection[1], or lots of other things the government gets away with (including Clappers total information awareness unconstitutional surveillance efforts) The press is always carrying water for someone but that someone is rarely the public unless is just pure coincidence. [1] there was one reporter who dared but the toll from the story resulted in his suicide, some years later. His colleagues poo-pooed his reporting on the connection. * The Swiftboat thing was completely an ad campaign if I remember correctly.
I remember most media covering it as BS. * The contents of Dan Rather report on GWB was true. There was one document
which was sketchy, but the whole report didn't hinge on the one document
from an officer's office. (E.g. Ex-senator Ben Barnes's interview is reasonably
indicting: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-barnes-on-bush/) It's a mess, and the only way out of it is probably limits own media ownership. I'd like to chime in and say that that Kash Patel, while completely unprofessional and incompetent, is way less of a weirdo than the rest of the administration. His scandals are all about shirking job responsibilities to party and sightsee. That's not great from the FBI director but its way more normal than the rest of them. I dunno, a sitting FBI director testifying under oath about details that are clearly false, goes above and way beyond "to party and sightsee". At least in my world it puts him up there together with the rest of the weirdos. That's not remotely true of his history.. he's a full on Jan-6er, deep into Q-Anon, he was involved in numerous serious scandals during the first Trump admin (Nunes Memo / Russiagate 'parallel' investigation: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/the-men...), he has a number of sketchy moneymaking side-businesses, he was formerly living with a GOP megadonor 'Timeshare Tycoon' as roommates in Vegas (https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/trump-fbi-pick-kash...), he collected enemies' lists for Trump which resulted in firing of most of the Iran counterintel team right before we started launching attacks because they had the termerity to investigate why Trump was showing donors top-secret maps of Iran after he left office.. In the current environment, those are more expecteds than scandalous.
Insider trades around government activities, same-sex behavior, overt racism for example might nudge the needle. I'm not defending or advocating for the guy, just saying, if you're gonna be a piece of shit, he seems more relatable than the rest of them. How can you way that with a straight face when this book exists. https://www.amazon.com/Plot-Against-King-Kash-Patel/dp/19555... idk if you have to dig in and link to some amazon link... this iran hack is a dismal propaganda failure... nothing much to see I guess Dig in? Was already aware of his book, and he's made many more weird books. Trump's cabinet are all weird little goblins, some more Nazi than others, like Miller. isn't that "hackers" supposed to get some unknown secret scandalous stuff? if you're digging amazon FOR them, what's the point of their activity? and by "digging", yes it's digging because is that link THE FIRST RECOMMENDED THING from amazon? gosh I didn't even say "trump cabinet is the best and perfect"... ...damn did you get like 300 on SAT reading? Why do you assume I did any digging at all? I just said we might find out some fun stuff in his emails about his weird book, which I already was aware of. Presumably the SAT includes properly written words and sentences, not whatever you spew out. 90% of US media is not aligned with the Democrats and as such they do not possess the same power to manufacture outrage as the Republicans do. It's actually almost exactly the opposite, at least when considering the number of media outlets. Fox news is a massive outlier with a huge audience and strong republican leaning, but most of the major networks engage in democrat-aligned signaling (not necessarily the progressive branch of democrats). Considering number over outlets versus population served is exactly the wrong way of looking at it. Fewer outlets serving larger populations means stricter control over messaging, and a better propaganda base. > 90% of US media is not aligned with the Democrats The media works for the same people both parties do. If capital wanted to manufacture Democrat-aligned outrage they could easily do so overnight. But it's a complete mistake to think about politics in a partisan manner at all. Of course the democrats won't ever fight for you. Doing anything decreases chances of getting elected again. Whatever force will depose capital won't come from the two-party system. The media works for the billionaire elite and it is mostly aligned with the Republican party. And if you think that "both parties are as bad" or that the last president was as batshit insane as the current one, that same billionaire elite has duped you. There is so much corruption and impropriety in this administration that skeletons don't matter anymore. Looking at what sunk officials in previous administrations provides a sense for just how far gone we are, but it's not an indicator of what future consequences will be. Dan Quayle lost a serious bid because he couldn't spell potato. Now look at where we're at. It really is wild. Right, wrong, or indifferent. How far we've shifted is absolutely wild. Dan Quayle also had the charisma of a potato. Let's not overfit this curve. I was just reading a X thread that published some of the more notable things and overall it's pretty innocuous. The most "controversial" thing thus far is he took a trip to Cuba Maybe the hackers will release information connecting Patel to the Noem and Lewandowski grift operations with govt contracts. Out of the four companies allowed to bid for the $220 million advertising contract, 3 were linked to Noem and Lewandowski and one to Patel. Im sure they are all doing it... Well, if the president sets the example. What can you expect from the rest ? My favorite explanation of the Petraeus scandal: https://vimeo.com/100348256 Like what? We have two presidents, including the current one, that took multiple trips to a pedophile island. What skeletons could be greater than accusations of punching a child in the face after they bit the dude’s penis during forced sodomy? There is no credible evidence that either of the Presidents you alluded to visited "the island". It's amazing to see conspiracy theories promulgated on HN. There is lots of evidence that these two presidents were on the pedophile island many times, and one of their wives. That is well established. There is no evidence released to the public directly linking those two men to specific sex acts by name. There is unnamed evidence released by the US DOJ specifically describing the assault I described in the prior comment. Again, none of this is theoretical, conspiracy, or conjecture. It’s in the documents released by the government that the government has confirmed as authentic. No doubt you are aware that the claims about Clinton originated with the founder of the Epstein Mythos, Virginia Giuffre, who we know for a fact was a serial confabulator. While she was inarguably one of Epstein's victims, she also made several claims that were demonstrably untrue, she could not keep her own stories straight, the FBI concluded internally that she was totally unreliable and that she was even lying about what the FBI told her, other victims contradicted her, and she was herself forced to recant on several subjects, including admitting that her "autobiography" book was a work of fiction. If you doubt me, feel free to read the FBI memo about her. In the case of both Clinton and Trump, there is no evidence that either of them visited Little St. James, and plenty of evidence otherwise - for example, Epstein even says so about Clinton in an email. > It’s in the documents released by the government that the government has confirmed as authentic. The documents are "authentic" in that yes, a real schizo did really tell the government he heard it secondhand 30 years ago that this happened and also that he discovered Hilary Clinton was behind the WTC bombing. (For some reason, people like you always leave that part of the bombshell revelations out.) I am for total transparency generally, but this whole saga has been a major disappointment for me in that the level of public discourse is so lazy and low that its clear that in a purely utilitarian way, it would have been better to not release it. Hopefully long-term the sacrifice of many people whose reputations are being destroyed over little or nothing is worth it. Every crank call about celebrities is being treated as gospel. Remarkable that Epstein confined his pedophile activities to a single location. No, wait: > Remarkable that Epstein confined his pedophile activities to a single location Correct, the vast majority of his criminal activity appeared to be in his Palm Beach home and in New York, where he recruited high dozens to hundreds of high school girls for his personal sexualized massages. It actually appears only a very small amount of his illicit activity ever took place on the island, which makes it all the more ironic that's what the conspiracy theorists focus on. I was willing to be more than openmminded about the conspiracists' mass trafficking ring (ie, beyond the two people charged) angle, but the ironic thing is about the Epstein files is they revealed it was almost all smoke. Of course, in the conspirational mindset, all contradicting evidence is actually, secretly, when you apply the correct hermeutics, even more damning, or else evidence of a coverup. > the ironic thing is about the Epstein files is they revealed it was almost all smoke. and a few massive conspiracy shaped holes - eg: the references to missing content regarding Trump and a few other. Oh, and the shortfall between what has been released Vs what has been indexed, the black paging, and the hints from those that have seen but are sworn to not tell about that which they have seen but cannot recount. Still, at least we seem to agree that PedoIsland is a misdirect when it comes to determining who did what to whom and where. I can't see Pam Bondi coming clean here anytime soon. > the hints from those that have seen but are sworn to not tell about that which they have seen but cannot recoun The people who were victimized by anyone other than Epstein and Maxwell could come forward at any time, just as dozens of Epstein's victims have. They have some of the highest-powered civil lawyers in America, hundreds of millions of dollars in settlement funds available, and vast swaths of the country behind them. That they haven't should tell you something. It tells me that they are afraid of their safety and the safety of their families. They would risking backlash from a billionaire who loves intimidation tactics, who currently has the highest amount of power of any individual in the US, and who has nutty followers who would act on his behalf and let him pretend he was not at all happy about what they are doing. The people who have come forward about Epstein's abuses have little to worry about because that man is dead and he's a perfect scapegoat for all the the other ultra-rich who took part in the abuses.
everdrive - 2 days ago
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What's interesting is how easily the media is distracted. What's even more
concerning though, is that when the more centrist major media has tried to
be less gullible, they've been vilified. (E.g. trying not to be suckered
by miraculous appearance Hunter Biden's laptop.) The media did fall down though. Only one outlet went to the the Officer's
secretary (who was still alive) to ask if she had typed the document.
She looked at it and said (summarizing here) that it wasn't the document
she typed, but it was the same contents.
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defrost - a day ago
Hmm ... would that be the same Palm Beach home that Trump visited a good many times back when he was best of chums with Jeffrey and sending him the nude outline sketches? In 2008, Epstein reached a plea deal with prosecutors after the parents of a 14-year-old girl told Florida police that Epstein had molested their daughter at his Palm Beach home.
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