Former Democratic aide headed to prison for ‘doxing’ five Republican senators – Washington Examiner

A former aide to two Democratic members of Congress will receive a sentence of four years in prison for data theft after pleading guilty to five felony charges linked to ‘doxing’ — or releasing personal information such as home addresses — five Republican senators.

Jackson Cosko was sentenced Wednesday by Judge Thomas Hogan in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Cosko was arrested in October 2018 for breaking into the office of his former employer, Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and stealing private data before using it to ‘dox’ several Republican senators by posting their personal contact information on Wikipedia.

Even after his arrest, Cosko, a supporter of 2020 presidential candidate and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, continued to mine data through keystroke-logging devices he had installed on several computers in the Senate offices. The devices were only discovered after Cosko informed authorities of their existence.

The sentencing memorandum filed by the prosecutor described the bulk of Cosko’s charges, including “a months-long series of burglaries and sophisticated data theft offenses directed at the office of” Hassan and “maliciously releasing” personal information of Senators Lindsay Graham, Orrin Hatch, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and Mitch McConnell.

He also obstructed justice by attempting “to silence a witness by threatening to release the private health information of a Senator’s children, because he corrupted another person and persuaded her to attempt to ‘wipe down’ the scene of his burglaries,” and attempting to destroy evidence in his own apartment.

The memo describe Cosko’s crimes as reflecting “a deliberate malice and self-righteous entitlement.”

His data theft has been described as the largest in Senate history. Prosecutors said Cosko’s crimes were motivated by his fury at being fired by Hassan and his political anger at Republicans. They said that he “wanted to punish people who disagreed with his politics.”

Cosko, a self-proclaimed supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., claimed to be angry at Senate Republicans over their actions during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh. His defense claimed that their client was struggling with alcohol and drug dependence.

Prosecutors asked for 57 months in prison for Cosko, close to the maximum allowable sentence for his crimes, writing, “The government believes that a significant sentence would help to make clear that difference of political opinion do not entitle people to engage in politically motivated, criminal attacks threatening elected officials with whom he disagrees, and would thereby encourage respect for the law, and deter future criminal conduct.”