Noticing the outlet with the story is always the first step in identifying the motive behind it.
Together with the New York Times, Politico is the most favored outlet by the FBI, DOJ and domestic IC apparatus. [DHS stories go through The Wall Street Journal, CIA through The Washington Post, and State Dept through CNN. These are the constants in an ever-changing narrative universe.]
According to a recent Politico article, on July 22nd they began receiving leaked documents from the account of a “senior official” within the Trump campaign. [Datapoint – That is a total of 19 days ago]
The Trump campaign said the documents were “hacked” likely as an outcome of a foreign actor, intending to influence the 2024 election. Actually, that’s a pretty smart move by the Trump campaign. I’ll explain why.
Politico – […] “These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process,” Cheung said. “On Friday, a new report from Microsoft found that Iranian hackers broke into the account of a ‘high ranking official’ on the U.S. presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice-presidential nominee.”
On July 22, POLITICO began receiving emails from an anonymous account. Over the course of the past few weeks, the person — who used an AOL email account and identified themselves only as “Robert” — relayed what appeared to be internal communications from a senior Trump campaign official. A research dossier the campaign had apparently done on Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, which was dated Feb. 23, was included in the documents. The documents are authentic, according to two people familiar with them and granted anonymity to describe internal communications. One of the people described the dossier as a preliminary version of Vance’s vetting file.
The research dossier was a 271-page document based on publicly available information about Vance’s past record and statements, with some — such as his past criticisms of Trump — identified in the document as “POTENTIAL VULNERABILITIES.” The person also sent part of a research document about Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who was also a finalist for the vice-presidential nomination.
The person said they had a “variety of documents from [Trump’s] legal and court documents to internal campaign discussions.”
Asked how they obtained the documents, the person responded: “I suggest you don’t be curious about where I got them from. Any answer to this question, will compromise me and also legally restricts you from publishing them.” (more)
By saying the documents were hacked; against the backdrop of a potential “phishing operation,” what the Trump campaign is framing is a duplicate example of exactly what happened to Jon Podesta and Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016. The scenario is identical.
Politico is told by Trump officials they are holding “foreign originated” “hacked documents” from a “senior official inside the Trump campaign.” This is the exact scenario that Politico and the aligned media railed against on behalf of Hillary Clinton in 2016. Now, however, the same Politico is running to the typeset to share what they previously said was illegal to report and share.
They’ve got nothing. But keep watching.
It is very safe to assume the intelligence officials inside the Biden administration are conducting full domestic surveillance operations of the Trump campaign using every tool in their toolbox. Including full NSA captured metadata programs, electronic, phone and physical surveillance.
Politico reporting contact with hacked material is simply someone from within the U.S. Government, likely domestic IC (FBI), pretending to be a hacker to transmit surveillance material to their media allies.
Comrade Suspicious Cat remains, well, suspicious.
