As the country watched then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh defend himself from uncorroborated allegations of sexual assault from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee conducting the hearing had their personal phone numbers and addresses listed online.
The culprit was Jackson Cosko, a fellow in Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s (D-TX) office, who broke into the office of his former boss, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), and accessed a staff computer without authorization. A Hassan staffer recognized Cosko and reported him. Cosko then sent that staffer threatening emails saying: “If you tell anyone I will leak it all. Emails signal conversations gmails. Senators children’s health information and socials.”
Cosko was arrested and charged with “publishing restricted personal information, threats in interstate communication, unauthorized access of a government computer, identity theft, witness tampering, second degree burglary, and unlawful entry,” according to Fox News.
On Tuesday, Cosko and his attorney reached a plea deal with the Washington, D.C. federal prosecutors working on his case, according to The Daily Caller. The deal will be officially signed on April 5. U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan reportedly said at an earlier hearing that Cosko had terabytes of information he had stolen from the Senate, including sensitive data.
“He downloaded more information than was originally understood. There is no combination of conditions that could ensure the safety of the community,” Hogan said, according to the Caller.
The Caller revealed that Cosko was more than a Democrat staffer — he was the son of a well-connected and wealthy family.
Cosko’s father, Greg, is the CEO of an enormously successful construction company, Hathaway Dinwiddie, which has built the headquarters for Bank of America, Del Monte foods, and Pixar Animation. The company built a building at the University of California-Berkeley and named it after Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) husband, Richard C. Blum, according to the Caller. Greg Cosko is also the former chairman of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and knows House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Feinstein.
The Caller further reported that the younger Cosko ditched the stolen data but continued to send threats after he was arrested.
It is unknown at this time what is included in the plea deal.
Cosko had put the personal information of five GOP senators on their Wikipedia pages during the Kavanaugh hearing. The information was quickly removed, but a bot that tweets changes to Wikipedia articles had already sent out the information. The tweets were quickly deleted.
The Daily Wire previously reported that investigators found cocaine, methamphetamine, drug paraphernalia and multiple computers, phones, and tablets, as well as video games and Senate letterhead stolen from Sen. Hassan’s office. Cosko was asked to resign from Hassan’s office for unknown reasons, according to the Caller. He then went to work for Lee as a “fellow,” with his salary paid by an unknown “outside institution.”
While the GOP senators faced some danger by having their personal information put online, no one was hurt. Kavanaugh was eventually confirmed to the Supreme Court and Blasey Ford’s allegations were never corroborated and have since disappeared from the news.