Reuters reported late on Friday night that their reporter who broke the story about Democrat Beto O’Rourke belonging to a hacker group had the story for two years and agreed to sit on it until after O’Rourke’s Senate race against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
The report, published early on Friday, documented O’Rourke’s involvement in a hacker group named “Cult of the Dead Cow,” and included multiple past writings from O’Rourke, some of which were described as “disturbing.”
“After more than a year of reporting, [Joseph] Menn persuaded O’Rourke to talk on the record,” Reuters reported. “In an interview in late 2017, O’Rourke acknowledged that he was a member of the group, on the understanding that the information would not be made public until after his Senate race against Ted Cruz in November 2018.”
Menn says that he learned about O’Rourke’s involvement in the group after he decided to write about the hacking group, which he called “the most interesting and influential hacking group in history.”
“While I was looking into the Cult of the Dead Cow, I found out that they had a member who was sitting in Congress. I didn’t know which one,” Menn said. “And then I figured out which one it was. And the members of the group wouldn’t talk to me about who it was. They wouldn’t confirm that it was this person unless I promised that I wouldn’t write about it until after the November election.”
Menn says that he approached O’Rourke for an interview about the book and told O’Rourke that the book was “going to publish after November and your Senate race is over,” and that O’Rourke agreed to give the interview.
Some of O’Rourke’s old writings were discovered on an online discussion forum that he started called “TacoLand.”
One particular piece of writing from O’Rourke was especially troubling as he described mowing down children in a car. Reuters reports:
Another t-file from O’Rourke, written when he was 15, is a short and disturbing piece of fiction. “One day, as I was driving home from work, I noticed two children crossing the street. They were happy, happy to be free from their troubles…. This happiness was mine by right. I had earned it in my dreams.
“As I neared the young ones, I put all my weight on my right foot, keeping the accelerator pedal on the floor until I heard the crashing of the two children on the hood, and then the sharp cry of pain from one of the two. I was so fascinated for a moment, that when after I had stopped my vehicle, I just sat in a daze, sweet visions filling my head.”
Late on Friday, Yahoo also reported on more of O’Rourke’s old writings: “Archived versions of writings attributed to O’Rourke’s alias ‘Psychedelic Warlord’ include one that criticized some women as ‘sluts,’ mocked them for having ‘violent boyfriends,’ and suggested a way to deal with these women was to call them ‘completely ugly,’ or inform ‘Nazi Skins in your area’ that they had ‘AIDS.'”