A second former staffer to Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) was sentenced for her role in helping another former aide obtain and post personal information for multiple Republican senators in order to intimidate them over their support for then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Fox News reported that Samantha Deforest Davis, 24, “was sentenced to two years of supervised probation with 200 hours of community service, with a suspended sentence of 180 days in prison.” Davis was also told to “stay away from [Hassan’s] office to include current and former staff, and to not use Tor or anonymized computer applications,” a Department of Justice statement said.
Fox reported that Davis was alleged to have helped Jackson Cosko, 27, who illegally obtained the senator’s personal information because he was angry over their support for Kavanaugh after the nominee was accused of decades-old sexual assaults. The assaults were never proven or corroborated, and the majority of witnesses said they don’t remember Kavanaugh behaving the way he has been accused.
Cosko, according to prosecutors, told Davis to “wipe down” the computers he used in Hassan’s office to obtain the information. Davis, a staff assistant at the time, was unable to comply because another staffer was in the office the morning she was supposed to wipe the computers. Davis also allowed Cosko to use her keys to get into the office, knowing “that Cosko needed the keys to unlawfully enter the senator’s office to access Senate computers” the DOJ’s statement said.
“Davis pleaded guilty to the federal charge of aiding and abetting computer fraud, and to the District of Columbia charge of attempted tampering with evidence,” Fox reported.
Cosko had previously worked as a computer systems administrator for Hassan, but was fired in May 2018 for breaking office procedures. Court records reviewed by Fox News indicate that Cosko “repeatedly burglarized the office,” the outlet reported. He also “copied gigabytes worth of data, including dozens of user names and passwords belonging to Senate employees and ‘contact information for numerous sitting U.S. senators,’” Fox reported.
At the time of the doxing, Cosko was working for Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX). He was caught when another staffer recognized him and reported him. Cosko later sent that staffer an email threatening to “leak it all” if the staffer snitched.
“Emails signal conversations gmails. Senators children’s health information and socials,” Cosko wrote to the staffer.
In April, Cosko pleaded guilty to two counts of making public restricted personal information, and one count each of computer fraud, witness tampering and obstruction of justice,” Fox reported. In June, Cosko was sentenced to four years in prison for his crimes. During his court proceedings, Cosko explained that he had been able to spy on senate offices thanks to his keylogger devices. He also wrote a “to do list” of sorts to himself relating to the crime. One of those notes read:
-Backup all files
-Mail backup
-Burn Aliases
-Wipe down comps
Cosko obtained his congressional jobs thanks to his father’s connections. His father is the CEO of a major construction company in California and has ties to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).