April 29, 2020 / by emptywheel

 

On June 24, 2016, WikiLeaks DMed Guccifer 2.0 about Celebrating Brexit

Among the Roger Stone-related warrants released last night is one, dated November 6, 2017, that obtained the WikiLeaks and Julian Assange Twitter accounts.

On or about June 24, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 wrote to Target Account 1, “How can we chat? Do u have jabber or something like that?” I know from my training and experience that “Jabber” is an instant messaging service. Target Account 1 wrote back, “Yes, we have everything. We’ ve been busy celebrating Brexit. You can also email an encrypted message to [email protected]. They key is here.” 1 A web link was attached to the message. I know from my training and experience that an encryption “key” is a string of information created for scrambling and unscrambling data.

On July 6 — the day when WikiLeaks asked for Hillary materials — Guccifer 2.0 bitched about WikiLeaks’ slow submission process and claimed to have sent Brexit-related documents days earlier.

On or about July 6, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 wrote to Target Account 1, “have u received my parcel?” Target Account 1 responded, “Not unless it was very recent. [we haven’t checked in 24h].”2 Guccifer 2.0 replied, “I sent it yesterday, an archive of about 1 gb. via [website link]. [A]nd check your email.” Target Account 1 wrote back, “Wil[l] check, thanks.” Guccifer 2.0 responded, ” let me know the results.” Target Account 1 wrote back, “Please don’t make anything you send to us public. It’s a lot of work to go through it and the impact is severely reduced if we are not the first to publish.” Guccifer 2.0 replied, “agreed. How much time will it take?” Target Account 1 responded, ” likely sometime today.” Guccifer 2.0 wrote back, “will u announce a publication? and what about 3 docs [I] sent u earlier?” Target Account 1 responded, ” I don’t believe we received them. Nothing on ‘Brexit’ for example.” Guccifer 2.0 wrote back, “wow. have you checked ur mail?” Target Account 1 replied, “At least not as of 4 days ago . . . . For security reasons mail cannot be checked for some hours.” Guccifer 2.0 wrote back, “fuck, [I] sent 4 docs on brexit on jun 29, an archive in gpg[.] ur submission form is too fucking slow, [I] spent the whole day uploading 1 gb.”

Later that day, amid an ongoing discussion about how to best target Clinton, including WikiLeaks’ request for Clinton Foundation documents, Guccifer 2.0 wrote back and claimed to have sent Brexit documents successfully.

On or about that same day, Guccifer 2.0 sent Target Account 1 a message reading, “sent brexit docs successfully.”

The affidavit, as whole, provides more details about how WikiLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 communicated. But it also suggests that, in addition to playing to their mutual loathing for Hillary Clinton, Guccifer 2.0 also tried to appeal to WikiLeaks’ claimed support for Brexit.

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Originally Posted @ https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/04/29/on-june-24-2016-wikileaks-dmed-guccifer-2-0-about-celebrating-brexit/