A pro-Russian Twitter account has revealed confidential information from a criminal case being investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in another attempt to spread disinformation about the probe that might lead to the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
Mueller's office last week revealed that self-proclaimed hackers in Russia stole evidence in an attempt to discredit its investigation of a criminal case for social media conspiracy brought against a Russian company named Concord Management and Consulting.
CNN said U.S. prosecutors said in a court filing in Washington that a Twitter handle called @HackingRedstone came online last Oct. 22 to brag it had hacked some of the evidence in the case.
Earlier, or in February 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted Concord Management and Consulting for funding a group known as the Internet Research Agency that interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential election won by Trump via a social media campaign. Concord Management and Consulting are owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, one of the men closest to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The Special Counsel Investigation by Mueller is looking into the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election won by Trump. The investigation began on May 17, 2017, and is ongoing.
Mueller has thus far indicted 13 Russians and three Russian companies (including Concord Management and Consulting) for tampering to support Trump's candidacy for U.S. president. In all, 34 people have pleaded guilty, been indicted or otherwise involved in the Mueller's broader inquiry.
The situation today involves terabytes of data in the criminal case against Concord Management and Consulting. The DOJ turned-over evidence to Concord's U.S.-based legal team that wanted to review the data. Unfortunately for the DOJ, someone on this legal team leaked the confidential data to a number of Russian espionage operatives.
One of these operatives in October 2018 boasted on his Twitter account (since closed) that he had a "Mueller database." Later on, U.S. prosecutors discovered that a computer with a Russian IP address had published thousands of these documents online. They claim many of these documents are outright fakes meant to sow disinformation and distrust about the Mueller investigation.
"Certain non-sensitive discovery materials in the defense's possession appear to have been altered and disseminated as part of a disinformation campaign aimed (apparently) at discrediting ongoing investigations into Russian interference in the U.S. political system," said the prosecutors.
Oddly, the pro-Russia Twitter account user using the handle "@HackingRedstone" contacted several U.S. news organizations to brag about the Mueller documents in his possession.
"We are anonymous hackers. We are like hundreds of others, but we are the one and only who got the Special Counsel Mueller database," said a message from @HackingRedstone.
"We got into a Russian lawyer company local net that had permission from ReedSmith (Russian attorneys) to view and download all the files they need from their database through the remote server. You might wonder why we want to share all of this information with you. So, you're just one of the few who can handle it in the right way. You are the one who can tell people the truth!"
Failing to get a positive response from these U.S. news firms, @HackingRedstone in October created a webpage on Twitter that led to the documents from the criminal case.
The law firm Reed Smith, which represents Concord, said it was "confident" the firm had not been hacked, and neither did its members violate the court order prohibiting the spread of case files.
