When WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared on “Real Time With Bill Maher” via video message from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London last week, Maher asked him, “Why don’t you hack into Donald Trump’s tax return?”
Assange responded, “Well, we’re working on it.”
On Saturday, WikiLeaks tweeted that Assange’s statement was just a joke:
All jokes aside, it’s serious business even to pretend to that you’ve hacked tax returns: it’s private information even if we don’t want it to be. Just ask Michael Mancil Brown. In May, Brown was convicted of six counts of wire fraud and six counts of using facilities of interstate commerce to commit extortion. The charges stem from 2012 when Brown claimed that he accessed PricewaterhouseCoopers’ internal computer network to steal tax documents belonging to another presidential hopeful: then-presidential hopeful Mitt Romney who, like Trump, initially refused to release his tax returns (Romney eventually did release the returns).
Brown never actually had access to Romney’s tax returns. Nonetheless, he delivered a letter to PricewaterhouseCoopers offices, demanding payment of $1 million in Bitcoin or, he claimed, he would release the documents. Brown also announced that he would release the tax documents to any third parties willing to pay $1 million in Bitcoin.
As part of the scheme, Brown delivered similar letters to the offices of the Democratic and Republican parties in Franklin, Tennessee, along with a USB drive which he claimed contained an encrypted version of the returns. He printed the letters out using an acquaintance’s printer (his printer was out of ink and no, I’m not kidding). The arrangements were made using a Hotmail.com account. Yes, in 2012 (still not kidding).
Brown also posted similar statements about the allegedly stolen returns on Pastebin.com, a website for sharing text online, under the name “Dr. Evil” (annnnd still not kidding). He discussed the alleged theft on at least 300 additional websites.
Not surprisingly, it wasn’t too hard to follow his digital trail. Brown was eventually indicted on 12 charges and was found guilty of all 12. He faced up to twenty years in prison on the charges of wire fraud, up to five years in prison on the charges of extortion, fines of up to $250,000, plus restitution. He was sentenced this week to 48 months in prison and ordered to pay about $200,000 in restitution to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
