A former Congressman pleaded guilty to five federal crimes resulting from the illegal posting of the home addresses and telephone numbers of the five Republican senators who backed Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment as Supreme Court.
The Department of Justice stated in a Friday statement that Jackson A. Cosko, 27, could face at least a period of 30 months and 57 months in prison. The crimes included the making of publicly restricted personal data, computer fraud, tampering of witnesses and obstruction of justice.
Formerly employed in the office of Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-NH as the computer systems administrator, Cosko gave him, according to court records, “intimate knowledge of, and broad access to” computer systems in Hasan’s office.
In May 2018, he was fired from work because Hassan Bureau said that he did not follow bureau procedures and he stopped access to the Senate office and his computer systems. “We had no reason to believe he posed a risk,” said a Hassan spokesman last year.
Cosko was angry about the completion of a “computer fraude and theft of data” which he carried through a repeated burglarization of the office of Senator Hasan. During those breakups Cosko reported that he copied dozens of gigabytes of Hassan’s computers, including dozens of usernames and passwords of Senate employees, and contact information about many of Hassan’s computer data.
According to court records, he acted in that anger by maliciously publishing personal home addresses and telephone numbers on Wikipedia of the Republican Senators Lindsey Graham from South Carolina, Mike Lee from Utah and Orrin Hatch from Utah. After 42 years in the Senate, Hatch retired in January.
Cosko was meant to intimidate Senators and members of their immediate families by people who learned the information. A few days later, Cosko also made personal contact information available to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul, both Republicans from Kentucky.
The statement of the Justice Department and the records of the court also described Cosko threatening a witness who saw him at the computer in the office of Hasan in the night of October 2. Cosko was confronted by the witness, who was not identified by name, and left the office.
Cosko sent the witness a threatening e-mail that evening, saying, “I own everything” and he warned him, “If you say anything to everyone, I will leak everything.” Police Capitol.
Cosko has recently worked briefly as an unpaid intern in the Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas office. After his arrest, the congresswoman fired him.
Cosko is due to be sentenced on 13 June in Washington.
