nevins, aaron HelloFLA
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https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-reg-russia-hacker-guccifer-connection-20170525-story.html
2024
Ahead of election day in Surfside, residents’ mailboxes have been stuffed with a blitz of political ads.
Some mailers have urged folks to “Re-elect Shlomo Danzinger,” featuring flattering photos of a cheesing town mayor. Other, similar flyers have been sent around in support of Vice Mayor Jeff Rose.
But while these ads clearly stated that they’re bankrolled by the candidates themselves, residents of the small, eight-block-long town have been flooded with mailers from a more mysterious source: a political action committee named One Surfside. The PAC’s mailers advocate for Danzinger, Rose, and commission candidates David Forbes, Jared Brunnabend, and Fred Landsman.
Danzinger is running against Charles Burkett, who served as the town’s mayor between 2006 and 2010 and again from 2020 to 2022, a term that coincided with the Champlain Towers South condominium collapse.
Investigative reporter Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News dropped a small bombshell this quiet holiday week that hasn't really exploded yet but might just explain the GOP's recent full-court press to discredit the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller's team. Rep. Francis Rooney, a Florida Republican, explained:
I would like to see the directors of those agencies [the DOJ and FBI] purge it and say, "Look, we’ve got a lot of great agents, a lot of great lawyers here." Those are the people to see and know the good work’s being done, not these people who are kind of the deep state.
On Wednesday, Rep. Ron DeSantis, another Florida Republican, went on "Fox & Friends" and backed up his colleague's sentiments, saying,"You look at a guy like Peter Strzok [the FBI agent demoted for sending derogatory texts about many politicians including Trump]. If he’s gonna say that it’s his job as an FBI to prevent a certain candidate from getting elected. ... Anyone who turns up in that situation, I think they should get another line of work.”
For what it's worth, Strzok is a counterintelligence agent who appeared concerned that the "certain candidate" might be acting as an agent of a foreign adversary, which was important information the nation didn't have before the election. In any case, from what we can gather, these Republican congressmen identify nefarious "deep state" actors as those who cannot swear that they are not now and have never been a... Democrat.
As one can imagine, the use of the word "purge" brought forth some rather unfortunate historical images. We haven't seen evidence that they plan the usual accompanying show trials, but give them time. Republicans in Congress are working feverishly to prepare hearings on the Hillary Clinton "Russian uranium email treason" hearings so there's a chance we'll see some kind of facsimile before 2018.
The hysteria that's now raging seems a bit of an outsized reaction for this particular phase of the scandal, especially considering that Mueller actually did remove the offending "deep-staters." Isikoff may have come across a different motivation than simple loyalty to President Trump. He wrote:
In just the last few weeks, his prosecutors have begun questioning Republican National Committee staffers about the party digital operation that worked with the Trump campaign to target voters in key swing states. They are seeking to determine if the joint effort was related to the activities of Russian trolls and bots aimed at influencing the American electorate, according to two of the sources.
It would not be surprising if certain Republicans were to become a bit nervous when the investigation into Russian interference turned in that particular direction. It's flown under the radar since the election, but the fact is that it wasn't only the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta's email accounts that were hacked. The intelligence community identified the same group of Russian-affiliated hackers as behind the hacking of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
I've been intrigued by this aspectof the Russian hacking story since the New York Times published an early report about it back in November of 2016. Recall that at first the hacker known as Guccifer 2.0 released personal information that was used to intimidate Democratic candidates, but then he/she/they suddenly became more sophisticated and targeted, dumping valuable tactical information:
The seats that Guccifer 2.0 targeted in the document dumps were hardly random: They were some of the most competitive House races in the country.
People have wondered ever since if the hacker(s) might have gotten some expert assistance.
Perhaps it's a coincidence that so much of the information in question was republished on a website called HelloFLA by a Florida Republican and former congressional staffernamed Aaron Nevins, who was connected to Trump associate and longtime political operative Roger Stone. It could be completely random that among the core group of Mueller antagonists, those calling the probe a "coup d'état" and demanding purges of members of the "deep state" are Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who proposed that Mueller's funding be cut off, and the aforementioned Rep. Francis Rooney, who's been all over TV talking about purging the FBI.
Indeed, as journalist Marcy Wheeler pointed out a while back, one of the ringleaders of the movement to discredit the Department of Justice and Robert Mueller, Rep. DeSantis, directly benefited from Guccifer 2.0’s leak to Nevins after the latter published five documents regarding the DCCC’s recruitment of DeSantis’ Democratic opponent, George Pappas. According to The Wall Street Journal, Guccifer 2.0 even sent a link with a HelloFLA article directly to Roger Stone, who told reporters he didn’t forward the hacked material to anyone -- the answer to a question nobody asked,
Donald Trump may think their vociferous attacks on Mueller are all about loyalty to him personally. After all, this group all flew down to Florida together on Air Force One earlier this month. But these guys have skin in the game now and may very well be caught up in the maw of the Russia investigation themselves.If Mueller's team is looking into the digital operation and Roger Stone's interactions with Guccifer 2.0, as one would expect them to do, then these shenanigans in Florida are also coming into view. That may explain why this little circle of Sunshine State GOP congressmen are so anxious to shut him down.
They might not be the only ones. According to The New York Times, material from the DCCC hack was first used by Miami-area Democrat Joe Garcia, a former congressman, to win a tight primary race. Then "the National Republican Campaign Committee and a second Republican group with ties to the House speaker, Paul Ryan, turned to the hacked material" to undermine Garcia and re-elect Rep. Carlos Curbelo,the Republican incumbent.
It should be noted that there were some candidates who refused to use the hacked material against their opponents. This gang of Florida Republicans who are now so loudly attacking the FBI for its supposedly unethical behavior were not among them. As we all know, neither was Donald "I love WikiLeaks" Trump.
digby
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-reg-russia-hacker-guccifer-connection-20170525-story.html
no link img
New details, and a South Florida tie, emerge in Russian hacking of Democratic Party
The big hacking attack of Democrats from 2016 has a newly disclosed South Florida connection. Guccifer 2.0 supplied information to the HelloFLA website
Anthony Man Anthony ManContact Reporter
Sun Sentinel
One more sliver of information about last year’s hacking of the Democrats came into the open Thursday. And it involves a South Florida connection.
Aaron Nevins, of Plantation, was the recipient of a trove of information from Guccifer 2.0, a hacker that stole information from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the national campaign organization that helps its party’s congressional candidates.
Nevins, outlined in a Sun Sentinel interview how — and why — he obtained and disseminated the information. His identity was first revealed in an article by a team of reporters at The Wall Street Journal.
Like many people with an interest in politics, Nevins said, he was riveted by the hacking that afflicted the Democratic Party last year. When Guccifer 2.0 issued an open invitation to any journalist who wanted information, Nevins said he responded affirmatively through a Twitter message. He said he didn’t follow up and didn’t hear anything for 10 days.
Guccifer 2.0 responded shortly before the Florida primary contests in August, he said. Guccifer 2.0 wanted to know his email capacity, and Nevins said he set up a Dropbox account that allowed him to receive a large volume of data — which the hacker deposited there.
“So I get it. And there was a ton of stuff,” he said.
Nevins, a Republican, operates in multiple worlds. Currently, he said he primarily engages in organizing grass-roots campaigns on behalf of clients. He has worked as a registered lobbyist but said he didn’t do any lobbying in 2017. And he’s also worked as a campaign consultant, but none that would have affected by the data that came from Guccifer 2.0.
Aaron Nevins
Aaron Nevins of Plantation, a political consultant-journalist-lobbyist-community organizer.
Nevins said he was acting as a journalist. Until Thursday, he’d operated anonymously as “Mark Miewurd’s HelloFLA!” website. (The name is a play on “mark my words.”)
Guccifer 2.0 is better known for the widely publicized hacking into the Democratic National Committee and providing internal party information to WikiLeaks. Internal emails that showed DNC staffers favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination led to the resignation of U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston as chairwoman of the DNC.
It’s been widely reported that U.S. government intelligence community believes Guccifer 2.0 was created by Russia.
After Nevins reviewed the information about the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — not the Democratic National Committee — Nevins said he quickly realized several things:
The information appeared accurate, based on his knowledge of Florida politics and the details in the information. He said someone operating far away couldn’t have made up the information because there was too much local nuance.
It was too much to process with the Aug. 30 primaries for congressional, state and local offices just days away.
He needed to publish as much as he could as quickly as possible.
“I took off my [political] operative’s hat and put on my journalist’s hat,” he said. He said he was receiving and publishing information, regardless of where it came from. He said he didn’t want to sit on the information, and be accused of being in possession of stolen documents. He said he didn’t supply it to any campaigns or political operatives.
Broward Politics
@browardpolitics
Big @WSJ story details links between Aaron Nevins @RogerJStone Gussifer2.0 Democratic hacking. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-alleged-russian-hacker-teamed-up-with-florida-gop-operative-1495724787 …
9:56 AM - May 25, 2017
Alleged Russian hacker sent Democratic data to Florida GOP operative
How Alleged Russian Hacker Teamed Up With Florida GOP Operative
Political consultant Aaron Nevins asked for and received documents from hacker “Guccifer 2.0” and posted some on his blog, after which the hacker called the blog to the attention of Trump adviser...
wsj.com
Besides publishing on his own, he said he farmed out some information to reporters in other areas of Florida, providing information that might be interesting to news organizations where there might be upcoming congressional primaries.
“It’s a scoop,” Nevins said.
There was all sorts of information, including analyses of data about places and kinds of people that Democrats figured were their biggest sources of voters who could be persuaded to vote their way. And there was also research that revealed what the Democrats saw as vulnerabilities of their own candidates.
Another document showed how the Democratic committee massaged information from an internal poll, eliminating information that looked bad for Clinton, before releasing a sanitized version to the news media.
For reasons Nevins doesn’t know, the Democratic campaign committee stored much of its statewide information in a file labeled for U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, the Broward-Palm Beach County Democrat who never faces serious challenges to his re-election.
The information fit with what he said he likes to post on HelloFLA.com, which Nevins said he’s tried to style as a combination of Page Six, the well-known New York Post gossip page, and TMZ, the celebrity website that’s often filled with sensational stories.
“It’s true news. I think a lot of people confuse sensationalism with so called fake news. The difference is essentially it’s not the Weekly World News where Hillary Clinton is endorsed by a space alien. It’s just a grittier, more raw side of politics,” he said. “There’s a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes.”
Nevins, 36, is well known in political circles in South Florida. He has two companies, Chelsea Road Consulting and Painted Dog Productions. Nevins was the chief of staff for Ellyn Bogdanoff when she was a Republican state senator and state representatives. He is also the son of former Sun Sentinel political columnist Buddy Nevins.
Donald Trump adviser Stone capitalizes on scandal
Aaron Nevins wasn’t widely known as the operator of his HelloFLA.com website — until Thursday.
There’s another South Florida element.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Guccifer 2.0 sent a link with a HelloFLA article to Roger Stone who told the reporters he didn’t forward the hacked material with anyone. Stone, a longtime associate of President Donald Trump whose political activities go back to former President Richard Nixon, lives in Fort Lauderdale.
Stone’s name has repeatedly cropped up in connection with investigations into Russian hacking of the U.S. election. Stone has emphatically denied any involvement with Russians or hacking. He did not respond to an email Thursday afternoon seeking comment.
Nevins said he didn’t’ have any dealings with Stone about the material. He said he had a group dinner with Stone three or four years ago and hasn’t seen or spoken to him since.
Nevins said he doesn’t believe he is facing any legal jeopardy over the matter, and he has not been contacted by any investigating authorities.
“The way I look at it, I was acting as a journalist. And my actions would show evidence of that. I was sending it out to journalists, not to political campaigns,” he said. “I, to some extent, felt forced to publish it.”
He said he is not concerned about getting in legal trouble or becoming the subject of an investigation.
“I’m not going to live my life concerned about that. I don’t think that I did anything illegal,” he said. “I think if I held onto the data and if I used it for a political campaign without releasing it or if I just ended up sending it to political operatives around the state we would be having a different conversation, probably from a jail cell.”
aman@sunsentinel.com, 954-356-4550
duck 3 26
Miami New Times
Who's Behind the Mystery PAC Pumping Money Into Surfside Election?
Mar 14, 2024Money juggled between operative Aaron Nevins' political committees funded a flood of election ads in the sleepy beachside town.
Brown CS
Political consultant Alleged Aaron Russian
Montanans Vote as Parties Weigh Impact of Assault Charge Against GOP Candidate data. The Journal also reviewed copies of exchanges between the hacker and Mr. Nevins. That the obscure blog had received hacked Democratic documents was previously known, but not the extent of the trove or the blogger's identity. "I just threw an arrow in the dark," Mr. Nevins said in an interview, adding he ...
Newsmax
WSJ: Hacker Sent DNC Docs to Florida GOP Operative
A Republican political operative in Florida received a large cache of data stolen from the Democratic National Committee and posted it on his blog last summer, according to a new report. According to The Wall Street Journal, Aaron Nevins runs a blog called HelloFLA.com under a pseudonym.
Democratic Underground
https://www.democraticunderground.com › 10029114118
WSJ: How Alleged Russian Hacker Teamed Up With Florida GOP Operative ...
The hacker also privately sent Democratic voter-turnout analyses to a Republican political operative in Florida named Aaron Nevins. Learning that hacker Guccifer 2.0 had tapped into a Democratic committee that helps House candidates, Mr. Nevins wrote to the hacker to say: Feel free to send any Florida based information.
NeoGAF
How Alleged Russian Hacker Teamed Up With Florida GOP Operative
Political consultant Aaron Nevins received documents from hacker Guccifer 2.0 and posted some on his blog; Guccifer called the blog to the attention of Trump adviser Roger Stone The hacking spree that upended the presidential election wasn t limited to Democratic National Committee memos...
Washington Examiner
Alleged Russian hacker shared DCCC documents with Florida GOP operative ...
The GOP operative posted the data on a blog he ran called HelloFLA.com, and Guccifer 2.0 later sent Nevins' blog posting to Stone.
Patch
Alleged Russian Hacker Sent GOP Operative Stolen Documents ... - Patch
Floridian Aaron Nevins reportedly wrote to Guccifer 2.0, inviting "any Florida based information" to be sent his way, the Journal reported.
City-Data.com
Wall St Journal: Republican Party Consultant Colluded with Russia, Got ...
The size and scope of the scandal is becoming more clear, and involves more than Trump, it's involving a large portion of the Republican Party itself. The Wall St Journal article reports the consultant asked Guccifer 2.0 to send stolen documents to him, which he received, and posted some of it anonymously on his blog.
ronbryn.blogspot.com
https://ronbryn.blogspot.com › 2017 › 10 › firm-tied-to-consultant-who-obtained.html
Firm tied to consultant who obtained stolen data from Guccifer 2.0 ...
According to his LinkedIn resume, the once-anonymous blogger from HelloFLA.com who the Wall Street Journal outed last week as "a Republican political operative in Florida named Aaron Nevins" has been a partner at Richardson Partners, since November of 2012..
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Guccifer_2.0
Guccifer 2.0 - Wikipedia
Florida GOP campaign advisor Aaron Nevins contacts Guccifer 2.0 and asks for material. Nevins sets up a Dropbox account and "Guccifer 2.0" transfers 2.5 gigabytes of data into it.