Thread by @SethAbramson

(h/t DM) BIG QUESTION: Does anyone believe WikiLeaks "guessed" the password of a left-wing PAC? They hacked the website, folks: a crime. Then they as good as told Trump Jr. they'd done so. What did he do? Accessed the hacked site using the hacked password. theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

2/ Jr. then sent a message acknowledging he saw the site, but said he wanted his reaction to be "off the record"—which many would say meant he a) didn't want to be publicly linked to WikiLeaks, b) didn't want it known he'd accessed the site using the password WikiLeaks gave him.

3/ Jr. had previously said "I love it" when offered info he reasonably could have assumed was stolen, which makes it twice—at least—he reacted positively to being offered info he knew or reasonably should have known was stolen.

This is how criminal investigations start, folks.

4/ Jr. now pretends like turning over DMs means—automatically—they're not incriminating. But hold up—is he implying that if the DMs *had* been incriminating, he would've destroyed them? Either Jr. *would* turn over incriminating DMs or he's an evidence-destroyer—one or the other.

5/ My point is that we shouldn't assume these DMs *aren't* incriminating, and a cursory look at the very first one reported by The Atlantic suggests they may very well be. Given what Jr. knew of WikiLeaks in September '16, he couldn't reasonably believe they "guessed" a password.

6/ Jr.'s attorney says of the DMs, "We have no concerns about these documents and any questions raised about them have been easily answered in the appropriate forum." You know what? I don't believe him. I don't think Jr. was asked about his accessing of WikiLeaks-hacked websites.

7/ (h/t DM): Note the DM from WikiLeaks says the site was "about to launch"—meaning WikiLeaks had gained access to a site that *wasn't even live and/or open to the public yet*. That further complicates any claim Jr. might make that he thought WikiLeaks had "guessed" the password.

8/ I'm no computer expert, but the sense I'm getting from those who know more than I do is that any review of the logs for the site in question (putintrump.org) would reveal who accessed the site pre-launch, what they did and where they went while inside, and much more.

9/ Jr. should now be looked at as to Aiding and Abetting Computer Crimes, Conspiracy to Commit Computer Crimes, and Receiving Stolen Property in the same way his dad is as to Obstruction—we have multiple dates of potential offense that suggest an ongoing M.O. as to these charges.

10/ And just as Mike Flynn is—if reports can be believed—close to flipping because Mike Flynn Jr. could face charges, what would Donald Trump do if Donald Trump Jr. were facing time? After all, haven't people always said that Trump is a monster but "at least he loves his family"?

PS/ WikiLeaks offered Trump Jr. the "guessed" password to a *non-public* anti-Trump political site about 7 weeks after the site was registered, suggesting some sort of ongoing monitoring of potentially Trump-harmful websites being conducted by WikiLeaks and/or its Russian allies.

PS2/ Site logs should indicate if WikiLeaks—or Russian allies—made numerous attempts to access the site by trying to guess a poorly chosen password or engaged in a more aggressive attack. It would also show when WikiLeaks or Russia got into the site and what they did while there.

PS3/ Moreover, site logs might indicate—I'm told—whether access to this political website was "passed off" from WikiLeaks or the Trump campaign to other parties; whether malware or other intrusions were orchestrated by the Trump campaign and/or other parties; and much, much more.

PS4/ I'm not a computer expert—and I don't play one on Twitter—so I'll end this part of the thread by saying I don't know exactly what forensic analyses can be run here, but I know a *lot* can be done. And I suspect the definition of "hacking" doesn't require brute-force attacks.

PS5/ But I'll say this much: if I'm an editor at @MotherJones, I'm hiring the best damn computer expert I can find to *scour* those site logs and get as much evidence from them regarding WikiLeaks, Russian or Trump-campaign intrusions as I possibly can.

And I'd do it ASAP, too.

NOTE/ As I read The Atlantic article, Jr. *definitely* used the password WikiLeaks provided him to access a nonpublic site to which he hadn't been granted access. We know that because he checked the "About" section—as requested by WikiLeaks—and said he didn't know the site owner.

NOTE2/ Right now I have five cyber-security experts messaging me—and all agree that even if certain aspects of the log are now gone or inaccessible, there's a ton of incredibly esoteric (but possibly incriminating) data that can be gleaned from a thorough review of the site data.