Lost in the sham of the Kavanaugh investigation and the overwhelming evidence that Trump is, was, and has always been a racketeer, using money laundering to evade taxes and fund his failed empire, was a simple story about the hacking of a Republican never-Trumper getting referred to the Mueller probe after a two year investigation.
The story revolves around Cheri Jacobus, a Republican PR specialist, who helped the Washington Post uncover pretty strong evidence of coordination and paymentsbetween Trump and those running the Make America Great Again PAC (MAGAPAC). That investigation forced the PAC to shut down. In the fall of 2015, shortly after Jacobus’ involvement in the Post investigation became known, she began to receive a barrage of catfishing schemes that, according to Politico, were designed “to obtain personal and political information from Jacobus and other anti-Trump Republican operatives during the Republican primary.” Someone posing as an English barrister and his associates pretended to be interested in supporting the anti-Trump efforts and repeatedly inquired of both Jacobus and other never-Trumpers about their polling and opposition research, constantly implying that a significant contribution to their cause might be forthcoming. Eventually Jacobus and the others came to believe the barrister was a fraud.
After discovering this ongoing fraud, Jacobus was able to trace a website domain involved in the scheme to a convicted felon in New York State. Jacobus referred that information to the Justice Department, specifically the Southern District of New York, in early 2016. While all this was occurring, Jacobus was appearing fairly regularly on Fox, denouncing the President. This, of course, led to verbal attacks from both Trump and his then campaign manager, Corey Lewandowsi, who had also been named in the MAGAPAC investigation. Jacobus ended up suing Trump and Lewandowski for defamation, a suit that was eventually thrown out in early 2017.
In August of 2016, Jacobus noticed that here emails had been hacked and their contents deleted. This was around the same time that Politico was going to run the story on the original catfishing scheme. Jacobus reported the email hacking to FBI in September 2016. And now, after a two year investigation, the case has been referred to Mueller who is specifically focused on the Russian attack on our election, implying that the Jacobus’ hacking incident is somehow related to that attack.
Assuming that Russia was behind the Jacobus’ hacking, it would certainly fit in with ramping up of Russian efforts to help the Trump campaign at that time. But targeting Jacobus directly seems so highly specific and marginally related to the actual campaign at that time that is certainly raises questions. Jacobus was not a particularly visible part of the never-Trump resistance at that time as opposed to others such as Rick Wilson. It’s hard to imagine how the Russians would even know or even why to hack Jacobus without the direction of the Trump campaign.
The Jacobus’ investigation is now in Mueller’s hands. It would be the ultimate irony if the strongest proof of the Trump’s campaign collusion with the Russians came from a directed attack on a fellow Republican. Eventually, Mueller will provide the answer.