Trump Allegedly Tried to Hire Latin American Election Hacker - Fortune

[L. Coyote]

I followed links from a Fb elections group, albeit one with shadowy Rovian operatives at work, and came upon this allegation via the story of a guy singing songs in desperation to wrangle a reduced sentence in Colombia for engaging in just this kind of politics. Miami seems to be a hotbed of right-wing Nixonian dirty tricksters and ultra-right black ops politicos, the sort of professionals government and would-be legitimate candidates must be certain to create plausible deniability of. You'd need an intermediary like Roger Stone to deal with these guys. Well, my abstract lacks the best details:

Did Trump's Campaign Try to Hire a Latin American Election Hacker?
by David Z. Morris @davidzmorris April 9, 2016

....

Juan José Rendón, a Miami-based political consultant linked to sabotage and manipulation of Latin American elections, claims that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign approached him, but he turned them down. Senior Trump staff members denied awareness of Rendón.

The claim surfaced this week in a Bloomberg profile of jailed Colombian political operative Andrés Sepúlveda, who, as the piece describes, managed teams of hackers to both generate fake social media trends, and to steal emails, strategy plans, and other internal documents of opposition candidates. Sepúlveda gives Bloomberg details of his black-hat work on campaigns in Colombia, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Mexico, where he says he played a role in the recent election of President Enrique Peña Nieto. Sepúlveda is now serving a ten-year sentence for espionage and hacking.

.............

Imprisoned Hacker Is Claiming He Rigged The 2012 Mexican Election So That President Nieto Would Win
Motherboard Vice: An imprisoned Colombian hacker, Andrés Sepúlveda, claims he fraudulently helped Enrique Peña Nieto win Mexico's 2012 presidential election, as well as manipulate elections in eight additional countries across Latin America.

[virtualobserver]

1. already employed by ummm......somebody else in the U.S.?

[L. Coyote]

3. The point seems to be to stop Trump so I'd say his everyday clients on the right don't like the Don

Ran out of characters, the Donald. The Don would fit a coke lord. Hmmmm?

[virtualobserver]

5. The Don may be appropriate....he seems to be surrounded by questionable people.

He might have consiglieri rather than advisers.

[Sunlei]

2. Back in my work/life used to ride cargo flights Miami to Colombia, SA. Miami/Colombia are they still

such good buddies no one ever checked cargo or asked for my passport at either airport. The stuff I've seen come off those planes.. are they still importing crates of live capybaras(spelling?) for 'eating' in Miami?

[malaise]

4. Folks here wouldn't believe some of the election realities in this hemisphere

and who funded them. Sadly the chickens are coming home to roost. Now they're using them at home.

[L. Coyote]

6. Same operatives, and you know who those right wing nuts work for.

They kill liberals for breakfast, in case you needed a clue.

[malaise]

9. +1,000

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Why I pretend to vote in pretend elections

And do not expect my vote to count. Ah kind of liberating actually

[L. Coyote]

10. That's what the vote suppression ops wants, you to think voting does not matter.

A lot of what is happening right now has more to do with voter suppression than actual rigging. They want to createthe perception among certain voters, the new Berners, that voting is futile. You don't see them turning off their own base to voting.

Don't fall for it. We win by turning out en masse.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. I am sorry but that is reality

The chickens we deployed all over America are coming home to roost. We have tje least clear or transparent system in all advanced democracies, 45 out of 45. It's been clear since 2000 and until Americans stop pretending we have clean elections, we don't, in large numbers and demand a fix...we will continue going down that road. Harvard school of government has a few good studies on this.

And it is bad enough I pretend to vote and until millions join me in this awareness, I will continue to pretend to vote and not expect that vote to really count. It is blatant enough in some places we are only missing the torta and the coke.

[L. Coyote]

12. So, why do 150,000 posts on a political forum if you think it is all so pointless?

Maybe take a few minutes off DU and try to get a reality adjustment somewhere real. The cyber world isn't reality, you realize? Nor is you view of reality. Reality is external, not what you think.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. LMAO I cover politics

I watch sausage being made. That does not mean we have clean elections. That is fucking reality. We need to clean them. At this point they are not legitimate. This was the way I felt about Mexican elections at 18 and it is the way I feel about Anerican elections right now.

Harvard University agrees. Surveys of advanced democracies agree. We could clean them. It is not in the interest of both major parties. Alas that is one of the areas Anericans pretend there is no problem. And the ones who do feel powerless and in many cases do not vote.

Of course, the poor don't believe it does a tinkers damn of a difference who is at city hall. I used to argue it does, I know better.

I vote, I just don't pretend it will count. Again, Harvard agrees, so does Princeton with their oligarchy study.

You can pretend otherwise.

By the way this could be changed. It requires a level of awareness among Anericans that is lacking. And while Latin American elections are still more corrupt, we are fast approaching them. Oh and they still vote in larger numbers in Mexico than we have in the last 50 years. Chew on that one for a moment.

[L. Coyote]

14. I'm the one person who proved an election was rigged, more than any other EI activist can say.

All this talk about fixed elections, but does anyone have any proof? Not really, but you need hip waders to read all the bullshit out there, some of it created to cover up my research.

If you cover politics, as you say, maybe you have the stuff it takes to both read and understand this:

How Kerry Votes Were Switched To Bush Votes

Too bad America is so ignorant people don't understand math, much less statistics, or this would have been front page instead of esoteric to election integrity activists even. Meanwhile, the EI activists and authors don't even understand stats!

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. And there you have it

you want to chew on something else? The CONYERS hearings. it was an eight column story in Excelsior in Mexico City, NOT THE NYT. Granted, it was the SEE even Uncle Sam has corrupt elections, but they covered it while the NYT sat on it.

Why do you think I believe my vote really does not count. It is statistics and things like exit polls. UNTIL 2000 they were the gold standard in the US. They remain such in the rest of the world. Why is that?

And yes I cover politics, mostly local but the shit really goes upwards from city hall and planning commissions. Or is it the other way around, and does it really matter? Corruption is corruption and government behaving like the poor do not exist, and the middle class are bothersome is not just a federal government matter. Americans live in a fantasy as to how their political system really works. For starters the corruption level is not at the street corner level, (Well you could bribe cops in certain places, we all know that) but it is deeper and more expensive. Trust me, a few million will get anything approved. We have seen that locally. And our levels of corruption are far from as deep as other places.

Now if Americans ever wake up from the propaganda... something MIGHT be done about it. We are seeing some of the waking up, but they have gotten pounded back down hard. (Occupy Wall Street, and Student movements come to mind) It is the same exact tactics used in Lat Am.

[Judi Lynn]

8. This information should be widely known. Thank you for sharing it. n/t

[L. Coyote]

16. I worry about the parts we don't know about.

I'm seeing a concerted effort to divide Dems and, particularly, a new narrative centered on Dem primaries to get Dems to think voting is rigged and futile. Voter suppression trolls are taking over the election integrity boards and they don't tolerate anyone who deviated from the narrative that all elections are rigged, so why bother to vote. A lot of new faces and domains are popping up, domains with anonymous owners registered like a Panama bank account, with addresses like "10 Corporate Way."