Chapter 2: Enter Yvegeny Nikulin, Russian Hacker Exraordinaire

Not long after Snowden’s arrival in Moscow, Russian hackers began using NSA hacking techniques to wage cyber war.
A shadowy figure going by the handle Guccifer 2.0—a nod to legendary Romanian hacker Marcel Lazăr Lehel, the original Guccifer—claimed responsibility for the most notorious of these hacks, including that of the DNC.
Security experts have concluded that Guccifer 2.0 is not an individual but rather a persona cultivated by Russian intelligence—rather like George Kaplan in North by Northwest.
But there are real, flesh-and-blood Russian hackers. One of them is named Yvegeny Nikulin. In 2013, armed with NSA techniques possibly provided to Russia by Edward Snowden, the 26-year-old Nikulin hacked into LinkedIn, Dropbox, and, most significantly for our purposes, the now-defunct anonymous Q&A app called Formspring.

Launched in 2009, Formspring was shut down in 2013 after numerous controversies involving cyberbullying.

Formspring was also—and this is important—the app that disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner used to transmit pictures of his junk.

Weiner, of course, is the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, who has for many years been the Smithers to Hillary Clinton’s Monty Burns. Compromise Weiner, and Abedin could also be compromised; this, in turn, might damage Clinton.

Using stolen credentials from Weiner’s compromised Formspring account, Nikulin planted a virus on Weiner’s laptop, which would allow him to “wake it up” at some future date.
And the laptop sat dormant for years, waiting to be summoned to active duty in the service of the Kremlin.4

Summoned to be used as a weapon.

The day arrived in early October, 2016. Nikulin “awakened” the Weiner laptop, using his remote access to upload hundreds of thousands of emails to it.
On October 3, the New York Police Dept., acting on a tip from the FBI’s New York office (more about that field office later) seized the laptop.

This operation was confirmed a month later by Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater and brother of Christian fundamentalist/billionaire donor/unqualified nominee for Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, on Breitbart Radio.

"Because of Weinergate and the sexting scandal, the NYPD started investigating it,” Prince said. “Through a subpoena, through a warrant, they searched his laptop, and sure enough, found those 650,000 emails.

They found way more stuff than just more information pertaining to the inappropriate sexting the guy was doing.
They found State Department emails.
They found a lot of other really damning criminal information, including money laundering, including the fact that Hillary went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.”
(Epstein is indeed a convicted pedophile, but the presidential candidate who attended his sex parties in New York was not Hillary Clinton, but Donald Trump. It was at an Epstein party, you may recall, that Trump allegedly raped the 13-year-old girl.)

Upon completion of his highly dangerous mission, Nikulin expected to be well compensated for his services.
He went to Prague to collect his money, showing up at a five-star hotel in a fancy sports car. But he wasn’t paid.
To the contrary, he was arrested, having been sought on an INTERPOL red notice, put out by the FBI. And he was so surprised at his arrest that he fainted and had to be hospitalized.

The red notice is important.
It means that the FBI, long before October 5, considered Nikulin’s apprehension to be of critical importance.

Meanwhile, back in the States, the presidential campaign entered its final weeks.
Hillary Clinton enjoyed what appeared to be an insurmountable lead, as the leaked Access Hollywood tape seemed to spell doom for Donald Trump’s chances.

But on October 26, former New York City mayor and Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani boasted on TV about an October surprise coming that would mortally wound Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Most people wrote this off as the ranting of a deranged, hateful old man.
But Giuliani was right.
Two days later, FBI Director Jim Comey sent a letter to Congress, explaining that more Hillary emails had been found on Weiner’s laptop, and that the Bureau was investigating the matter.

He explained his decision to write the letter thus, to his charges at the FBI: “Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed. I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record. 
At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression.
 In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it.”

Republicans had a field day with this bombshell, which seemed to confirm all their worst suspicions about “Crooked Hillary.”
Anonymous sources at the FBI leaked to Brett Baier that the case against Hillary was “likely an indictment,” and Baier reported this on the air on November 2.

By the time Comey announced that the emails were duplicates, that nothing new or incriminating had been found—and by the time Baier apologized for his mistake—the damage had been done.

No less an authority than Nate Silver believes that absent the Comey letter, Hillary’s victory would have been “almost certain.” (Silver, remember, is the only pollster who gave Trump a chance on Election Day).

So, to sum up: Nikulin plants the emails on Weiner’s laptop that he’d hacked years earlier for this purpose, the New York field office of the FBI seizes the laptop, Comey writes his infamous letter. Game, set, match.