‘I am utterly disgusted by the spread of the completely false, absurd, and dangerous lies and conspiracy theories that are being peddled by ultra-right wing pundits, outlets, and websites…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Shortly after 9 p.m. on the evening of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, the Wikipedia pages of three GOP senators on the committee were edited to include their personal home addresses and phone numbers.
The edits to the pages of Sens. Lindsey Graham, Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee were then tweeted out from a bot “watchdog” account on Twitter that is dedicated to archiving all of the Wikipedia edits from IP addresses within Congress. Although the information was quickly scrubbed from the Twitter and Wikipedia pages, the damage was done.
Working backward from the IP address, internet sleuths were able to pinpoint the computer and identify the likely culprit, Kathleen Sengstock, a legislative assistant in the office of Rep. Maxine Waters.
Despite the evidence, Waters issued a vigorous denial of the accusation, blasting it as the work of right-wing conspirators.
“Lies, lies, and more despicable lies,” Waters said in a statement. “I am utterly disgusted by the spread of the completely false, absurd, and dangerous lies and conspiracy theories that are being peddled by ultra-right wing pundits, outlets, and websites.”
But a look at the Wikipedia edit history from the IP site offers a revealing glimpse into the life of a leftist radical, whose other contributions include edits to the pages of the “Democratic Socialists of America” and to a left-wing podcast titled “Chapo Trap House.”
In fact, the list of edits from the Congressional IP address is so extensive that one is left wondering what other responsibilities the staffer must be neglecting.
Citing the “hatred and violence in politics,” Sen. Rand Paul called for the pernicious doxing attack on his Senate colleagues to be investigated.
Increasingly, the practice known as doxing—revealing the private, personal information of adversaries online–has become part of a dangerous playbook used by left-wing activists, along with other types of stalking and personal confrontation.
Some have pointed to the theories of 1960s agitator Saul Alinsky as providing the roadmap for the Left’s current phase of guerilla political warfare. Among the 13 practices advocated in Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”—embraced by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton from early in their careers—is to “Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.”
Many definitions of doxing (sometimes spelled doxxing) describe it as a form of harassment. However, media outlets such as The New York Times have attempted to normalize the practice, calling it a “mainstream tool in the culture war” after its deployment in identifying alleged white supremacists who participated in the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
In a recent series of revealing exposés, conservative journalist James O’Keefe uncovered several members of the Democratic Socialists of America who had embedded themselves in branches of the federal bureaucracy, using government resources illegally to access confidential information that they could use to advance their radical political agendas.
Over the past month alone, activists—often paid by shadow organizations like George Soros’ Open Society Foundation—have taken their protests to extremes with personal confrontations and invasive attacks against GOP political figures like Sens. Susan Collins, Ted Cruz and Jeff Flake.
In the most shocking recent example, Rep. Steve Scalise, the House majority whip, was critically injured last year—and four others also shot—by an unhinged leftist ideologue as they practiced for the annual Congressional baseball game.
Waters, for her part, has vocally encouraged people to aggressively confront Trump supporters. Although the rhetoric earned her a rebuke from the Office of Congressional Ethics, she continues to boast about threatening GOP supporters “all the time.”
Should Democrats regain the House of Representatives in November, Waters, the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, will likely become chair, giving her the power to subpoena and probe into the personal finances of political opponents including President Donald Trump.