July 15, 2022

The latest Jan. 6 committee hearing on Tuesday examined the role of conspiracy theory communities like 8kun[.]top and TheDonald[.]win in helping to organize and galvanize supporters who responded to former President Trump’s invitation to “be wild” in Washington, D.C. on that chaotic day. At the same time the committee was hearing video testimony from 8kun founder Jim Watkins, 8kun and a slew of similar websites were suddenly yanked offline. Watkins suggested the outage was somehow related to the work of the committee, but the truth is KrebsOnSecurity was responsible and the timing was pure coincidence.

In a follow-up video address to his followers, Watkins said the outage happened shortly after the Jan. 6 committee aired his brief video testimony.

“Then everything that I have anything to do with seemed to crash, so that there was no way for me to go out and talk to anybody,” Watkins said. “The whole network seemed to go offline at the same time, and that affected a lot of people.”

8kun and many other sites that continue to push the false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen from the 45th president have long been connected to the Internet via VanwaTech, a hosting firm based in Vancouver, Wash. In late October 2020, a phone call to VanwaTech’s sole provider of connectivity to the Internet resulted in a similar outage for 8kun.

Jim Waktins (top right), in a video address to his followers on Tuesday after 8kun was taken offline.

Following that 2020 outage, 8kun and a large number of QAnon conspiracy sites found refuge in a Russian hosting provider. But when the anonymous “Q” leader of QAnon suddenly began posting on 8kun again earlier this month, KrebsOnSecurity received a tip that 8kun was once again connected to the larger Internet via a single upstream provider based in the United States.

On Sunday, July 10, KrebsOnSecurity contacted Psychz Networks, a hosting provider in Los Angeles, to see if they were aware that they were the sole Internet lifeline for 8kun et. al.  Psychz confirmed that in response to a report from KrebsOnSecurity, VanwaTech was removed from its network around the time of the Jan. 6 hearing on Tuesday.

8kun and its archipelago of conspiracy theory communities have once again drifted back into the arms of a Russian hosting provider (AS207651), which is connected to the larger Internet via two providers. Those include AS31500 — which appears to be owned by Russians but is making a fair pretense at being located in the Caribbean; and AS28917, in Vilnius, Lithuania.

8kun’s newfound Russian connections will likely hold, but Lithuania may be a different story. Late last month, pro-Russian hackers claimed responsibility for an extensive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack against Lithuanian state and private websites, which reportedly was in response to Vilnius’s decision to cease the transit of some goods under European Union sanctions to Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave.

Many have speculated that Jim Watkins and/or his son Ron are in fact “Q,” the anonymous persona behind the QAnon conspiracy theory, which held that Former President Trump was secretly working to save the world from a satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals.

8chan/8kun has been linked to white supremacism, neo-Nazism, antisemitism, multiple mass shootings, and is known for hosting child pornography. After three mass shootings in 2019 revealed the perpetrators had spread their manifestos on 8chan and even streamed their killings live there, 8chan was ostracized by one Internet provider after another.

In 2019, the FBI identified QAnon as a potential domestic terror threat, noting that some of its followers have been linked to violent incidents motivated by fringe beliefs.

The Jan. 6 hearing referenced in this story is available via CSPAN.


165 thoughts on “Why 8kun Went Offline During the January 6 Hearings

  1. Not so fast

    I may have missed it (I zoned a bit during some of the “freedom of speech” stuff)….but, I think former Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter (and I could be misattributing since my ConLaw classes were a long time ago) once wrote to the effect: Your right to swing your fist ends at the beginning of my nose. You have no right in a crowded theater to shout “Fire”. So, Freedom of Speech doesn’t protect you if you are knowingly stating things that are not correct and/or dangerous. There’s a reason hate speech laws don’t get struck down on freedom of speech grounds.

    As more than one person has pointed out, Hosting Services are private entities and can (if they choose) terminate their relationship with a user. Where it get’s a little more tricky (and as Brian notes, these folks are back on the net with an ISP from the “near abroad” as the Russians refer to all that was once within their dominion) is the ISP, which is basically a common carrier and you may not have much choice as to what you can get in some places.

    If you think about it…most of what Brian does is taking Matroyshka dolls apart one layer at the time, so it seem this fits.

    1. JamminJ

      Not so Fast,
      Perfect explanation. Thank you.

    2. NOYB

      You clearly misunderstand free speech … “freedom of speech” doesn’t end when you say something that is “untrue,” only something that is reasonably expected to cause direct harm. Like the many, many Democratic politicians who say “go harm this person,” and then give out the person’s address, pay people to “spot” them, etc.

      As for the election … what do you think of the (obviously) orchestrated effort to keep Hunter Biden’s laptop out of the news until just the past few weeks? Do you think that was a violation of “free speech,” and do you think it influenced the election? Or do you not care because you agree with the outcome?

      1. No more Q conspiracies

        If any politician incites violence, they deserve jail. Republican or Democrat. Right now it’s Republicans that do it way more. You’d be stretching to find an equivalent Democrat politician who incites violence.

        Hunter Biden’s laptop was supposed to be a big October surprise. The Post did run the story in October. Conservative media did not wait until after the election. Liberal media just didn’t take the bait because it was not really scandalous. Not many people actually care about family members who aren’t in politics. If they did, Trump’s kids are WAY more scandalous.

        1. B

          Waters. Schumer. Schiff. The faux Indian. Omar. Tlaib. AOC. Swallow (Swalwel), . Name some more.

          1. Fact Check

            Any examples of inciting violence that would pass a fact check?

            Most of the people you listed are females and have been the VICTIM of many death threats and threats of violence. Often psychopath extremists project their own violent tendencies to their victims in order to justify their actions.

            1. LeftRight

              You cannot forgive on your side what you reproach the other side just because “oh but guys I have a good excuse for this abhorrent comportment! AND they agree with me!”
              It’s dishonest and counter-productive.
              If leftist public speaker incite violence, admit it and move on. You’ll be a bigger person that trying to convince people “if we do it, it’s fine, it’s the alt-right you need to watch out for! them’s the dangerous ones!”
              Leftists, rightists… you’re all airheaded biased idiots to me.
              Fight on.

              1. BS BOTHSIDESISM

                But you haven’t even shown that both sides incite violence. Go ahead and post a legitimate (fact checked) news article.

                “If any politician incites violence, they deserve jail.”
                But this idea that both sides are equal, is ridiculous. There is no Dem-equivalent Trump.

          1. Kim Wexler

            Easy to spot Qanon followers and Trump cultists, they make themselves known.
            Im not on the left. The far right conspiracy nuts make everyone else seem like a leftist.

          1. Kevin O

            Same reason why they censored the Russian Alfa Bank Trump connection story.

      2. No more Q conspiracies

        If any politician incites violence, they deserve jail. Republican or Democrat. Right now it’s Republicans that do it way more. You’d be stretching to find an equivalent Democrat politician who incites violence.

        Hunter Biden’s laptop was supposed to be a big October surprise. The Post did run the story in October. Conservative media did not wait until after the election. Liberal media just didn’t take the bait because it was not really scandalous. Not many people actually care about family members who aren’t in politics. If they did, Trump’s kids are WAY more scandalous.

        Most people, even if shocked by the laptop emails, couldn’t even say what was scandalous about it.

        The only people that were excited about Hunter, we’re already voting for Trump. It definitely wasn’t going to swing any voters.
        It was designed to be like Hillary’s emails, shocking and reason to have a mistrusting feeling about a candidate. But a son’s laptop is too far removed from the candidate and it was the perceived cover up of deleting emails that impacted Clinton. This manufactured Biden scandal wasn’t going to be big like Republicans wanted.

        1. B

          IF – You read studies. A large number of people didn’t know about Hunter, his China and Ukraine connections OR the Laptop. The report tells that many people would have not voted for Joe. IF, they had known the TRUTH! But, The Lying Media propaganda tainted their view. So,… There…

          1. Propaganda from the right

            What studies are you talking about? Are you talking about surveys of Fox news viewers?
            People lie all the time on those studies. They were never going to vote for Biden they just pretend to be swayed like it’s a good excuse.

            That is to be expected.
            People who consume partisan news media won’t be exposed to questionable news stories from opposing sides that only exist purely for political points.

            Conservative viewers also don’t know most of what’s going on in the January 6th hearings either. All the revelations. They just get told to ignore it by Fox News pundits.
            Hunter Biden is still not interesting enough of a story for most people. He’s not an actual elected official or political appointee. Just a family member. Just like not many Trump supporters are Keen to dig into Ivanka Trump and her political dealings in China. It’s all shady if you look at it closely enough.

            Do you think Trump supporters would not vote for Trump in 2020 if they knew more about Ivanka and Donald Jr’s international dealings?
            Probably not. This isn’t really news, it’s political tabloidism.

          2. would like to think so

            What report? Link to something independently fact checked.

            You would like to think that people would not have voted for Biden, as if people were really worried about a Hunter. Too bad that political strategy didn’t work. People know a fake scandal when they see one.

  2. Jim Dewey

    Trump was always a pragmatist. Politics was about the money for him, and if you are not beholding to democrats in NYC you will earn enemies. I think he is likely a libertarian but unless you are R or D you can’t be anything in the US. He might has been a DINO at one time for expediency, but never a Rino.

    1. Kevin O'Leary

      Is pragmatist a nice word for narcissist megalomaniac?

      Trump isn’t a traditional conservative republican, nor ever a liberal democrat. And certainly not a libertarian. He’s just selfish.
      He would trample on libertarian ideals if he feel he needs to. With his numerous infidelities he is certainly not a religious conservative. But he’ll clear a square of protesters with military power if he wants to hold up a Bible in a photo op. Any Republican would never dare take the side of Putin and Russia over Ukraine and NATO allies.

      1. Jim Dewey

        As usual, your type infer things he’s not guilty of. “He’s just selfish” is opinion” not an indictment. For all that selfishness you mention President Trump put us at the top of the food chain again, but now Biden is busy destroying the country based on illogical stupidity.
        The “Any Republican” claim is another silly statement. Politics has never been clean for either side, but every once in a while they will go against the grain, usually for that expediency I mentioned. You seem to have a blind trust problem. A little investigation on your part would turn up the existence of multiple BIo-labs in Ukraine funded by the US, not that I would expect someone of your limited curiosity to care, but maybe that is why the US can’t send enough money or weapons to Ukraine.

        1. Go away Q nut

          The indictments will come, just as the impeachments came. Each time Trump does something he loses more support. First impeachment only a couple Senate Republicans found the courage. His second impeachment resulted in several more breaking out of the spell. Just like Nixon, the right will (except for a very small few sycophants) eventually all abandon him. The Jan 6th hearings are revealing more and more, and it’s getting harder and harder for any honorable conservative to support him. Read the lostnotstolen report. And the memo from Generals and Admirals.

          What food chain? Having the respect of Fascists and Nazis is not a food chain we want to be on top of. If Trump was still president, he would be on Putin’s side and agree that “bio labs” must exist and the west should not support Ukraine. This is obvious because of his willingness to extort Zelenskyy for personal political favors in exchange for weapons to defend against Russian attack.

          The biolabs hoax is even more transparently BS than the WMD hoax from the Bush administration. It’s just a convenient justification for war, that they will try to ignore when nothing is found. A pathetic playbook maneuver that simpleton sheep like yourself fall for every time. WMD, stolen election, biolabs… evidence is never found and then endless excuses made. Your gullibility knows no bounds.

          Your Qanon rhetoric has no place in the real world and not effective here among respected cyber crime investigators like Krebs.

          1. Rusty Nail

            Yeah, I almost forgot about the WMD thing. Wow, millions of us were so gullible. I admit I fell for it too.
            It’s like Putin is mocking us by doing the same thing. I wonder if he even had to wave a small sample vial of scary white powder at the Kremlin in order to sell that lie. It’s like people hear WMD bioweapons, and their brains shut down with fear and just rally around their strong man dictator.

      2. B

        IF – You read studies. A large number of people didn’t know about Hunter, his China and Ukraine connections OR the Laptop. The report tells that many people would have not voted for Joe. IF, they had known the TRUTH! But, The Lying Media propaganda tainted their view. So,… There…

        1. What studies?

          What studies are you talking about? Are you talking about surveys of news viewers?
          That is to be expected.
          People who consume partisan news media won’t be exposed to questionable news stories from opposing sides that only exist purely for political points.

          Conservative viewers also don’t know most of what’s going on in the January 6th hearings either. All the revelations. They just get told to ignore it by Fox News pundits.
          Hunter Biden is still not interesting enough of a story for most people. He’s not an actual elected official or political appointee. Just a family member. Just like not many Trump supporters are Keen to dig into Ivanka Trump and her political dealings in China. It’s all shady if you look at it closely enough.

          Do you think Trump supporters would not vote for Trump in 2020 if they knew more about Ivanka and Donald Jr’s international dealings?
          Probably not. This isn’t really news, it’s political tabloidism.

  3. dub

    Cancel culture… While I’ll be the first to admit that Q folks are idiots, that doesn’t mean they should be censored. Free speech doesn’t just count for the things we like or agree with.

    1. not censored

      Free speech doesn’t just belong to individuals trying to blog on a website.
      It also belongs to the owners of the website, the owners of the servers too.

      You shouldn’t be able to censor anybody, and certainly you should not be able to force someone to host someone else’s opinion.

      People aren’t actually being censored on the internet today. Regardless of people trying to play the victim.

  4. Stanley

    Brian, I’m not sure if you read the comments because they include a lot of bickering, but I wanted to point out that the mass shootings were not streamed on 8kun. The platform doesn’t have the capability for streaming. It’s a nitpick, but small details add up.

    I’m not familiar with the other two mass shootings referenced, but I’ve never seen substantiation of the claim that Brendan Terrant posted his manifesto on the site. It and the video certainly were posted there (as were various ISIS and cartel videos), but all I can find are some unsourced news articles claiming he had an “account” on the site, which doesn’t have an account system.

    I’m still surprised people fall for the whole Q thing, but I guess when you have a global platform it’s inevitable someone will connect with the mentally unsound and string them along with nonsense. I have doubts that your attempts to pull the plug on Q discussion communities will get rid of the problem, but I wish it would. They shut down legitimate discussion as effectively as intentional censorship, if not more. I sometimes wonder if correcting the abysmally poor diet of Americans would reduce the problem somewhat. If you don’t have a healthy balance of hormones (derived from what you eat) your brain will not work properly, that’s a medically documented fact. Check out the cholesterol levels of repeat violent offenders, on average it’s dangerously low. Wouldn’t it be funny if getting poor people to eat eggs and bacon instead of pop-tarts was more effective in reducing murders than billions of dollars of policing?

  5. Mahhn

    I think this will only make it worse.
    If people are in a public forum, they can be brought new information (educated), if there are shoved into a cubby hole chat forum all they will hear is their own voice. When what they really need is more information. This will only generate extremists that are unknown.
    Unknown – yep kick them out of public forums and you won’t see them make evil plans and be able to courter them.
    Making them feel ‘right’ ; by trying to put a cone of silence on them (will never work on anyone) it literally make them feel even more right – “see, they are coming for us”.
    The reality is many ‘government’ people (just like other bad people) get arrested all the time for the crimes they talk about. With the protecting of Epstein’s customers, silencing of his partner, at some point those nut jobs arn’t completely wrong. I think they are chasing the misdirection’s laid out which protect the real criminals – who are clearly to powerful to see a day in court.
    I support letting people expose themselves for who they are – don’t help them by hiding them.

    1. JamminJ

      I disagree. It sounds right on paper, that people can just be “educated” by participating in a public forum filled with diverse and opposing viewpoints. Perhaps that was the naive idealism of the early internet.

      The theory that public discourse leads to a better educated population is as flawed as any economic theory that assumes everyone is a rational consumer (deceptive advertising would never be effective).

      Rational public debate is not the reality on the Internet, nor any unregulated public forum. People don’t get better informed through hearing “all sides”, they get radicalized by cherry picking. The best objective journalism isn’t objective because it practices “bothsidesism”. They rely on filtration of nonsense (lies, misinformation, disinformation) and a process of verification of facts.
      Not just opening the floodgates to random internet people who shout louder to be heard more.

      Not saying censorship is the answer. Censorship isn’t even happening in this case.
      But there is a value to segmentation and labeling of perverse ideas. Don’t censor/silence the offensive ideas, just put them in their corner of social media and label them as “unverified” or “conspiracy theory”. Anyone looking for these alternatives can easily find them (especially if they are labeled). Just look at all the people who are offended by Brian even mentioning politics. Some of them would prefer to censor Krebs by having him abstain from talking politics, and some just want him to stay in an apolitical cybercrime/tech context. Clear labeling is a good thing.

      Regarding your idea that extremists are more hidden if they aren’t posting on mainstream social media. Maybe. I don’t know the stats on how many get caught and how much evidence is obtained vs. if they have to subpoena a foreign hosting provider. I do know that it’s much easier if they are posting plans on a US based forum, so you may have a point.

      That risk would have to be balanced out against the increased recruiting and radicalization of new nut jobs if they are allowed unchecked on mainstream social media where impressionable young people can be influenced.

      1. trunc

        You don’t even respond to what they wrote until your penultimate paragraph where you admit they are correct. We don’t need an explanation of the history of debate on every single esoteric unrelated point.

        1. JamminJ

          Who invited you into this mealy? Saw my name and had to continue your cyber stalking?
          My first sentence directly referenced his first point, “educated” was even highlighted, a point on which i disagreed. His second point I partially agreed with, but explained why not fully.

          1. Cartright

            Correct he does this constantly. It’s never on the topic.

            1. Craig Lutz, official pedant of MLB

              Yeah I noticed too. Constantly replying to you with no substance on the topic. Just trolling that he doesn’t like when you comment.
              I for one enjoy your take as informative. Keep them coming.

          2. Craig Lutz, official pedant of MLB

            Yeah I noticed too. Constantly replying to you with no substance on the topic. Just trolling that he doesn’t like when you comment.
            I for one enjoy your take as informative. Keep them coming.

            1. Cartright

              They didn’t reply to the OP’s point until the very end where they agreed.
              One assumes you can read to see that. Loves to be “seen” rehashing,
              repeating and fauxsplaining things that don’t require it in the slightest.

              1. Craig Lutz, official pedant of MLB

                Are you also commenting as trunc?
                I can read just fine. Here it is again in case you missed what they said.
                OP: “If people are in a public forum, they can be brought new information (educated)”
                Reply: “It sounds right on paper, that people can just be “educated” by participating in a public forum filled with diverse and opposing viewpoints.”

                That is a direct reply to the OP’s point, in the first paragraph.
                And their first few paragraphs disagreed with the OP’s point.

                Looks like some people don’t read, because it was pretty obvious. Maybe that’s why things need to be repeated.
                I don’t see any rehashing or fauxsplaining here. Just looks like you have “seen” them before and are reacting to only the name and not the content. Either way, all this discussion does is further highlight this thread, so if you don’t like their comments don’t read them and don’t respond in a way that does nothing but make their comment more noticeable.

        2. Cartright

          Correct he does this constantly. It’s never on the topic.

        3. A Nonny Mouse

          trun, I found the history interesting and poignant. did you have a specific a counterpoint?

    2. Obadiah

      This sounds good in theory but doesn’t work on the social networks. They all use algorithms designed to promote “engagement”, meaning posts that maximize the reaction of other users. That works to amplify extremism and false claims, including Q and similar conspiracy theories. New information and sober analysis gets downvoted or demoted to the bottom of the list where it is never seen. The platforms know this, but refuse to give up their very profitable engagement-driven business models, so the only way to control it is the blunt instrument of manually silencing or banning the worst actors. The problem with that is that it lends itself to political viewpoint bias, or at least the appearance of bias. (See, for example, the platform decisions to silence the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop until after the election, which later turned out to be true.) I agree, this moves them to cubby hole chat forums, but the reality is that all they hear is their own voice either way. At least their reach is reduced on these smaller platforms. It would be worse to allow extremists to have access to the global megaphone of the social media platforms. Until we find a better way to control the side effects of these platform algorithms, we are stuck with this arrangement.

    3. PhilAstein

      “If people are in a public forum, they can be brought new information (educated)”
      Nope, the opposite is true.

      Why Proving Someone Wrong Often Backfires:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8NydsXl32s

      Once someone internalizes a radical belief, new information does nothing except solidify it.
      It is far better if they never were exposed to radical ideologies in the first place.
      “shoving them into a cubby hole chat forum all they will hear is their own voice” or “putting a cone of silence on them” won’t change their minds of course. But nothing will. They won’t change. Best we can do is protect the next generation from exposure before they also become radicalized.

  6. A Nonny Mouse

    Jeez, Krebs. You know how to bring out the haters.

  7. Jack

    Have enjoyed your blog for a while Bryan but this is poor from you.

    1. warezwolf

      Why is it poor from him? Why not write in your native language instead of not-English?
      Questions!

  8. A.Nonymous

    God, how I wish 8/5/2019 never happened. Qtards, shooters like Tarrant and especially Jim Watkins ruined the entire fucking site.

    Not that Hotwheels was any better though, HW really went off the rails around the time he sold the site.

  9. Holden Gatsby

    Good to read the intelligent comments here defending Brian Krebs. Here’s the exact wording of the First Amendment:

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

    Notice that it doesn’t have language requiring the owners of a printing press to give anyone access to use it. In 1791 a newspaper was free to print letters to the editor, or anything at the newspapers’ discretion. The technology for disseminating information has drastically changed since then, but the owners of web hosting services, as private businesses are not compelled under law to provide their platforms to anyone.

    1. Free speech stronger than ever.

      Exactly,
      We live in a time where free speech is more available than ever before. Before the internet, if you wanted completely free expression of your ideas, you had to buy airtime on community television. Or pay for a radio or TV advertisement spot that ran for 30 seconds. And before that, opinions would have to be written in books and paid for publishing and distributing. And before that, printing out thousands of pamphlets and paying to have them handed out to people.
      And as you mentioned, you could also write an editorial opinion piece in the newspaper, but newspapers have an editorial process which means that they have to at least agree to print it.

      With the internet and social media, free speech is on steroids. Anybody with very cheap hardware or even free internet at a library, can spend all day blogging on platforms and services that other people pay for.
      Every opinion, every stray thought that crosses a mind, can be duplicated, amplified, sent out to millions worldwide at the blink of an eye.

      And yet these free speech snowflakes are complaining that Free speech has diminished? That’s ridiculous. If anything, there is now so much free speech that it has become a burden and is no longer democratizing.

      1. odd

        Hey troon, Big Tech controls free speech. If Elon is forced to buy twitter by the court, I guarantee you would be crying about the death of “democracy” or whatever.

  10. Alfonso

    “many other sites that continue to push the false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen from the 45th president”>>>>>>>False Narrative? So you Brian, are going with the “narrative” from the other Krebs, at CISA, when he said, under oath, in front of congress: “we had the most secure election” >?<
    Sorry, I'm going with all the vast proof that confirms that the election was stolen; to include a bunch of Cyber guys among others. ( I have collected thousands of pages, hundreds of PDF's regarding the STOLEN election.
    CISA just few weeks ago filed a report admitting to their screw-up.

    1. Go Away Qnut

      Alfonso: “stay tuned”
      This is a standard QAnon tag line.
      Known for failed predictions.

      Now he’s accusing people here of working for dominion and again claiming to have insider knowledge. It’s all posturing.
      Alfonso doesn’t know a thing about cyber, and has no shred of evidence.
      Just stirring up nonsense and hoping we’ll all forget the previous failed predictions.

  11. Thomas

    Brian, Sadly this post is not core to the previous fact based tech/personal center of this site. It is sad to see the community here in political flamewar. More smoke and heat than light.

    1. firefighter

      Actually, there is nothing controversial about Brian’s post. The content is the same deep investigative journalism we’ve come to love.
      But this did trigger some people who are emotionally devoted to a big lie. It’s not the post, it’s the reader. If you don’t see any light here, perhaps you’re the one with the blinders on.

    2. BrianKrebs Post author

      I would be sorely disappointed if everyone agreed with me 100 percent of the time.

  12. tfourier

    I have to agree with the comments above that people come here for serious fact based reporting of security issues. Not your personal political opinions.

    You may not have a very deep knowledge of election results and voting patterns going back more than 200 years by this stage, not just in the US but in a whole bunch of countries in Europe and elsewhere, but some of us do. And know how this game is played. And some of us do very serious math in a technology environment as our day job. Which is why psephology is so interesting. To those who also know their history and their municipal politics.

    The US has a long history of “stolen elections” at the state and municipal level. And a few at the Federal level. 2020 joining 1876 and 1824 (and arguably 1912). The 2020 election was a five swing states scenario. The other states were Irrelevant. In those five swing states a single big city swung the state. All those big cities have been Party Machine cities for decades.

    Know how politics actually works in Party Machine cities? Well I was already familiar with creating vote counting but I got my real education many decades ago from one of the Fusion Council Members in NYC in the 1930’s who helped Mayor LaGuardia finally break Tammy Hall after almost 100 years of controlling city politics. It never recovered its former influence. Remember many very pleasant lunches discussing politics and history both local and national with someone who had been at the center of events for decades. In NYC and DC. Now that was an education in how big city politics really works. And how DC works.

    Machine politics has nt changed. It never changes. Only the technology available changes.

    In 2020 the big city party machines in a bunch of cities had to go above and beyond what they usually did at the municipal and state level to swing the Federal election results. Which is why they got so sloppy and it became so obvious what they had done. Districts which had higher black turnout and voting percentage for Biden than Obama . I dont think so. Given the best GOP results since 1960 with black voters at the national level. In non-swing states. That sort of amateurish work. Only the party machine in Minneapolis did a thoroughly professional job in 2020. A really impressive generation of extra votes. The mistakes of 2016 fixed so now not so obvious exactly where the creative voting happened.

    So yes, Trump won the election part in 2020. Just like Tilden did in 1876. But just like in 1876 the people in the DC Swamp were willing to pull out all the stops to get the result they wanted. And Trump just like Tilden had no game plan to win in extra time when the whole current ruling class is against you and tore up the rule book to win. Trump was ambushed very neatly. Maneuvered into a lose / lose scenario. Read up on Pelosi’s fathers political history in Baltimore to see where she learned her political street fighting skills. From Thomas D’Alesandro and his very interesting “supporters”. Baltimore has the same kind of political traditions as Chicago.

    Thats how this game is played. In the real world.

    As for the J6 “Hearings”. Watch some of the full sessions of the HOAC Hearings from the 1940’s and 1950’s. Not the excerpts. It should look very familiar. Same political motivation. Same kind of people involved. Political theater, pure and simple. Actually if you can find the Soviet newsreels for the Zinoviev or Bukarin trials with subtitles thats an even better fit for whats going on at the moment.

    So yes, please stick to what you are so good at, technology and security. Wandering into the political area is very toxic. Because to be perfectly blunt, you really dont know what you are talking about on that subject. But the rest, keep up the great work.

    1. BrianKrebs Post author

      Ah, there was voting fraud in the past, ergo ((insert words about Obama, black people voting)) there must have been this time, right? And the J6 hearings are political persecution, right? Thanks for enlightening us with your facts, and sharing a little bit about yourself. You’re free to cancel your subscription anytime.

      1. See ya

        Krebs, go figure you fit the mold of a modern day ‘journalist’. If you think the J6 hearings are anything, but a kangaroo court you’re a loon. What a turd.

        1. Kangaroo the Conqueror

          Qanon followers and other cults frequently target Krebs. And it is no surprise fascists hate journalists.

          1. Odd

            “Journalists” for the WaPo are propagandists. Most Americans hate them at this point, and they deserve to be targeted.

            1. Brian Krebson

              Do you think Brian Krebs was a propagandist when he worked for the Washington Post?

    2. Fake experts

      Do not try to act like an expert on elections or history. You are neither. Just someone who consistently believes every conspiracy theory. You think you’re smarter than other people because you spend more time on the internet.

      You don’t need silly conspiracies to understand the boring reality that Trump is just a sore loser who was never going to accept defeat, and was planning on declaring victory early. Bannon even admitted to this.

  13. Nah

    Not even sure this is news, if nothing more than an attempted pat on the back.

    The problem is this now brings into question any reporting of any issues with any other company, whether illegal or legal, and as to if there is any motives behind it being reported here.

    1. Frank M.

      These scum are always newsworthy. We love hearing how investigative journalism actually gets real world results.
      Nothing is being called into question about Krebs’ integrity. It’s pretty common that investigating criminals and other fringe groups is going to make him some enemies.

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