Curious about this indictment from 2016 regarding 'Guccifer'. Would appreciate DUers input.

[triron]

Link to tweet

[pnwmom]

1. Is this the same as Guccifer2? This is so confusing!

This Guccifer was extradited to the US in April 2016. Do you remember when Guccifer2 was talking to Roger Stone?

[mercuryblues]

2. No they are not the same person

Guccifer is a Romanian. He was arrested in Romania in 2014 and jailed. he was extradited to the US in 2016 where he pled guilty to hacking. He is finishing his sentence in Romania before serving his 7 years here. He actually wasn't much of a hacker, just really good at phishing.



Guccifer2.0 is a persona of several Russian Military intelligence agents. Mueller has indicted 12 of them.

[pnwmom]

3. Why would we extradite him here and then send him back to Romania?

Here's a Faux news article that mentions him.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/source-no-coincidence-romanian-hacker-guccifer-extradited-amid-clinton-probe

Former law enforcement and cyber security experts said the hacker, whose real name is Marcel Lehel Lazar, could – now that he’s in the U.S. – help the FBI make the case that Clinton’s email server was compromised by a third party, one that did not have the formal backing and resources of a foreign intelligence service such as that of Russia, China or Iran.

“Because of the proximity to Sidney Blumenthal and the activity involving Hillary’s emails, [the timing] seems to be something beyond curious,” said Ron Hosko, former assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division from 2012-2014.

On Tuesday, Lazar appeared in an Alexandria, Va., federal courtroom for his detention hearing, attended by Fox News. He faces a nine-count federal indictment on computer hacking charges and, according to both Romanian and U.S. officials, is expected to be in the country for 18 months.

SNIP

Cybersecurity and terrorism expert Morgan Wright told Fox News, “My question is, why now – why just these cases, and why was it so important to bring him [to the U.S.]? I go back to what’s in common, and that’s the exposure.”

The Romanian government told Fox News that the request to extradite Lazar came from the FBI, but when Fox News asked when the process began, a government spokesperson said they were not authorized to comment further.

[mercuryblues]

5. He did not hack

Clinton's server. He hacked Blumenthal's email account. Which is where he got Hillary's emails from. he also hacked Colin Powel's, Barbra Bush' brother, Murkowski, a UN official, Romanian politicians, several celebs and various government officials.

From wiki:
TSG reported on May 7, 2013, that Lehel had hacked the Twitter feed and e-mail account of Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell.Bushnell spent several hours fighting for control of the accounts, while Lehel publicly posted portions of an unpublished manuscript to Bushnell's Twitter feed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guccifer#Computer_hacking_activities

We know he did not hack Hillary as he did not publish anything from her account. Everyone he hacked, he immediately released the emails.

Fox news is not a truthful source on anything related to the Clintons or anything else, for that matter.

[okaawhatever]

4. My non-technical explanation. Guccifer was a real person and hacker who was known worldwide

for his hacks/crimes. When the Russians started hacking the emails of Hillary/Dems, they released them using the name Guccifer 2.0. This was to create the impression they were an individual, like the original Guccifer, and not a foreign gov't entity.

The idea was to make it seem like the emails were released as a random hack by someone who wasn't politically motivated, rather than the truth, which was that the emails were hacked by the Russian gov't for the benefit of Trump/Republicans.