Wonkette: Paul Ryan's PAC Wants To Fight Dirty With CIA Agent Abigail Spanberger? Lotsa Luck!

[ehrnst]

Yesterday the Times reported that Paul Ryan's pet SuperPAC got its hands on Virginia congressional candidate Abigail Spanberger's unredacted security clearance application, and is using it to pretend the former CIA agent worked in a madrassa. Because naturally those unpatriotic bigots would take allegedly hacked data and try to paint a covert counterterrorism operative as a goddamn terrorist. Of fucking course!

Leaving aside the wisdom of using government personnel records to smear a federal agent in a district with huge numbers of Defense Department employees who have filled out the exact same form with the expectation that that shit is private, just how the hell did the Congressional Leadership Fund get their grubby paws on a document that's illegal to release under the Privacy Act?

Well, CLF has a very good answer for that question. It's the darnedest thing! They were walking down the street the other day, and Ms. Spanberger's entire, unredacted SF86 form just fell off the back of a truck! More or less.

On July 9, 2018, America Rising Corp. submitted a FOIA request to the National Personnel Records Center "for access to certain records contained in the official civilian personnel file of former federal employee Abigail Spanberger. Specifically, this request seeks records reflecting Ms. Spanberger's employment dates, annual salaries, title, and position description."

By letter dated July 12, 2018, NPRC/NARA forwarded the America Rising Corp. request to the United States Postal Service.

On July 30, 2018, USPS responded to America Rising's request with their complete personnel file ('entire official personnel folder'), which included Spanberger's SF-86

Yeah, their story is that their oppo researchers submitted a FOIA request to the Post Office, where Spanberger had applied in to work in the security division in 2002, and the USPS happily overnighted them her entire, unredacted personnel file -- social security number, medical records, and all.

https://www.wonkette.com/paul-ryans-pac-wants-to-fight-dirty-with-cia-agent-abigail-spanberger-lotsa-luck

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

1. Wheres his taxes? That "audit' over yet? Said he'd release them when the 'audit' was over.

[gratuitous]

2. It's the darnedest thing!

And before you libruls start comparing the alacrity with which America Rising's request was filled to the mired-in-molasses speed with which our faultless government agencies are responding to requests for Brett Kavanaugh's government papers, just shut up. Because the two situations are totally different and stuff.

[ehrnst]

3. Ain't it tho? (nt)

[ehrnst]

4. This part is especially interesting:

If we had to guess, we'd speculate that this form was stolen in a 2015 Chinese hack of the federal Office of Personnel Management, and someone is attempting to launder it through a recent FOIA request. But would the very fine people at the Congressional Leadership Fund do a lowdown, dirty thing like that? You bet your ass they would! Those are the same guys who happily gobbled up all the stolen DCCC emails that Russia could hack in 2016 and turned them into attack ads.

[dewsgirl]

5. I love Wonkette, especially when they live blog.