I’ve posted on the antics and activities of an anonymous Brit email prankster who goes by the Twitter handle of @SINON_REBORN. His schtick is using the name of someone well-known to his target to send an email. Once the bait is taken, he engages them in conversation and a lot of fun can happen. Back in August he sent former White House communications director and Joe Pesci impersonator, Anthony Scaramucci, email under the name “Reince Priebus.” A hilarious slapfight ensued.

In this episode, @SINON-REBORN assumes the guise of White House social media director Dan Scavino (note the guy never hides his actual email address, he simply changes the name associated with it, so who he is is readily apparent to anyone with sufficient ambition to mouse-over the name) and contacts President Trump’s attorney, Ty Cobb. The point of departure is an article written by Business Insider reporter Natasha Bertrand in which she quotes Cobb and saying he and Kelly are the only adults in the White House. Fake Dan Scavino talks to Cobb about his efforts to get Bertrand banned from twitter.

The last part is the real news. What makes it plausible are two facts. First, Cobb thinks he’s chatting with a fellow member of the President’s personal staff. Second, it comports with everything we’ve learned about the Mueller investigation. He has grand juries empaneled to investigate Flynn and Manafort. As I noted during the primary season, Manafort, even to the casual observer, appears to be a fixer and bagman for the Russian mob and there is good evidence he was engaged in a money laundering scheme to their benefit. And all but the most fervent Trump haters have abandoned the “collusion” bullsh** and have shifted their attack to “obstruction.”

But all good things must come to an end. The prankster tries to go for the big score and Cobb gets suspicious:

One thing for sure from this, regardless of the accuracy of Cobb’s assessment of Mueller’s investigation, is that the White House needs to tighten up its email security. While @SINON_REBORN was pranking Cobb, he was also engaged with White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, I didn’t cover that because nothing remotely interesting came out of it. This is three time members of Trump’s personal staff have been successfully targeted by a very low tech prankster. It has to stop.